EDITOR'S TABLE. 



549 



ought to practice when they come to he 

 women.' Does your education answer 

 to that test ? Is a college in which 

 physiology and biology are unrepre- 

 sented, and which offers no instruction 

 in anthropology the science of human 

 nature the proper place to educate 

 young women for the duties of mother- 

 hood, the nurture of children, and the 

 intelligent practical administration of 

 home affairs ? We can not see that you 

 have what we most want, and we are 

 afraid if we came you would so fill our 

 heads with everything we don't want 

 that we should he worse off than if we 

 were not educated at all. Go on with 

 the excellent work of modernizing your 

 curriculum, and, when you have made 

 it to better represent the present state 

 of knowledge, it will be time to talk to 

 us about buying it." 



This is encouraging. "We had sup- 

 posed that the ladies were crazy to get 

 into the college anyhow, without the 

 slightest regard to what they found 

 there in fact, wanted to get in merely 

 because they had been kept out ; ac- 

 cordingly, as this is not so, we rejoice. 



COLLEGE GOYERXMEXT. 



"We last year had the pleasure of 

 commending the new departure of Am- 

 herst College in the matter of govern- 

 ment. It consisted in an open repu- 

 diation of the old and still prevailing 

 system of paternal control which so 

 naturally engenders conflict and pro- 

 motes excesses on the part of the stu- 

 dents. As we before remarked, young 

 men can only be educated in manhood 

 by being practiced in its liberty and 

 responsibility. The home government 

 of childhood and early youth is neces- 

 sarily paternal, watchful, care-taking, 

 often too much so for the development 

 of self-reliant character ; but when boys 

 become young men they have the right 

 to substitute self-restraint for external 

 restraint as the governing law of con- 

 duct. And especially $vhen they go to 



college, where the scheme of studies as- 

 sumes mental maturity, where the new 

 social forces are so active, and the new 

 temptations so strong, they should be 

 thrown upon their honor, and pledged 

 to self-control at the outset and with- 

 out reserve. It is gratifying to observe 

 that the second year's experience at 

 Amherst proves the practicability and 

 the superiority of the self-governing 

 method. A correspondent of the " New 

 York Evening Post " remarks: 



It has been a year of unusually satisfac- 

 tory progress. Professor W. S. Tyler, who 

 was graduated in 1830, and has been con- 

 nected with the college ever since, says that 

 it has been the most healthy and satisfactory 

 year for the college that he has ever known. 

 More and better work has been done in the 

 studies, and there has never been a year of 

 such perfect discipline. It is the new sys- 

 tem of government, now at the end of its 

 second year of practical working, which is 

 given the credit of the improvement. In 

 brief, the system is this : The relation of fac- 

 ulty and students is regarded as that of two 

 parties to a contract. The student wishes to 

 study, and contracts to follow the rules of the 

 college. The faculty contract to give the 

 instruction. If a student breaks his contract 

 by disorderly conduct or by committing any 

 of the irregular acts so common in colleges 

 against public peace, he is held to have bro- 

 ken his contract, and ipso facto his connec- 

 tion with the college ceases. He has broken 

 his word, and a rupture of the contract by 

 one party releases the other. No vote of ex- 

 pulsion is passed. There is no writing home 

 to parents. No member of the faculty is ex- 

 pected to act the spy. The single act of the 

 student settles the whole thing. All this is 

 now perfectly understood. When the system 

 was introduced its first enforcement was par- 

 ticularly severe, and the students did not fully 

 comprehend the situation. For that once 

 only, after a full reparation for the wrong, the 

 offenders were restored to their standing, and 

 there has been no relaxation of the rule since. 

 It was believed that the past year would be 

 particularly trying, because the novelty would 

 be worn off, and the permanent value of 

 President Seelye's theory would be tested. 

 Besides this change, there came with it a 

 total abolition of the old ranking system, and 

 so the test this year has been particularly se- 

 vere. It is of high interest, therefore, that 

 every one of the faculty, and, so far as is 



