CORRESP ONDENCE. 



'37 



power to hold them to their tasks tenfold 

 as great as any college possesses, or can 

 possess. For such striplings, it is well that 

 they are at school, and that they are not in 

 college ; and to an intuitive perception of 

 this truth on the part of parents it is un- 

 questionably owing that so many remain 

 there. 



However this may be, we must take the 

 facts as we find them, whether we would 

 have them so or not, since it does not ap- 

 pear that we can very well make them other 

 than they are. What is true in the present 

 is likely to be permanently true in the 

 future, viz., that the average age of under- 

 graduate students in American colleges is, 

 and will be, several years more advanced 

 than it was three-quarters of a century ago, 

 and even much more recently. And this 

 important truth implies a very material 

 change in the character of the student-body 

 a change marked by a large advance in 

 maturity of judgment, an increased power 

 of self-control, and a sensible diminution of 

 the levity and volatility which distinguish 

 the period of boyhood. To place such a 

 community of young men under a system 

 of restraints in nowise different from that 

 which was originally devised for boys but 

 a step removed from childhood, is to check 

 the development of character in the direc- 

 tion of manly sentiment which should ac- 

 company this age, by tempting or compel- 

 ling the student to govern his conduct not 

 in accordance with the principles of pro- 

 priety or right, but in obedience to an arbi- 

 trary, sometimes, in his judgment, an un- 

 reasonable, and often to his belief a need- 

 lessly oppressive rule. 



The hope which President Eliot thinks 

 it not unreasonable to entertain in regard 

 to Harvard College, viz., " that it will soon 

 get entirely rid of a certain school-boy 

 spirit," which used to prevail there, but of 

 which the traces are continually growing 

 less, is a hope in which many similar insti- 

 tutions, with good reason, participate. It 

 is a hope of which every judicious educator 

 will do all that lies in his power to promote 

 the fulfilment. The most unnecessary of 

 the evils with which our colleges are at 

 present afflicted are, those that grow out 

 of such traces as still linger of this frivolous 

 spirit. And if the rigorous rules which 



subject mature young men to a severe ac- 

 count of the disposition made of every mo- 

 ment of their time, or which place them 

 under an irritating and annoying surveil- 

 lance, are necessary (as it must be pre- 

 sumed they are supposed to be, or they 

 would not be maintained), to assure their 

 proper mental training, then certainly it is 

 much to be lamented that these same neces- 

 sary rules should be as prejudicial to their 

 moral culture as they are said to be health- 

 ful to their mental. Is it not time, then, 

 that we should begin to consider whether 

 there are not influences capable of being 

 brought to bear upon the undergraduate 

 youth of our colleges, which will prove 

 nearly, if not absolutely, as effectual in 

 securing their regular attendance upon 

 their scholastic exercises as any system 

 of pains and penalties can be ? Does the 

 abandonment of the system of positive co- 

 ercion involve necessarily the disastrous 

 consequences apprehended by Dr. McCosh, 

 of a neglect of faithful daily effort, and an 

 attempt to satisfy the tests of proficiency 

 imposed by the academie authorities, by 

 means of a pernicious periodical cram- 

 ming ? 



These are questions in regard to which 

 no general agreement is likely to be reached 

 by mere discussion. They are matters of 

 opinion ; and, when opinions differ in regard 

 to what is likely to happen in hypothetical 

 cases, it is generally true that the advocates 

 of opposing views are more likely to be con- 

 firmed by argument in their original convic- 

 tions, than converted to those of their adver- 

 saries. The only source from which, in mat- 

 ters of this kind, conclusions can be drawn 

 which shall admit of no controversy, is act- 

 ual experience ; and thus far the results of 

 experience have not been adduced by any 

 of the parties to this discussion. President 

 Eliot puts forward his proposed measure, 

 not in the tone of confidence in which one 

 speaks of a thing which has been tried and 

 found to work well ; but rather apparently 

 as a feeler, for the purpose of trying the 

 temper of the public mind, and ascertaining 

 whether that is likely to tolerate so bold an 

 experiment at Harvard ; and Dr. McCosh 

 trembles at the very thought of such an ex- 

 periment in such an institution, being quite 

 certain in advance that it must end in igno- 



