Our early journalism, likewise, included publications of a more
explicit literary intention than the newspapers; publications in which
the original work was done with far greater care, and in which far more
space was surrendered to literary news and literary criticism, and to
the exercise of many sorts of literary talent. The generic name for
these publications is the magazine; and the first one issued in this
country was by Benjamin Franklin, at Philadelphia, in 1741. By far the
most admirable example of our literary periodicals in the colonial
time was _The American Magazine_, published at Philadelphia from
October, 1757, to October, 1758, and conducted, according to its own
announcement, “by a society of gentlemen.”
_Early American Colleges._--No other facts in American history are
more creditable to the American people than those which relate to
their early and steady esteem for higher education, and especially
to their efforts and their sacrifices in the founding of colleges.
Before the year 1765, seven colleges were established here: Harvard, in
1636; William and Mary, in 1693; Yale, in 1700; New Jersey, in 1746;
King’s--now Columbia--in 1754; Philadelphia--now the University of
Pennsylvania--in 1755; Rhode Island--now Brown University--in 1764.
Though all these little establishments bore the name of colleges, there
were considerable differences among them with respect to the grade
and extent of the instruction they furnished,--those founded latest
being, in that particular, the most rudimental. Nevertheless, at them
all one noble purpose prevailed,--the study of the ancient classics.
This extraordinary training in the ancient languages led to forms of
proficiency that have no parallel now in American colleges. So early
as 1649, President Dunster wrote to Ravius, the famous Orientalist,
that some of the students at Harvard could “with ease dexterously
translate Hebrew and Chaldee into Greek.” In 1678, there was in that
college even an Indian student who wrote Latin and Greek poetry; and
this accomplishment continued to be an ordinary one there as late as
the Revolutionary War; while the facile use of Latin, whether for
conversation or for oratory, was so common among the scholars of
Harvard and of Yale as to excite no remark. Nearly all the superior
men in public life, after the immigrant generation, were educated at
these little colleges; and in all the studies that then engaged the
attention of scholars in the Old World, these men, particularly if
clergymen, had a scholarship that was, in compass and variety, fully
abreast of the learning of the time. The existence here of these early
colleges was in many ways a means of colonial fellowship. Each college
was itself, in all portions of the country, a point of distinction for
its own colony; at each college were gathered some students from other
colonies; between all the colleges there grew a sense of fraternity
in learning and letters, and this re-enforced the general sense of
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