For fifty years Yale College rested on three men
selected in their youth by Dr. Dwight, and almost simultaneously set at
work; Day was twenty-eight, Silliman, twenty-three, and Kingsley,
twenty-seven, when they began their professorial lives. The University
of Virginia, early in its history, attracted foreign teachers, who were
all young men.
We shall hope to secure a strong staff of young men, appointing them
because they have twenty years before them; selecting them on evidence
of their ability; increasing constantly their emoluments, and promoting
them because of their merit to successive posts, as scholars, fellows,
assistants, adjuncts, professors and university professors. This plan
will give us an opportunity to introduce some of the features of the
English fellowship and the German system of privat-docents; or in other
words, to furnish positions where young men desirous of a university
career may have a chance to begin, sure at least of a support while
waiting for promotion.
Our plans begin but do not end here. As men of distinction, who have won
the highest rank in their callings, are known to be free, we shall
invite them to come among us.
If we would maintain a university, great freedom must be allowed both to
teachers and scholars.
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