1883. } . &diters’ Table. 845 
Prayide. 
* Praya blaino. 
2. Anterior bell conical or rounded, posterior with marked 
longitudinal sides. Swimming-bells of about equal size. 
Diphyde. 
*Diphyes acuminata Lkt. 
* Diphyes formosa F. 
3. Anterior bell small, polygonal in shape. Posterior bell 
with longitudinal canal covered with a plate. 
Abylidz. 
There are a few genera of Mediterranean Siphonophores which are introduced in 
the above key since they represent families which probably occur in the Gulf Stream, 
although they have not yet been taken on our coast. 
:0: 
EDITORS’ TABLE. 
EDITORS: A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE, 
The long persistence of the medieval type of education which 
prevails in our schools and colleges has rarely been more happily 
and forcibly stated than by Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in his 
address before the late meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. 
His adverse criticism is chiefly directed against the great waste 
of time involved in the study of Greek literature; and in the true 
Scientific method he appeals to the facts best known to himself in 
proof of the position he assumes. The examples he cites are the 
lives of his ancestors, commencing with John Adams, President 
of the United States, who graduated at Harvard University in the 
class of 1755. We cannot do better than transfer to our pages 
some of his remarks :! 
“And so for us the college course, instead of being a time of 
Preparation for the hard work of life, was a pleasant sort of vaca- 
tion, rather, which preceded it. We so regarded it. I should be 
very sorry for myself not to have enjoyed that vacation. I am 
glad that I took my degree. But as a training place for youth, 
to enable them to engage to advantage in the actual struggle of 
life, to fit them to hold their own in it, and to carry off the prize, 
must in all honesty say that, looking back through the years 
and recalling the requirements and methods of the ancient insti- 
tution, I am unable to speak of it with respect. Such training as 
I got, useful for the struggle, I got after instead of before gradu- 
ation, and it came hard; while I never have been able—and now, 
no matter how long I may live, I never shall be able—to over- 
come some great disadvantages which the superstitions and wrong 
heories and worse practices of my alma mater inflicted upon me, 
1 The Boston Herald, June 29, 1883. 
