I hate quotations.
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would
need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing
multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of
learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes
to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste
or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of
delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men
are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits.
I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created
not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge.
The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils
precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking
is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for
men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.