Amherst College

“ It is the seat of a college which was incorporated in 1821, with the title of Amherst College. This seminary has professors and tutors. Amherst is the seat also of an academy, and a school called the Mount Pleasant Institution. Population, two thousand four hundred and fifteen. ”

“ Henry Ward Beecher entered Amherst College in 1830 in a class of forty members. Although prepared for the Sophomore year, yet, following the advice of his father, he entered as a Freshman in the class of ’34. On the cover of a very commonplace-looking copy-book, brown and yellow with age, which we have in our possession, he has written with a great many flourishes “Private Journal,” and then has added with equal emphasis, “Not to be looked into.” But since he afterwards drew his pen through both clauses, we have taken the liberty not only to look but also to make extracts from its contents. ”

“ There were as accomplished and well poised matrons, as chivalric young men,—nay, men both old and young, as full of high purpose and generous achievement as could be found in any town, university or commercial. Under President Humphrey and also under President Hitchcock, Amherst College and Amherst were one. The village, being smaller then, was fully represented at all the college levees, as the receptions were then called, and entered warmly into all college affairs, lectures, and literary occasions. ”

“ It is an interesting fact that the alumni of a college should concern themselves with scholarship rather than with athletics, and the address is a document of such considerable moment that it has attracted wide attention. The committee signing the report points out that the conditions for a college such as Amherst have changed in the course of the past twenty-five years. The great universities, especially the state universities, take students from the high school and graduate them prepared for a technical career. A college such as Amherst can not compete with these institutions. ”

“ Amherst College, in 1860, was the first in America to establish upon a sound basis a department of physical training, placing at the head of it a thoroughly educated physician, a member of the college faculty, with the title of Professor of Hygiene and Physical Education. ”

“ In a graphic sketch of Amherst College as it was during his student days, contributed to Prof. Tyler's History, Prof. Shepard has said:
"I remember that I was the youngest of my class. Most of my fellows were mature youths who did not appear to me youths at all—seniors in character and manlike in purpose, with an air which seemed to tell of years of yearning for the ministry, and of a brave struggle with the poverty which had kept them from their goal." ”

“ In short, it seemed as if, in his solicitude for the education of his descendants, he sought to repay the cares bestowed upon his early youth by his grandfather of Stratford, of whom he said in his discourse delivered at Amherst College, that his best education was bestowed by the more than paternal care of one of the wisest and most excellent sons of New England. Long after he was an old man he would make pleasant summer journeys with these young people and look to their comfort and safety with the tenderest solicitude. ”

“ As President of Amherst College he was called upon to exercise unwonted judgment. The institution had almost broken down because of heavy indebtedness. The historian of the college declares that the institution was saved from destruction by the skill and wisdom of President Hitchcock. As an instructor and guide no one was more loved and honored. The number of students doubled during his administration. It was while he was president that his Religion of Geology appeared, in which he expounded the applications of science to theology. ”

“ In this so-called practical age Amherst has chosen for her province the most practical of all,—the culture and the classics of all time.
Civilization depends not only upon the knowledge of the people, but upon the use they make of it. If knowledge be wrongfully used, civilization commits suicide. Broadly speaking, the college is not to educate the individual, but to educate society. The individual may be ignorant and vicious. If society have learning and virtue, that will sustain him. If society lacks learning and virtue, it perishes. Education must give not only power but direction. ”

“ The immediate members of the society at Cambridge were formerly accustomed to hold semi-monthly meetings, the exercises of which were such as are usual in literary associations. At present, meetings are seldom held except for the purpose of electing members. Affiliated societies have been established at Dartmouth, Union, and Bowdoin Colleges, at Brown and the Wesleyan Universities, at the Western Reserve College, at the University of Vermont, and at Amherst College, and they number among their members many of the most distinguished men in our country. ”

“ But it would be desirable for one college to give a thorough classical education for the training of scholars in this direction and as a basis for work in literature, in law and in other professions. It is an advantage for men to enter on their professions with diverse training in order that they may specialize in different directions. Such a college should have a graduate department, which the Amherst committee apparently regards as superfluous, in order to maintain the scholarship both of its professors and of its students. ”

“ He was graduated from Amherst college in 1882, studied law and political science at Columbia college, and went to Europe, where he spent a semester in Göttingen university. After taking his degree he occupied two and a half years in the study of history, political economy and diplomacy at Berlin, Freiburg (Baden) and in the Ećole des Sciences Politiques at Paris. ”

“ Under these conditions students are likely to work well at the start, whereas if they pass a competitive examination of which they do not particularly approve they may feel that they deserve some relaxation. It would probably be desirable for Amherst to decrease the number of students by giving up the degree of B.S., unless the college is prepared to offer adequate courses in the natural and exact science. ”

“ He can leave town or not, just as he chooses, and he can go to another college, as far as any notice from Amherst is to be feared. By the agreement among the colleges, no student could go from one to another without papers showing an honorable dismissal. No student expelled from one could find an open door at the other. ”

“ Editors, essayists, college presidents and reformers assure us that we are on the verge of a change, and perhaps a great change, in our system of higher education. They dilate upon the indisputable fact that most of our older colleges have made rapid strides within the past ten years, augmenting their endowments, erecting handsome buildings, establishing new departments of study and increasing the number of students. Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Princeton, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, were never so well off, in point of money and men, as they are at this day. ”

