New York, except Henry Clinton, whose education was at an end before the foundation of this college.

This list might have been longer, had not other causes conjoined with its scanty funds and the want of legislative provision to narrow the sphere of its utility. The condition of the gift from Trinity church, that its president shall always be an Episcopalian, has given rise to the idea, that an improper influence might be exercised over the minds of the students. To prove how unfounded this fancy is, it is only necessary to remark, that calvinists have often formed the majority of the professors and of the board of trustees, and that the religious duties are limited to prayers, partly selected from the Espiscopal liturgy, and partly original, combined with the reading of the scriptures without comment. The po pulation of the city of New York, consists in a great measure of foreigners or of emigrants from the neighbouring states, most of whom have brought with them prejudices in favour of their native institutions, or against the system adopted at Columbia in imitation of the Scotch colleges, of permitting the students to reside at the houses of their parents or in private lodgings, instead of confining them within the walls of the college. Added to this, the religious dispensations, which long engrossed the whole attention of the board of trustees, to the exclusion of all exertions of a more meritorious nature.-The commercial habits of the people of New York, have not given room for any great private encouragement of science, and the whole period since the revolution, has passed without recording any private benefaction. It may perhaps, be also said, that the number of persons concerned in the management is against strong united efforts, and likely to promote lukewarmness or opposition to even the best concerted schemes. The number of students is at present one hundred and thirty, and on the increase.

Education does not cease with the collegiate course; in it we only acquire the rudiments of that knowledge which it is often the whole business of a busy life to develop. Our object will not, therefore, be complete, without an examination of the means for professional education, an account of the public libraries, the learned societies, and the state and progress of the fine arts. Under the same idea, it is at present projected to form an institution for the delivery of lectures upon subjects which cannot be made part of an undergraduate course, but which form such a part of the information which is expected from a well educated man, as to be indispensable to that character. It has been proposed to add this as a separate faculty to Columbia college; the plan is yet in embryo, but is well calculated to improve the moral character of the citizens of New York. The subjects which have been already named as fit for this purpose, are national and commercial law, political economy, chemistry applied to the arts, mechanics as applied to manufactures and other useful purposes, criticism, general literature, and poetry, with other instructive and popular topics.

Leaving this, let us proceed to the other objects we have named above.

The study of law in the state of New York, is entirely conducted in the offices of private attornies and counsellors, and no attempt has been made to make it a matter of public instruction, since the time of the lectures delivered in Columbia college by the present chancellor Kent. The license of attorney is made the step to the degree of counsellor. It is a matter of doubt, whether the entire separation of the two employments, and the establishment of a public law school, authorised to confer at once the degree of counsellor, would not raise the character of the profession. The bar is at present very strong, and numbers of young men are rapidly rising to bear a distinguished part in its forensic dis

cussions.

The Episcopal church, has lately founded in New York, a theological school, which from the talents of the professors who have been named to it, bids fair to rise to eminence. It has received a most splendid donation in land from an individual, of great public spirit and high private worth.

The Scotch Presbyterians, have long had a school for the education of ministers of their peculiar tenets, and it has not been less remarkable for the learning and abilities of its conductors, than for the number of intelligent and learned divines it has furnished to that church. Drs. Mason and Matthews are its chief ornaments. A medical school, attached to King's college, existed in New York prior to the revolution, which was revived at the close of the war; it met however with but little success, and finally merged in the college of Physicians and Surgeons. No fault is to be attributed to the teachers, who were all well, and some of them eminently, qualified; but much of its failure is to be attributed to the discussions and jealousies which have almost continually pervaded that profession.

After the institution of the college of Physicians and Surgeons, and before the dissolution of the medical faculty of Columbia college, another medical school, led by Drs. Brown and Romeyn, arose, and conferred degrees under the auspices of the college at Brunswick in New Jersey, and New York exhibited for a short time the singular sight of three rival colleges, teaching the same profession and conferring the same degree.

The medical education of New York, is conducted by a college of Physicians and Surgeons, instituted by the Regents of the University, in 1801, but which has several times been on the point of dissolution, from internal dissensions. Its affairs at present appear to go on with tolerable unanimity. Its students amount to nearly two hundred, who are well instructed by professors of distinguished ability.

New York cannot boast of its public libraries. The Society Library is by no means worthy of such a city, and appears almost deprived of public patronage. The library of the college has about

four thousand volumes, many of them rare and curious, but is rather the nucleus round which to form a collection, than any thing else. The Historical Society has a most valuable but not extensive collection in its department. The college of Physicians has not yet acquired any very great number of books, and the circulating libraries circulate nothing but novels and ephemeral productions. Messrs. Eastburn & Co. have in the way of their trade, formed a collection of books, such as has never been approached in this country, and which rivals in quality, the great collection of Lackington. That such an establishment should have been formed, speaks no less in praise of the enterprise and intelligence of Mr. Eastburn, than of the literary taste of the people of New York, and bespeaks their moral improvement, more than any other circumstance.

Mr. Eastburn has also attached to his establishment, rooms where the literary and scientific journals of Europe are regularly imported and greedily perused.

The Literary and Philosophical society was founded within a few years, and has already published a very respectable volume of transactions; another is said to be in readiness. The munificence of the corporation of the city has provided it with apartments, in a building in which are also located the Historical society and the Academy of Arts.

The Historical society has already been casually mentioned; it has besides its library, under its charge a very valuable collection of mineralogy, conchology, and medals made by Messrs. Col. Gibbs and J. G. Bogert, the greatest part of which is their own private property.

