ORIGINAL REVIEW.

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH

Of the origin, progress, and present state of the College of Phy sicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of NewYork. New-York, printed by C. S. Van Wynkle, 1812, pp. 52.

IT is the just pride of our countrymen that an opportunity of acquiring a good education is in no other part of the world so common, or so easy of access. The disciples of Calvin introduced into Scotland, Switzerland, and Connecticut, nearly at the same time, a system of education, accessible to persons in every situation in life, which is still the pride and boast of these countries. However we may feel disposed to condemn the fiery zeal of this sect of reformers, breathing destruction to the elegant and liberal arts, we must bear testimony to their usefulness in promoting the study of the severer sciences, and the general diffusion of the elements of useful knowledge. Carrying with them merely a spirit of enmity against all Catholic establishments, they unconsciously effected the delivery of the countries in which they were successful, from the tyranny of scholastic institutions, and overturned those dogmas so prejudicial to science which long custom had sanctified, and even incorporated in the religious creed. For nothing are we more indebted to them than for the establishment of schools, not placed nor governed according to the caprice of ill-informed and interested founders, but distributed by law, proportionably to the number of inhabitants; forming a part of the constituted authority, and a powerful engine of government; powerful, however, from its limitations and effects, only unto good. This sys

tem of education appears to have spread, previous to the revolution, through all the eastern, and many of the middle states, and has since been adopted, by positive laws, in nearly every state of the union. To its wide diffusion appears to be owing that regularity in idiom, and that purity of expression, in the lower classes, throughout every part of this country, which is so much the astonishment of foreigners. While each of the kingdoms which compose the British empire; while every county, every petty district of country, has its own peculiar dialect; while every department of France has its patois; while the Saxon, the Austrian, and the Palatine Germans find difficulty in understanding each other, the natives of the different parts of the United States are more easily distinguished by the physical effects of climate on their constitution and appearance, than by any variety in their language; and this throughout approaches more nearly to the purity of written English, than the usual dialect of any part of the British nation, except the learned and noble orders.

The proverbial shrewdness of that portion of our countrymen vulgarly denominated Yankees, is set off, even in the lowest classes, with a polished language and address, totally different from the blunt manners and uncouth jargon of the natives of Yorkshire, in England, who resemble them in many striking characteristics. A few peculiarities do undoubtedly exist in most parts of the union, but they are rather in the use of particular words, than in general idiom. They are fast disappearing; and as attention and criticism are more and more directed towards purifying our orthography and elocution, we may confidently anticipate that they will, in a little while, be entirely eradicated. Even those words that are so unmercifully scourged, both by English writers, and critics of our own country, as Americanisms, do yet deserve a fair examination, before we give them up to condemnation. We do not allude to those coined by our diplomatic men, and epic poets; those are base coin, which do not pass current with the nation, and the guilt of which must

rest on the heads of those that utter them. But there are certain words in common use among us which are stigmatized as being of American birth, but which, in fact, are used by us in the very sense in which they were employed by the best writers under Elizabeth and James I. They were brought over to this country in the early periods of the settlement, by those intelligent persons who fled hither from religious persecution. If, in the revolutions and capricious changes of modern literature, these words have gone out of fashion, the charge of altering the language rests with British authors, not with us; and it betrays their own ignorance of their native tongue and standard works, to censure, as innovations, what we merely preserve unchanged from our common ancestors.

The reign of Anne is deservedly considered as the Augustan age of English literature. At that time, besides authors of the first genius, they possessed a language alike weeded from the cumbrous load of classical affectation that prevailed at the first revival of letters, and the imitation of French puerilities, which disgraced a later era. To the authors of this age we must still refer for many of the best models of style, and certainly for authorities for all pure and classical English words. The magnificent verbosity of Dr. Johnson, though in his own writings always respectable, and sometimes even admirable, from the lofty and enlarged mind which breathes throughout it, becomes ridiculous in his imitators, who frequently cover mere trifles and flimsy thoughts under the ponderous mass of syllables, of sesquipedalia verba. Far as the English writers have deviated from the sterling simplicity of their language, we cannot but confess. that ours have run still further into the same faults. A general affectation has prevailed among them of introducing, not the peculiarities of our colloquial idiom, but the most sonorous words of Latin or Greek origin to be met in the works of the English Lexiphanes, and phrases taken almost at random from several modern languages. Such practices as these in individuals cannot VOL. II. 2D ed.

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be stigmatized as a national idiom; they must die with their inventor; but they will probably be succeeded by other habits of writing not less revolting to the ear of taste. The cause of this must be looked for in our national education, so favourable to the intelligence of the mass of the people, but almost entirely unfit for fostering high advances, in either polite literature, or general science, at that age when alone the principles of good taste can be acquired. The result is, that we often find, in this country, accurate and extensive belles lettres learning, acquired by severe labour, at an advanced period of life, without correcting any formerly acquired habits of thinking, of conversing, or of writing. A most memorable instance of this we lately met with in a gentleman, whose powers of mind and classical attainments reflect honour on the learned institution with which he is connected; this gentleman interrupted the course of his examination on Horace's Art of Poetry with a story, not bad in itself, of blue lions and red boars; breaking a train of thoughts worthy of his own reputation, and his elegant author, with the coarsest of Joe Miller's jokes; and yet, strange to relate, he was no stranger to the precept

Servetur ad imum.

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet."

Reading, writing, arithmetic, the rudiments of latin, and a trifle of geometry, are within the reach of every man in the eastern states who has the inclination to acquire them. In con+ sequence, the intelligence of the population is greater than per haps in any other country in the world. But in the true principles of equality, no distinction is made in the early stages of education, between him who is to guide the plough, and him who is to direct the affairs of state. Bred side by side, on the same form, they have the same habits both of grammatical construction in their conversation, and of pronunciation. To be sure they are separated soon; the one continues his studies, the other retires to that manual labour for which he is intended; but vitious

habits of speaking and writing are contracted, which can never be entirely conquered. Thus, in proportion as the education of the mass of the people is better than in most European nations, that of persons intended for the liberal professions, for conducting the affairs of the nation, for exercising the legislative, judicial, and executive functions, is worse. The splendid talents and acquirements which have now and then appeared among us, are rather proofs of the immense progress that may be made, under even the worst circumstances, by unassisted genius, than of any adequate public education. Previous to our struggle for independence, our lawyers of eminence, our physicians, and the divines of the episcopal church, were either educated in the mother country, or obliged to conform themselves to its standard. Cler gymen of other denominations were of necessity compelled to keep pace in their attainments with that church, or sink, by comparison, in public esteem; persons of fortune and influence, more particularly from the southern states, went to Europe to complete their education: and thus it happened that at the breaking out of the revolutionary war, we had in the country, generals, financiers, legislators, and politicians, able to direct our steps in the career of liberty, through a contest with the then most powerful nation of Europe. This war produced effects on the interests of literature far more serious than are usually attendant on wars. Nearly the whole of the followers of the learned professions throughout the colonies, either drew their swords in defence of their country, if Americans, or, if Britons, bade adieu, in disgust, to a people whose cause their prejudices stigmatized as rebellious. The sacred function of ministers of the gospel of peace was no bar to the highest degree of party rancour, nor any protection in the universal cry of torg on the one hand, or rebel on the other. Scanty and precarious indeed were the means of instruction of the rising generation; so much so, that we have been in the habit of remarking, that those persons who boast of having been "rocked in the cradle of liberty mid the storms of a revolution," show stronger evi