“ The living, no less eminent, I need not recall. As a teaching force, as an inspirer of youth, for training men how to think, that faculty has had and will have nowhere any superior.
"So passed that pageant."
The college of to-day has taken on a new life, a new activity. Military training then was a spectacle for the Massachusetts Agricultural College. To-day Amherst welcomes its returning soldiers, and but a little time since divested itself of the character of a military camp to resume the wonted garb of peace. Yet it is and has been the same institution,—a college of the liberal arts. ”

“ The number of graduates was twenty-four.—Amherst College celebrated its commencement on the 8th The number of graduates was twenty-four Rev. Dr. Cox addressed the Society of Inquiry on the importance of having history studied as a science in our colleges. A. B. Street, Esq., of Albany, delivered a poem, and Mr. E. P. Whipple, of Boston, an admirable and eloquent oration on the characteristics and tendencies of American genius. He repeated the oration at the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn.; where a brilliant oration by Prof. D. D. Whedon, and a poem by Mr. ”

“ Moore lived to celebrate the first anniversary of the institution, and to see more than eighty of its students professedly religious, and preparing for extensive usefulness among their fellow men.
"Shortly after his settlement at Leicester, he was married to Phebe, daughter of Thomas Drury, of Ward, now Auburn, Mass., who survived him. They had no children. [247]
"Dr. Moore published an Oration at Worcester on the 5th of July, 1802; Massachusetts Election Sermon, 1818; an Address to the public in respect to Amherst College, 1823; a Sermon at the ordination of Dorus Clark, Blandford, 1823." ”

“ And especially when they go to college, where the scheme of studies assumes mental maturity, where the new social forces are so active, and the new temptations so strong, they should be thrown upon their honor, and pledged to self-control at the outset and without reserve. It is gratifying to observe that the second year's experience at Amherst proves the practicability and the superiority of the self-governing method. ”

“ And the evolutionists at Amherst, who are working in their special departments, are to be most heartily congratulated that, unlike their less fortunate brethren at Yale, they at least have no one more ready to support them and lead them forward than the President of their own college, who says it is his "full belief that there was never more or better scientific instruction given in Amherst than now." ”

“ Amherst, of Kenilworth, Warwickshire, and brother of the Rev. William Amherst, S.J. He was born in London 21 March 1819, and educated at St. Mary's College, Oscott, where, after his ordination in 1846, he became a professor. Subsequently he resided for some time in a Dominican monastery at Leicester, and in 1856 he was appointed missionary rector of the church of St. ”

“ One scheme does not fit all the students, and not only in those regions where the homely college represents the highest attainable instruction of its kind, but also in many districts of the maturest culture, the college is for many youths the most favourable place for development. Thus the New England States would feel a great loss to the cause of culture if such old colleges as Williams, Brown, Amherst, and Dartmouth should simply deliver over its students to Harvard. ”

“ The nature of the work done can be shown with tolerable accuracy by the selection of certain types. The results sought at Amherst are hygienic and recreative, rather than corrective or educational. The men meet by college classes, each of which elects its captain. ”

“ The general idea in the mind of the Amherst committee is expressed as follows:
The proposition for which Amherst stands is that preparation for some particular part of life does not make better citizens than “preparation for the whole of it”; that because a man can “function in society” as a craftsman in some trade or technical work, he is not thereby made a better leader ”

“ To those students, whose individual vocational courses do not include the sciences, the Amherst curriculum will be essentially that of other colleges of the same rank. The attempt to supply a general broad culture and training for those students who have no definite objective, but are potentially future statesmen and administrators, seems to promise nothing more than do Harvard, Williams or Yale. Except for the students in vocational courses, however, the pacemakers will be gone. ”

“ Mr. Amhurst's grandfather was a clergyman, under whose protection and care he received his education at Merchant-Taylors school. Having received there the rudiments of learning, he was removed to St. John's College, Oxford, from which, on account of the libertinism of his principles, and some offence he gave to the head of that college, it appears, he was ejected. We can give no other account of this affair, than what is drawn from Mr. Amhurst's dedication of his poems to Dr. Delaune, President of St. John's College in Oxford. ”

“ Upon such a platform, if faithfully adhered to and its declarations rigorously carried out, and under each leadership, Amherst will certainly be entitled to a high place among those institutions of broad and thorough culture and catholicity of sentiment of which Harvard and the Johns Hopkins University are prominent examples—institutions which inspire confidence in American scholarship at home and give it character abroad. ”

“ They have a good time, all the functions of the body are stimulated by the vigorous exercise, and the spirit of class rivalry, intensified by a system of prize exhibitions, insures a degree of proficiency. The use of the fixed apparatus is optional, and not much is made of prescription work for the individual. This plan, while it has given general satisfaction at Amherst for many years, has not been introduced into other schools to any extent. It owes much of its success to the peculiar conditions existing there, and to the personality of the beloved director, Dr. ”

“ More than five hundred thousand dollars has been subscribed. With part of this sum the Board of Governors purpose to erect a central building where all inter-collegiate lectures will be given and where a well-equipped library will be available to all students in Theology.
The advantages of affiliation with a great institution of Continental reputation such as McGill University are obvious. In the first place, a College is able to devote practically its whole income to strictly theological work, thus assuring the efficiency and thoroughness of the course. ”

“ In the Michaelmas term, after leaving school, Tom went up to matriculate at St. Ambrose's College, Oxford, but did not go up to reside till the following January.
St. Ambrose's College was a moderate-sized one. There were some seventy or eighty undergraduates in residence when our hero appeared there as a freshman, of whom a large proportion were gentleman-commoners, enough, in fact, to give the tone to the college, which was decidedly fast. ”