Every well devised system of education should combine an attention to language; to the sciences relating to magnitude and numbers; and to those that embrace the phenomena of mind and of matter. Little doubt, we think, can exist in the minds of the intelligent, that the ancient languages should form one element. Much has been said, and much will continue to be said, on both sides of this question, into which we do not propose to enter: admitting, however, that the Latin language, for example, is less necessary now than when it was the exclusive language of the learned, and that the modern languages have emerged from their then _Patois_ condition, and risen in relative importance, a certain knowledge of that tongue, as well as of the Greek, ought still to form part of the education of every gentleman. The mind of youth cannot be better engaged, during the early period of their university career, than in becoming acquainted with the classic models of antiquity, and practised in the habits of discrimination which the study engenders. Whether it should be prosecuted to the extent inculcated at the English universities, and to the comparative exclusion of other subjects, is another question. In this country, at least, the course would be injudicious and unfeasible, and has been canvassed by Mr. Gallatin with that gentleman's usual felicity of exposition. The illustrious founder of the University of Virginia appears, however, to have had different views on this subject from those we have expressed; and views which appear somewhat inconsistent with freedom of graduation in the separate schools. In the earliest copy of the enactments, (1825,) we find it stated, amongst other matters relating to the attainment of honours, that "the diploma of each shall express the particular school or schools in which the candidate shall have been declared eminent, and shall be subscribed by the particular professors approving it. But no diploma shall be given to any one who has not passed such an examination in the Latin language as shall have proved him able to read the highest classics in that language with ease, thorough understanding, and just quantity. And if he be also a proficient in the Greek, let that too be stated in the diploma; the intention being that the reputation of the university shall not be committed but to those, who, to an eminence in some one or more of the sciences taught in it, add a proficiency in those languages which constitute the basis of a good education, and are indispensable to fill up the character of a 'well educated man.'"