10
UNIVERSITY COURIER.
The College Mercury, from Racine College, Wis., comes to us as a new exchange. It is a very neat paper and recognizes the fact that locals and personals are not the requisites for a readable paper. Come again, Mercury.
The College Transcript contains many well written articles. "Twi-light Questions," doubtless written by the author while in a melancholy mood, is withal a good production.
The December number of the Century comes to us full of interesting and instructive articles. "My Adventures in Zuni," by Frank H. Cushing, descriptive of the religious rites and family life of the Pueblo Indians, is very interesting; likewise "The Corean Origin of Japanese Art," by William Elliot Griffis; and the "Taxidermal Art," by Franklin H. North. Prof. Lounsbury, of Yale, contributes an article on "The Problem of Spelling Reform." Mary Hallock Foote's serial "The Led-horse Claim," is a fascinating story of mining experience. The number also contains a number of poems by Andrew B. Saxton, Henry A. Beers, L. Frank Tooker; and in "Brie-a-Brac" by John Vance Cheney, J. A. Macon, H. C. Benner, Frank D. Sherman, and others. "Western Careers for Eastern Young Men" is the leading article in "Topics of the Times."
The exchange man of the Niagara Index sinks into insignificance in the presence of the merciless reviewer of the Georgetown College Journal. In the last issue the ruins of the poems he laid waste lie scattered—
"Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa."
Yet this literary fiend, reveling amid the ruin he has wrought, is not without kindness at heart, since he very graciously offers epitaphs of his own manufacture, as a sort of nepenthe. One column of merciless pelting on the head of the poor little Heidelberger brings the insatiate monster to the self-flattering conclusion that the mortal coil of the Heidelberger is at last shuffled off, and accordingly appends the following epitaph:
"Oh, the Heidelberger's busted,
Oh, the Heidelberger's busted,
Oh, the Heidelberger's busted,
Busted!
Poor little Heidelberger, with its toes turned up to the roots of the daisies! We drop a sympathetic tear.
MISCELLANY.
CLASSICAL SCHOOLS.
upon Round Hill in Northampton, as one of the best faculties for the experiment. The situation was beautiful; the estate contained some buildings which could in a very short period of time be made available; the neighborhood was occupied by a thrifty population; and finally in Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke they had a miniature mountain chain for testing the boys' climbing powers.
In 1843 Joseph Green Cogswell, afterward the well known librarian of the Astor Library, and George Bancroft, the future historian, opened a school at Round Hill in Northampton, Mass., which had a brilliant representation for a few years and is still spoken of with enthusiasm by men who half a century ago played under the chestnut trees there and looked up with respect and affection to the scholarly masters who governed them. The original idea of the school occurred to the two scholars after an acquaintance with the training which the students in Germany received, especially with that combination of study and exercise which was then attracting much attention.
They resolved to establish a school in America which should give a more thorough training in scholarship than was generally recognized. Their first exploration was in Worcester county, but failing there they settled
Mr. Cogswell and Mr. Bancroft were at the time professors at Harvard College, and they associated with themselves the best teachers, both native and foreign, that they could secure. In their prospectus they laid stress upon the necessity of the entire control of the scholars falling upon the masters who should be responsible for their manners, habits, and morals, no less than for their scholarship. They wished for boys to begin with not younger than nine nor older than twelve years, and in the school course they made special provision for teaching the modern languages. The school indeed was not a distinctly preparatory school for college. In the then condition of college education a boy who had completed the Round Hill course was considerably in advance of a Freshman at Harvard, and in some respects was educated as no student graduating at Harvard was educated. The school was a social success from the beginning. The reputation and social position of the teachers and the aim of the school at once attracted to it sons of the richest and most cultivated families in America. The gymnasium, which had only lately been introduced into America, was here made prominent, and all boyish sports of archery, pitching the bar, swimming, and horseback riding were cultivated. A farm furnished the table, and a herd of cows was kept that the boys might have fresh pure milk. All the accounts of the school certainly at this distance make it the paradise of school boys. It was successful, too, in numbers, having a hundred and fifty boys at one time. But it had a short life. The expenses were heavy and there were no funds to fall back upon. The original founders put what little money they had into the enterprise and depended upon the receipts from fees for the maintenance of the school. It was generously conceived and enthusiastically carried forward; but gradually the enterprise became embarrassed. Mr. Cogswell assumed the entire charge for a time, and at one period formed a stock company for carrying on the school; but ten years of gradually failing fortune brought the brilliant scheme to an end. The school nevertheless showed what a genius could do when provided with a large number of boys to make happy and studious at once; also how slow is the growth of a great and enduring school.
It was when the Round Hill School was dying out that Samuel Williston, in the same neighborhood, was slowly planing a school less brilliant in its surroundings but likely to extend its influence over an indefinite number of generations. The Valley of the Connecticut had already been thought a fit place for a college, and Amherst was struggling with the difficulties that attend the founding of a new college in an old community. Mr. Williston gave it aid when his money almost saved it from extinction; but his favorite scheme was no doubt the establishment of Williston Seminary at East Hampton, four or five miles from Round Hill in the same lovely district. The seminary was incorporated in 1841, and in the same year the school opened with ninety