But These Fellows Are In Nowise Like
To The Fellows Of Our Colleges, Having No Salaries Attached To
Their Offices.
The Board of Overseers consists of the State
Governor, other State officers, the President and Treasurer of
Harvard College, and thirty other persons, men of note, chosen by
vote.
The Faculty of the College, in which is vested the immediate
care and government of the undergraduates, is composed of the
President and the Professors. The Professors answer to the tutors
of our colleges, and upon them the education of the place depends.
I cannot complete this short notice of Harvard College without
saying that it is happy in the possession of that distinguished
natural philosopher Professor Agassiz. M. Agassiz has collected at
Cambridge a museum of such things as natural philosophers delight
to show, which I am told is all but invaluable. As my ignorance on
all such matters is of a depth which the professor can hardly
imagine, and which it would have shocked him to behold, I did not
visit the museum. Taking the University of Harvard College as a
whole, I should say that it is most remarkable in this - that it
does really give to its pupils that education which it professes to
give. Of our own universities other good things may be said, but
that one special good thing cannot always be said.
Cambridge boasts itself as the residence of four or five men well
known to fame on the American and also on the European side of the
ocean. President Felton's* name is very familiar to us; and
wherever Greek scholarship is held in repute, that is known. So
also is the name of Professor Agassiz, of whom I have spoken.
Russell Lowell is one of the professors of the college - that
Russell Lowell who sang of Birdofredum Sawin, and whose Biglow
Papers were edited with such an ardor of love by our Tom Brown,
Birdofredum is worthy of all the ardor. Mr. Dana is also a
Cambridge man - he who was "two years before the mast," and who
since that has written to us of Cuba. But Mr. Dana, though
residing at Cambridge, is not of Cambridge; and, though a literary
man, he does not belong to literature. He is - could he help it? - a
"special attorney." I must not, however, degrade him; for in the
States barristers and attorneys are all one. I cannot but think
that he could help it, and that he should not give up to law what
was meant for mankind. I fear, however, that successful Law has
caught him in her intolerant clutches, and that Literature, who
surely would be the nobler mistress, must wear the willow. Last
and greatest is the poet-laureate of the West, for Mr. Longfellow
also lives at Cambridge.
* Since these words were written President Felton has died - I, as I
returned on my way homeward, had the melancholy privilege of being
present at his funeral. I feel bound to record here the great
kindness with which Mr. Felton assisted me in obtaining such
information as I needed respecting the institution over which he
presided.
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