290 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



great injury would be manifestly wrought to the 

 cause of university reform, which must needs be 

 supported to a considerable extent by popular 

 sentiment in order duly to prosper. A large 

 amount of discretion must therefore be used, even 

 in the removal of those features wherein our col- 

 leges compare unfavourably with those of other 

 countries. But there are some respects in which 

 the American university may claim a superiority 

 quite unique, some cases in which a radical 

 change must ever be earnestly deprecated. That 

 arrangement by virtue of which each student is 

 a member, not only of the university, but of a 

 particular class, is fraught with such manifold 

 benefits that any advantages to be derived from 

 giving it up must disappear when brought into 

 comparison. No graduate needs to be told what 

 a gap would be made in his social and moral cul- 

 ture, if all the thoughts and emotions resulting 

 from his relations to his classmates were to be 

 stricken from it. For the genial nurture of the 

 sympathetic feelings, the class system affords a 

 host of favourable conditions which can ill be 

 dispensed with. By means of it, the facilities of 

 the university for becoming a centre of social no 

 less than of intellectual development are greatly 

 enhanced. On the other hand, it is not to be 



