Page:Camperdown - Griffith - 1836.djvu/66

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
58
THREE HUNDRED

motives,—was appropriated to the salary of a professor, and then the question arose as to the man to be selected. They run their eye over the whole country, and, finally, the fame of some one individual induced them to consider him as a suitable candidate. This man was doing great service where he was; the college, almost gone to decay, was resuscitated by his exertions; students came from all parts on the faith of his remaining there; in fact, he had given an impulse to the whole district. What a pity to remove such a man from a place where the benefits of his labour and his energies were so great, and where his removal would produce such regrets and such a deteriorating change! But our new professor, being established in the new college, instead of going to work with the same alacrity, and with the same views, which views were to spend his life in promoting the interests of the college which he had helped to raise, now began to look 'a-head,' as the term is, and he waited impatiently for the rise of another establishment, in the city perhaps, where every thing was more congenial to his newly awakened tastes. Thus it went on—change, change, for ever; and in the end he found himself much worse off than if he had remained in the place which first patronised him. It is certainly a man's duty to do the best he can for the advancement of his own interest, and if he can get five hundred dollars a year more in one place than in another, he has a right to do it; but the advantage of change is always problematical. The complaint is not so much against him, however, as against those who so indelicately inveigle him away."

"Yes. I can easily imagine how hurtful in its effects such a policy would be, for instance, to a merchant, although it is pernicious in every case. But here is a merchant—he has regularly inducted