Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/189

 JET. 30.] TO R. W. EMERSON. 165

mathematics. At Cambridge they think that they have discovered traces of another satellite to Neptune. They have been obliged to exclude the public altogether, at last. The very dust which they raised, &quot; which is filled with minute crystals,&quot; etc., as professors declare, having to be wiped off the glasses, would erelong wear them away. It is true enough, Cambridge col lege is really beginning to wake up and redeem its character and overtake the age. I see by the catalogue that they are about establishing a sci entific school in connection with the university, at which any one above eighteen, on paying one hundred dollars annually (Mr. Lawrence s fifty thousand dollars will probably diminish this sum), may be instructed in the highest branches of science, in astronomy, &quot; theoretical and prac tical, with the use of the instruments &quot; (so the great Yankee astronomer may be born without delay), in mechanics and engineering to the last degree. Agassiz will erelong commence his lec tures in the zoological department. A chemistry class has already been formed under the direc tion of Professor Horsford. A new and ade quate building for the purpose is already being erected. They have been foolish enough to put at the end of all this earnest the old joke of a diploma. Let every sheep keep but his own skin, I say.