552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



entire university, and two enlirely new features were introduced into 

 it. We established a preparatory department under a lady teacher, 

 and we voted to admit female students to all of our classes. The lat- 

 ter measure was adopted rather hesitatingly, having been in a sense 

 forced upon us by stress of circumstances. We must have students 

 at any rate, and if vv^e could not get young men we would take young 

 ladies. The impropriety of thus mingling the sexes was evident to all 



except Brother A , who alone really favored the stej) taken ; and 



the uselessness of higher education to women was also obvious. How 

 can women apply Latin and Greek to their household duties, I should 

 like to know ? What business have they with mathematics ? My own 

 wife never learned these things, and she has been certainly none 

 the worse wife to me. But, notwithstanding my apprehensions, the 

 dangerous move was made, and in consequence 1 have had tribulation 

 ever since. Not that any scandal has resulted; not that any wrong 

 has been done ; our troubles come from a totally diiferent source. 

 These pestilent girls are teasing us to teach them all sorts of out-of- 

 the-way things: one wants to learn the calculus, of which our mathe- 

 matical i^rofessor is ignorant ; another asks for a laboratory course in 

 chemistry such as we are unable to give, and so on. Unhappy for us 

 was the day that we permitted our thirteen young women to enter the 

 university. They tell tales about us outside, and thus injure our repu- 

 tation. We cannot get rid of them, and what are we to do ? 



But troubles like these were trifling in comparison with our anxiety 

 upon pecuniary matters. Counting in our new preparatory depart- 

 ment we had a few more students than before, but not enough to yield 

 us the income we needed. The money-question, then, kept staring us 

 in the face, and no measure we could devise ever quieted it more than 

 just temporarily. One move was taken at commencement-time a 

 move due to my remarkable executive genius which seemed to tide 

 us over several months of our trials. We gave the degree of LL. D. 

 to every millionaire in our county, and made a number of our pojjular 

 clergymen doctors of divinity. The millionaires took the bait read- 

 ily, and all save one gave us handsome sums, varying from $500 to 

 $2,000. The single exception was a retired coal-dealer, who refused 

 to accept the proflfered degree, saying that he knew nothing about 

 laws and did not want to doctor them. Shortly afterward he gave 

 150,000 to a distant college, which was already rich, and claimed to be 

 undenominational. As for the new D. D.'s, they all exerted them- 

 selves in our behalf, and raised for us a considerable sum of ready 

 money. All told, these honorary degrees brought us in nearly $6,000, 

 which, together with our student-fees, was all we had to sustain our 

 university through its second college-year. 



We are now just entering upon our third season of actual collegi- 

 ate work, and troubles accumulate over us. Our money is gone, oui 

 students are deserting to otlier institutions, and, if we had not faitt 



