The Southern Literary Messenger, Volume I., 1834-35Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Volume I., 1834-35
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Nor does he attach less importance to the study of the Greek and Roman
languages. In the opinion of President Olin they "give useful
employment to the intellectual faculties at a period when they are
incompetent to more abstract and severe occupations. They call up the
attention to such short and easy, but repeated efforts, as are best
calculated to correct its wanderings and increase its energies. The
mind is accustomed to analysis and comparison, and its powers of
discrimination are improved by frequent exercises in declension,
inflexion and derivation, and by the constant necessity that is
imposed upon it, of deciding between the claims of rival definitions.
The memory is engaged in the performance of such tasks as are
precisely fitted for its development, and the judgment and other
reasoning faculties find ample and invigorating employment in the
application of grammatical rules, and the investigation of
philological principles." We wish we had space for the whole of Mr.
Olin's remarks upon classical learning. He considers the growing
scepticism in reference to its utility and importance as an evil omen.
Next to pure and mixed mathematics and the learned languages, the
President is inclined to give a place to intellectual philosophy. "It
familiarises the student with the laws and the phenomena of mind, and
with such efforts of subtle analysis and difficult combination as are
best fitted to enlarge and fill the grasp of the highest intellectual
capacities." He also recommends as subordinate, but highly important
studies--composition and eloquence--moral and natural
philosophy--chemistry--the French language--and geology and
mineralogy.
Mr. Olin opposes with much force the excessive multiplication of
studies without a correspondent prolongation of the collegiate term.
"The industry which was profitably directed to a few, may be divided
amongst a multitude of objects; but it will incur the inevitable
penalty of fitful and dissipated intellectual exertion--superficial
attainments and vicious intellectual habits." In what is denominated
the art of {16} education, the President is not inclined to set as
high a value upon the lecture system as upon the mode of frequent
recitations from well digested text books. From the history of the two
universities, and of the literature of Scotland and England for the
last century, he is led to draw the conclusion that the "lecture
system is more favorable to the improvement of the professor, and the
reputation of the university--whilst the opposite method has been more
productive of thorough and accomplished scholars."
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