some degree their business, to visit the Academy often, encourage and countenance the youth, countenance and assist the masters, and by all means in their power advance the usefulness and reputation of the design; that they look on the students as in some sort their children, treat them with familiarity and affection, and, when they have behaved well, and gone through their studies, and are to enter the world, zealously unite, and make all the interest that can be made to establish them, whether in business, offices, marriages, or any other thing for their advantage, preferably to all other persons whatsoever, even of equal merit.
The next is a proper habitation:
That a house be provided for the Academy, if not in the town, not many miles from it; the situation high and dry, and, if it may be, not far from a river, having a garden, orchard, meadow, and a field or two. [And,] that the house be furnished with a library if in the country, (if in the town, the town libraries may serve.)[1]
And further, that the Rector be a man of good understanding, good morals, diligent and patient, learned in the languages and sciences, and a correct, pure speaker and writer of the English tongue.
As to the students,
it would be well if they could be taught everything that is useful, and everything that is ornamental. But art is long, and their time is short.[2] It is therefore proposed, that they learn those things that are likely to be the most useful and most ornamental; regard being had to the several professions for which they are intended. * * * Reading should also be taught, and pronouncing properly, distinctly, emphatically; not with an even tone, which under-does, nor a theatrical, which over-does nature. To form their style, they should be put in writing letters to each other, making
- ↑ Upon the site of a College we have Antony a Woods loving reference to Oxford: "First a good and pleasant site, where there is a wholesome and temperate constitution of the air; composed with waters, springs or wells, woods and pleasant fields; which being obtained, those commodities are enough to invite students to stay and abide there. As the Athenians in ancient times were happy for their conveniences, so also were the Britons, when by a remnant of the Grecians that came amongst them, they or their successors selected such a place in Britain to plant a school or schools therein, which for its pleasant situation was afterwards called Bellositum or Belosite now Oxford, privileged with all those conveniences before mentioned." Quoted by John Henry Newman in his Office and Work of Universities, London, 1856, p. 40. In a previous page Cardinal Newman had said, "If I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studiam Generale, or school of Universal Learning * * * a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter * * * a place for the communication and circulation of thought by means of personal intercourse through a wide extent of country," p. 9.
- ↑ Ars longa, vita brevis. Hippocrates, Aphorism.
