The Enquirer

FOURTH OF JULY.

Extract of a letter from Williamsburg, to the Editor of the Enquirer.

I have the pleasure of assuring you, that the 4th of July has been observed by our College with no diminution of its literary merit. On the contrary, if I may judge from the exhibitions of that day, it appeared to me, that a purer taste in composition, than that which I have sometimes witnessed, was evident. Instead of that turgid, vague declamation, so captivating to young men, a more chaste and tempered style, as well as a more logical mode of argumentation, generally prevailed in the Orations which were delivered. Besides, to a well informed and candid mind, the compositions evinced that one of the great and primary objects of a wise education, such as is particularly called for by our political institutions, had been happily prosecuted and attained.—

When a young man is entering upon the public theatre, he ought to be fitted for the office of civil life; his mind ought to be stored with that knowledge which he finds applicable upon the most interesting and frequent occasions; and not inflated with a kind of learning which he necessarily forgets within a year or two, because no occasion occurs in which it can be of any real use. He ought to be identified with the government of which he is now a member.—

Is the government founded upon the only rational principle which social union will admit, as its legitimate basis, the unqualified right of self-government? What can be so absurd as a system of public education, which tends to prejudice the mind in favor of a contrary principle, unjust in itself, unphilosophical as it respects political science, & heterogeneous to every fundamental article of the social compact? This solocism, this felo de se is here avoided. A young man is here taught what the constitution of his country really is, the principles upon which it rests, and is shown, that these principles, so worthy of his veneration and his love, are as universal as eternal; He is instructed in the science of legislation; In the duties of the legislator and "the imprescriptible rights of the sovereign; he is shown what are the proper objects of legislative attention, and in what cases the individual should be left to the management of his interests in his own way; the causes of national wealth are fully developed, and, in general, all those important subjects which are embraced by a profound and luminous system of political economy. To these branches of civil education, I was highly gratified to find, that the attention of our young men had not only been turned, but with a success which excited my warmest approbation: and though I had not an opportunity of being present at the public examination, yet, from information upon which I rely, several, particularly the graduates, were distinguished for their extensive acquisitions in Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy, as well as in those branches of moral Philosophy, to which I have alluded.

The Orators were, Messrs. Francis McCaulay, Ferdinand Campbell, Augustine Smith, John Nelson, of Maryland, Benjamin B. Jones, John Andrews and Theophilus Feild.

They met with the applause of a numerous audience. After the first oration, the degree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred, with the usual formality, upon Ferdinand Campbell, Benj. B. Jones, Wm. Meriwether, Francis McCaulay, John Nelson, Augustine Smith and H. L. Wilson.

And the degree of Bachelor of Law, upon Augustine Smith, Benj. B. Jones, Robert Mendinh, Wm. C. Greenhill and Geo. Avery.

The degree of Bachelor of Law has also been granted, during the last term, to Wm. Wail, Herbert Gaines and Benjamin Pollard.