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Rh power to hold them to their tasks tenfold as great as any college possesses, or can possess. For such striplings, it is well that they are at school, and that they are not in college; and to an intuitive perception of this truth on the part of parents it is unquestionably owing that so many remain there.

However this may be, we must take the facts as we find them, whether we would have them so or not, since it does not appear that we can very well make them other than they are. What is true in the present is likely to be permanently true in the future, viz., that the average age of undergraduate students in American colleges is, and will be, several years more advanced than it was three-quarters of a century ago, and even much more recently. And this important truth implies a very material change in the character of the student-body—a change marked by a large advance in maturity of judgment, an increased power of self-control, and a sensible diminution of the levity and volatility which distinguish the period of boyhood. To place such a community of young men under a system of restraints in nowise different from that which was originally devised for boys but a step removed from childhood, is to check the development of character in the direction of manly sentiment which should accompany this age, by tempting or compelling the student to govern his conduct not in accordance with the principles of propriety or right, but in obedience to an arbitrary, sometimes, in his judgment, an unreasonable, and often to his belief a needlessly oppressive rule.

The hope which President Eliot thinks it not unreasonable to entertain in regard to Harvard College, viz., "that it will soon get entirely rid of a certain school-boy spirit," which used to prevail there, but of which the traces are continually growing less, is a hope in which many similar institutions, with good reason, participate. It is a hope of which every judicious educator will do all that lies in his power to promote the fulfilment. The most unnecessary of the evils with which our colleges are at present afflicted are, those that grow out of such traces as still linger of this frivolous spirit. And if the rigorous rules which subject mature young men to a severe account of the disposition made of every moment of their time, or which place them under an irritating and annoying surveillance, are necessary (as it must be presumed they are supposed to be, or they would not be maintained), to assure their proper mental training, then certainly it is much to be lamented that these same necessary rules should be as prejudicial to their moral culture as they are said to be healthful to their mental. Is it not time, then, that we should begin to consider whether there are not influences capable of being brought to bear upon the undergraduate youth of our colleges, which will prove nearly, if not absolutely, as effectual in securing their regular attendance upon their scholastic exercises as any system of pains and penalties can be? Does the abandonment of the system of positive coercion involve necessarily the disastrous consequences apprehended by Dr. McCosh, of a neglect of faithful daily effort, and an attempt to satisfy the tests of proficiency imposed by the academie authorities, by means of a pernicious periodical cramming?

These are questions in regard to which no general agreement is likely to be reached by mere discussion. They are matters of opinion; and, when opinions differ in regard to what is likely to happen in hypothetical cases, it is generally true that the advocates of opposing views are more likely to be confirmed by argument in their original convictions, than converted to those of their adversaries. The only source from which, in matters of this kind, conclusions can be drawn which shall admit of no controversy, is actual experience; and thus far the results of experience have not been adduced by any of the parties to this discussion. President Eliot puts forward his proposed measure, not in the tone of confidence in which one speaks of a thing which has been tried and found to work well; but rather apparently as a feeler, for the purpose of trying the temper of the public mind, and ascertaining whether that is likely to tolerate so bold an experiment at Harvard; and Dr. McCosh trembles at the very thought of such an experiment in such an institution, being quite certain in advance that it must end in