Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/794

770 the working of the option system at Harvard affords an indication of the preferences and tendencies of the students in regard to the studies they incline to pursue; but is not entrance to Harvard a part of its policy, and what about the option there? Is there not at the door of the university a big winnowing-machine which delivers the "disciplinary" studies as acceptable wheat, and blows the "utilitarian" studies to the winds as the veriest chaff? All the preparation exacted of students for entrance to college is in the "disciplinary" studies, and mainly in the Latin and Greek languages. Besides being incessantly told in the preparatory schools that the very poles of the intellectual world are two dead languages, and that a classical education is the only real broad liberal education, they are kept for years drilling at Latin and Greek as the only condition upon which they can get to college at all. The standard is here kept as high as it was twenty years ago, and President Eliot stated at the late Elmira convention that, in the estimation of the preparatory teachers in New England, Harvard requires a year more study of Latin and Greek than the other colleges. The student thus enters college warped and biassedbiased [sic] by his preparation for it. Of the sciences he knows nothing, and he is prejudiced against them as mere utilitarian studies to be contrasted on all occasions with liberal mental pursuits. "When these facts are remembered, it is certainly no matter of surprise that Latin and Greek lead in the collegiate elections of study; it is rather surprising that they lead by so small a number. It is very far from being a fair or open choice when a pupil has to repudiate his past acquisitions, and stem the tide of opinion which has forced them upon him, to take up studies under the grave disadvantage of no early preparation. We think the lesson of the Harvard statistics is not altogether exhilarating to the partisans of the classics. When Harvard will accept a scientific preparation for college as of equal value with the classical, we shall be better prepared to estimate the strength of the tendencies in the two directions.

biographer of Sir Walter Scott alludes to a "first love" which ended unfortunately for the great romancer. It is related that, rain happening to fall one Sunday after church-time, Scott offered his umbrella to a young lady, and, the tender having been accepted, he escorted her to her home. The acquaintance was continued, and ripened into a strong attachment on the part of Scott; but he was doomed to disappointment, and Lockhart states that it produced a profound effect upon his character. "Keble, in a beautiful essay on Scott, more than hints a belief that it was this imaginary regret haunting Scott all his life long which became the true well-spring of his inspiration in all his minstrelsy and romance." Be that as it may, the lady, whose name was Williamina Belches, instead of marrying Scott, chose his friend, Sir William Forbes. They had a family, of which the youngest, James David, was born in 1809. When the son was nineteen years old his father died, and, under the immediate influence of the bereavement, he drew up a set of brief resolutions for the regulation of his life, one of which was "to curb pride and over-anxiety in the pursuit of worldly objects, especially fame." Young Forbes became a famous man. He took to science, and mastered it rapidly under the guidance of his intimate friend Sir David Brewster, choosing physics as his department. At the death of Sir John Leslie, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, he offered himself as a candidate for the chair, in