A Republic of Letters
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
12 November 2008 (collegiateway.org) — A residential college within a university should cultivate an atmosphere of comfortable familiarity among its members. If social status makes a difference in such an intimate setting, beyond what is required for the formalities of government, then something is very wrong.
Should invidious social distinctions ever emerge within your college, why not invite William Wordsworth to offer a literary lecture on the subject, by way of the regular poem-of-the-week in your college newsletter:
For, born in a poor district, and which yet
Retaineth more of ancient homeliness,
Than any other nook of English ground,
It was my fortune scarcely to have seen,
Through the whole tenor of my school-day time,
The face of one, who, whether boy or man,
Was vested with attention or respect
Through claims of wealth or blood; nor was it least
Of many benefits, in later years
Derived from academic institutes
And rules, that they held something up to view
Of a Republic, where all stood thus far
Upon equal ground; that we were brothers all
In honour, as in one community,
Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore,
Distinction open lay to all that came,
And wealth and titles were in less esteem
Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry,
Add unto this, subservience from the first
To presences of God’s mysterious power
Made manifest in Nature’s sovereignty,
And fellowship with venerable books,
To sanction the proud workings of the soul,
And mountain liberty. It could not be
But that one tutored thus should look with awe
Upon the faculties of man, receive
Gladly the highest promises, and hail,
As best, the government of equal rights
And individual worth.
