DEPAETMENT KEPORTS. « [45 



Sept, 28, 1881, ;i lecture on the Prejudices Regarding Education that have 

 come down to us from the middle ages. I have met (except for one term) the 

 Captains and Lieutenants weekly for consultation on college order, and I have 

 opened my house once a month to a reception by myself and family to stu- 

 dents, officers, and other employes at the College, and their families. I have 

 also, by request of the faculty, made all assignments of rooms to students, 

 and taken charge of the exchange of reports and catalogues with other insti- 

 tutions of learning. I have attended and taken part in the Farmers' Insti- 

 tutes to which I was assigned by the Board. 



This enumeration is of course wholly aside from, and in addition to my 

 duties as chief executive officer of the College, as a member of the Board, 

 and as connected with the Secretary in most matters of accounts. 



As to discipline the faculty is the legislative body, and I desire to govern 

 in accordance with tiieir will. 



For several years it had grown into a habit with me not to report to the fac- 

 ulty the minor infractions of law, but by seeing the students, talking with 

 them, and gaining the aid of officers and prominent members of the societies 

 to which they belong, to lead students to self-control, and a freely chosen obe- 

 dience to rule. While I have insisted that with the president and faculty rests 

 the final decision of each case, I have taken the students into free counsels 

 regarding college matters, explained reasons of college rules and discipline, 

 and heard all their opinions and wishes. I have not compelled them to inform 

 of each other, but have reciuired them to give any and all information regard- 

 ing themselves. I have never acted as a spy, nor employed others to do so, 

 nor by any way of questioning pretended to any knowledge of students' 

 doings that I did not have. 



There would of course be failures in discipline under this method of pro- 

 ceeding, and the best successes would often appear to be failures, when it was 

 heard that some offenses had been committed and not made the subject of 

 faculty discipline. I have no reason to doubt the substantial wisdom of this 

 course of proceeding, nor have I had in the main cause to regret the freedom 

 allowed to students in representing their own views, believing it to be better to 

 run some risks of disorder for a large gain in self-government. The moral con- 

 dition of students was never better than now. Profaneness, drinking, and 

 other gross vices were never so infrequent, and the reports of the officers show 

 a zeal in study and standing in classes never before so uniformly high. How- 

 ever, this plan does not meet with the approval of the faculty, and I cheer- 

 fully join with it, in its way ; and in obedience to its will offenses are now 

 reported to the faculty for faculty investigation and discipline, and students 

 are required to tell all they know of the actions of other students. The aver- 

 age age of the students in the Freshman class is nineteen and a half years, 

 and of the Senior class twenty-three years, making a treatment of them as 

 gentlemen, possessed of large liberty, reasonable and safe. They are held 

 closely to all required exercises. 



Exchange of Eeports. 



Reports are exchanged, free of postiige, with all other institutions endowed 

 wholly or in part by the Congressional grant of lands. So far as this College 

 is concerned I have made it a personal duty to see to sending off our reports 

 for nearly every year since these colleges began to exist. I have reason to be- 



