< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu
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SPECIMENS OF EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE.
the school, for they can be made to contribute to the health and pleasure of both the students and the faculty.

"The Scenery

is most beautiful and romantic. In a single glance, from a central point, the eye surveys an ellipse, the circumference of which is 150 miles; and 'outstretching in loveliness'—the lawn, the woodland, the meadow, the town spread out beneath, the gushing rills, the flowing rivers, the farm-houses scattered here and there, the rugged cliffs—all make up a landscape which is at once picturesque and sublime. The future home of Neophogen was not selected without canvassing the advantages and inducements offered at all the most noted points in our country.

"The Community.

"We claim for the citizens of Gallatin and vicinity that true virtue and magnanimity found alone in the most refined society.

"Here, identity is lost in public spirit. Here, a studious observance of the rights of others is ever manifested. Here, the principles fostered by those noble old pioneers are infused into the minds of their successors.

"Here are the descendants of those worthy spirits—the Winchesters, Trousdales, Jacksons, Peytons, Wynnes, Halls, Guilds, Turners, Barrys, Heads, Blackmores, Lauderdales, Bledsoes, Babers, Aliens, Bennets, Blounts, Elliotts, Odoms, Dismukes, Blythes, Millers, Donelsons, Williamses, Boyerses, Bates, Montgomerys. Smiths, Duffys, Boddies, Glovers, Alexanders, Waltons, Kirkpatricks, Deshas, Blues, Winstons, Tomkinses, Houses, Hallums, Eascoes, Bakers, Greens, Stuarts, Wilsons, Wallaces, Moores, Joyners, Buggs, Franklins, Cantrells, Looneys, Hassells, Harrises, Malones, Pattersons, Parkers, Kings, Johnsons, Shutes, Guthries, Cottons, Branhams, Douglases, Bells, Tyrees, Martins, McCoins, Harts, Cages, with many other names worthy of emulation, and the half is not told.

"While we studiously ignore the idea of aristocracy and nobility, our minds are pleasantly associated with dignity and purity."

All this information is evidently just what a careful parent would require. The healthiness of a college town, and the character of its people, must be important to every father having a child to educate. As for the qualifications of the professors, the following passage is sufficiently suggestive:

"What is the duty of many, is generally neglected by all. Here is continued and special stimulus to president and professors; here are no easy and assured positions, with fixed and positive salaries, but they depend upon the patronage, prosperity, and reputation of the institution. That this should be so, is too obvious for comment. A very little knowledge of human nature is necessary to see why. To each teacher it is plain, the greater the labor, the greater the reward."

This passage is also instructive: "Learned men who have failed in business are tendered every inducement to take a life-home here. We intend to take the most active measures, and use every exertion, to raise a large life-fund for the relief of unfortunate literary men. Let them have homes, and the society of congenial spirits."

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