780 



.SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 572. 



similar historical development of policies 

 and ideals; the differences are largely ex- 

 ternal, though not without importance. 

 Thus, the sites of the American colleges 

 and universities vary greatly in their nat- 

 ural beauty and their artificial surround- 

 ings. Some, like Columbia, Pennsylvania, 

 Tulane and Chicago, have thoroughly 

 urban sites, and those unlovely surround- 

 ings which are inevitable in the midst of a 

 dense population. Others have suburban 

 sites, capable of presenting some pleasant 

 aspects of trees, shrubs and flowers, and 

 lying within easy reach of the real country, 

 or of public parks and forests. Others 

 again are situated in small towns or vil- 

 lages where they possess considerable es- 

 tates of their own, and are surrounded by 

 the open country. These small college or 

 university towns sometimes possess great 

 natural beauties, such as hills, lakes or 

 wooded glens near by, or mountains in the 

 distance can give; while others have been 

 placed on sites singularly devoid of natural 

 beauty, or of interesting objects in their 

 landscape. These differences of situation 

 undoubtedly affect considerably the senti- 

 ments of the students towards their respec- 

 tive colleges, and in some degree the turn 

 of their minds towards natural beauty. 

 One can not but believe that such a pros- 

 pect as that VN^hich the University of Vir- 

 ginia commands towards the Blue Ridge, 

 or the University of California through 

 the Golden Gate, must have a life-long 

 effect on the mental habits and outlook of 

 the young men and women who learn to 

 love it. The ideal university ought to have 

 a seat as beautiful as that of the Academy 

 of Athens. 



The American colleges and universities 

 are situated in very different climates as 

 regards summer heat, winter cold, dryness 

 or dampness and exposure to malarial in- 

 fluences ; and those most favorably situated 

 for the promotion of health and hard work 



at all seasons of the year will doubtless 

 prove to possess some permanent advan- 

 tages over those whose situations are less 

 desirable in this respect ; but after all the 

 main differences among these institutions 

 as regards situation will in the long run be 

 found to consist in their relative detach- 

 ment or isolation from large concentrations 

 of population. There will probably al- 

 ways be families or parents who think that 

 young students should be separated from 

 the temptations and distractions of city 

 life, while other equally careful and con- 

 scientious people will think that music, the 

 theater, the pleasant activities of polite 

 society and the artistic interests which 

 cities develop are essential accompaniments 

 of the higher education. 



The colleges differ widely in the use of 

 dormitories, or halls of chambers, for the 

 students. In an institution like Harvard 

 or Yale, where these halls of chambers are 

 numerous and large, the student life differs 

 somewhat from the student life of a uni- 

 versity like Michigan, where there are no 

 such buildings; but the fraternity houses, 

 which have become common in most of the 

 American institutions, diminish consider- 

 ably this difference in college life which 

 results from the use or non-use of dormi- 

 tories. The social student life in the dif- 

 ferent institutions is also affected by the 

 homogeneousness, or heterogeneousness of 

 the students. In most of the eastern insti- 

 tutions the students represent a great 

 variety of family conditions. Some are 

 rich men's sons, and some are poor men's 

 sons ; but the majority come from families 

 that are neither rich nor poor. The bread- 

 winners of the families follow an extraor- 

 dinary variety of occupations. The east- 

 ern colleges in general — particularly those 

 that are urban— have therefore had very 

 heterogeneous bodies of students. On the 

 other hand, some of the newer colleges and 

 universities, situated in regions where agri- 