The Academy of Arts has among other valuable articles in its possession, a set of casts from the most admired antique statues, a number of good original pictures and copies from the first masters, several valuable books and port folios of engravings, and a complete edition of the works of Piranesi, the gift of the late emperor of France. Its collection is open to students, under direction of the keeper, who furnishes instruction gratis, and since this arrangement has gone into effect, much promising talent has been elicited. The Academy has raised by loan a sum of two thousand dollars, which has been sent to England for the purpose of procuring a full length portrait of the venerable West, to be painted by sir Thomas Lawrence. Its exhibitions have been very respectable, but its progress is in some measure checked, and its utility circumscribed by the opposition of a cabal of artists.-Some of the patronage, to which it was legitimately entitled, as the natural focus of the arts, has been applied in another direction, and a building appropriated to the catch-penny purpose of exhibiting panoramas, stands as a monument of misdirected taste and wasted public spirit. At the head of the academy is Col. Trumbull, whom it is only necessary to name, and several artists of great respectability, rank among its honorary members, academicians and associates: among its fo

reign members it ranks Napoleon and Lucien Bonaparte, the great Canova, West, Lawrence, and many others of high eminence.

In looking over these different institutions, it is impossible not to be struck with the great agency one individual has had in their foundation and improvement; it is needless to say that this individual is the present governor of the state of New York. It may perhaps be said, that he has had great advantages of situation, but his utility has often depended more upon his strenuous private exertions, than upon his high official situations. He has been most active in the formation of the Historical and the Literary and Philosophical society, has patronized the college of Physicians, and been the chief instrument in the foundation of the Lancaster free-school. The donation of the State to Columbia college, during the last session of the legislature, received his official countenance and much of his private influence; he presided for several years in the academy, and in short, has in every instance, shown himself the friend of learned men and the patron of science.-His promotion to the government of the state, has enlarged the sphere of his utility and exertions, and his name will be long remembered coupled with the greatest public work ever commenced in the Western Hemisphere.

From the above remarks it will be seen that New York possesses very many of the sources, which give rise to public improvement in knowledge, and is rapidly acquiring more; and if the progress be continued in the same ratio, she may soon rank as high in the intellectual scale as she does in the commercial.

SWIT

Y.

ART. III.-On Gessner and his Works. WITZERLAND has given birth to many illustrious men. The character of its inhabitants, from the time of Cæsar, has retained all its peculiarities and distinctive qualities. The same energy of spirit-grandeur of feeling-unvacillating and unmingled hatred of arbitrary aggrandizement, and the same glow of patriotism, that distinguished the opposition of the Helvetic republics, to the domineering ambition of ancient Rome, appear constantly to have been maintained; and manifested, perhaps, more wonderfully, in these latter days, when Austria and France assembled in their power, to crush in wantonness, that singular polity which had been built on the magnificent foundations of independence and virtue. From that interesting period, when the republics began to assume a more refined and luxurious cast of character, in consequence of their subjection to the Roman government, to the times of Albert, the son of Rhodolphus of Hapsburg, we perceive innumerous and important transactions occurring, materially worthy of the observation of the statesman and soldier. It is unnecessary, in this place, to examine the progress of the national character from that momentous period to the days of the final extinction of the Helvetic confederacy, by the French invasion. Switzerland holds now only a

nominal independence. Whether she will ever possess that high military genius again, by which she was formerly distinguished, is now a subject of comparative indifference. The early intercourse of Switzerland and Germany, promoted astonishingly the interests of letters. The language of Świtzerland is not original; it embraces the languages of France and Germany. The advancement made in the arts and sciences, by the Swiss and Germans, previous to the splendid age of the Medici, is familiar to the mind of the scholar. The invention of printing, happened precisely in that age, when literature was awakening from a long and oblivious sleep. The classicks were sought after, and studied with the most persevering industry. The emigrant Greeks, who were scattered in various parts of Italy, encouraged the taste universally prevalent, for the attainment of the language and literature of Greece. But notwithstanding all this, it is incontrovertibly true, that the manner of procedure, pursued by the Germans, in the dissemination of knowledge, was inconsistent as well as injudicious. The two first books, printed in Germany, were the Psalms and the Bible. No one, it is presumed, will doubt the expediency of this measure. The propagation of speculative and visionary theology, in the next place, engaged their attention; and the press, by conse quence, became the passive slave of darkminded fanaticism and blind zeal. Happily, however, Italy pursued a widely different course. Many of the most celebrated works of the ancients were given to the world, and their influence had a tendency to extend the supremacy of good taste. The revival of the classics in Germany, though slow, was unerringly sure. It has been ingeniously and accurately depicted by Madame de Stael, in her celebrated work on that country. Rudolph Agricola, first promoted in Germany, the literature of the Greeks and Romans. That was emphatically a season of regeneration. The reign of dulness and ignorance passed away. The numerous universities burst the shackles which had so long confined them to the mysterious dogmas and idle creeds of an unnatural philosophy. Since those times, other men and other things have solicited our attention. From some peculiar and marked causes, the knowledge of German literature has been extremely limited, both in Europe and America. Preju dice has long triumphed. There seems, however, to be a laudable revolution of feeling in this respect; and there are those who fondly cherish hopes, that it may be more actively and generally diffused.

The foregoing observations, desultory as they are, will appear upon reflection, to have been naturally suggested, by the subject of this essay; and it will be perceived, that they retain an intimate influence over the works and memoirs of that illustrious scholar, which we are now to portray.

Solomon Gessner was born at Zurich, one of the largest cantons of Switzerland, the first of April, 1730, and was the son of a very eminent bookseller and printer. His father was a man possessed