may be supported in daily duty by the stimulants of necessity. Remember that few are called to the peculiar work for which the university trains men. The places it undertakes to fill are not suited to more than perhaps one in twenty of our young men. Some basis of selection must exist, and the surest I have been able to find is the capacity of the student to take himself in care. Many circumstances serve to make our students ready for a more trust-bearing system of control. The ancient form of family discipline, where fear had a large place, where the son was wont to tremble at the wrath of the father, is passing, if, indeed, it has not quite passed, away. The old-fashioned stern control of a thoroughly-disciplined college, where the students were kept in subjection by the application of formalized rules of conduct, really represents the spirit of a family system which no longer exists. Nowhere else is the fundamental democracy of this country-a motive far stronger than is comprehended by the most of our publicists-so clearly marked as in the freedom of the American family. The relation between the American boy and his parents is generally one of perfect friendliness, in which the old control by fear has hardly any place. There are, it is true, those who lament the disappearance of discipline from our households; but such persons fail to comprehend the deeper currents of their time. The alteration in the form of family and academic discipline is a part of the vast democratic humanization which is changing the fundamental motives of our people. In preserving the ancient theory of relations between young men and those who are set over them, our colleges are maintaining an archaic system. Moreover, the students who now attend our higher colleges and universities are very much older than they were fifty years ago. It is hardly too much to say that the age of entering is not far from that at which students graduated when the common systems of discipline were framed. Furthermore, about all our higher colleges there have grown up professional schools and graduate departments, whose students are practically exempt from all the police control. These schools are commonly closely related to the academic department; the students are often housed together, and not infrequently share certain portions of the instruction, with the result that it is much more difficult to maintain a rigorous discipline in the college.

To change the system of discipline in our colleges from that which fits children to that which is suited to the conditions of men requires many important modifications in the conditions under which the students pursue their academic life. In the first place, it is necessary to have some approach to what is known as the elective system. The student must feel that he has to select, under advice, the studies which he is to pursue in order to fit himself for his career in the world. This repeated choice is, as a feature in education, worth more than any other instruction which he receives in the college, for the reason that it brings him at once into contact with the problems of life. Next, it is necessary to have a far larger proportion of instructors, and those of higher quality, than is necessary under the old disciplinary control. I am inclined to think that it is necessary to have for the best operation of this system about one instructor of satisfactory quality to each twelve students. The method of work must be such that the teachers come in very close contact with the students. The relation between officers and students must not be very remote, as under the unhuman system common of old, but one of man to man. Each student must be thoroughly well known by some member of the faculty, who feels in a way responsible for his conduct in life. When these relations are brought about, all mechanical systems of control tend at once to disappear.

So far this humanized method of control has been made the matter of most careful experiment in Harvard College. For many years the government of that institution has been tending towards this method of discipline. The steps which have led to the change in the method of control have been slowly accomplished in the course of thirty years. At first the advances towards the new system were resisted by the more conservative elements in the governing bodies, but each step forward has been attended by such evidence of gains in the scholarly and manly motives of the students that in the faculty at least-the body which comes in closest contact with the student life-there is now no one opposed to the innovation. No one doubts that the change has been in a high measure profitable both to the intellectual and moral quality of the youths. The young men are made ready for the work of the world in a simpler and more effective manner than under the old system.

It cannot be denied that there are certain, though limited, disadvantages connected with this change in the method of con

trol.

Wild youths, those affected by an excess of animal spirits, as well as those who are in a greater or less measure immoral, become more of a nuisance to their fellow-members of the university and the general public than of old. On the other hand, it is easier for the authorities to deal with these patent evils. Experience shows that the proportion of those who fail to meet their obligations is very small. A careful study of the young men in Harvard College during my career as a teacher, which now extends to a quarter of a century, has satisfied me that the percentage of those who go wrong under the system of freedom is very much less than under the old arbitrary, but ineffective, discipline. I am convinced, against my former prejudices, that we are on the right track, that our system is fitted to the time and state of our people, and that it promises to make youths ready for the service of society more quickly and certainly than the former method. N. S. SHALER, Harvard University.

THE question asked is one which seems, theoretically, to admit of an easy answer. And yet in practical university life there are not a few difficulties to be met. A boy should be directed and restrained; while to a man should be given the range of a large discretion. But the college student is often neither a boy nor a man; since, on the one hand, he refuses to be treated as a child, and, on the other, he finds it impossible to conduct himself like a human being that has passed the period of infancy. Reference is here made, of course, to that species of featherless biped which at times, especially when taken alone, seems to show many of the characteristics of rational intelligence, but which, when merged into a crowd of its fellows, is apt, on the least provocation, to part with its power of thought and lapse into all manner of irrational ways. What shall be done with such a creature is one of the practical problems that the college official has to meet.

It goes without saying that in every college community in which the atmosphere is fairly wholesome the great mass of students need no government whatever. If they know what the university requires of them, that is enough. But there are likely to be a few who refuse with more or less persistency to be included in this class. There is the lad who comes to the university with no very grave faults, but who is possessed with the notion that

the chief end of man is to have what he calls " a good time." He is not intemperate or immoral, according to the conventional usage of those words, but he has great energy of nature, and his pent-up enthusiasms crave that kind of excitement which comes from an energètic cane-rush or a good a good case of hazing. There is another who is not troubled with any craving for such laborious recreation, but is stubbornly indifferent to anything that comes in his way. He accepts whatever is offered with placid equanimity, and never either experiences enthusiasm or indulges in disgust. In short, he is what is called a good boy, and has no bad habits, except, possibly, that of not passing examinations. Then there is the class with positively vicious inclinations. These are they who frequent places of ill repute, and drag others in their train. They usually are endowed with certain elements of strength that enable them to stand up under a larger amount of dissipation than their fellows can carry. They are sometimes good scholars, and they often have the reputation of being what are called good fellows. They are apt to go straight to the bad; but sometimes they face about and become useful men. It is with such classes that the governing officer has to deal; for in the matter of discipline and government he has no occasion to think of the ninety-and-nine that need no repentance.

One of the first things to be insisted upon is the doctrine that every student will be regarded as an individual person and not as a member of a class. There is nothing more likely to fail than to attempt to deal with a class or a set as a whole. The most obdurate offender, when taken alone, can often be influenced by reason, but when he is arraigned in the presence of classmates, his pride is enlisted on the wrong side of the case, and the effect is almost certain to prove unsuccessful. Many a college officer has found to his sorrow that a class meeting is capable of infinite folly, and if the notion comes to prevail that a class can have any influence whatever in shaping faculty action, bad results will be almost certain to follow. It may be stated as a rule that the best elements of a class do not direct class action. The meetings very generally consist of what may be called the fermenting elements of the class. The most judicious men are quite apt to think it is as well to attend to their own business as to devote themselves to the business of others. They therefore temperately refrain from having too much to do with the ardent spirits of the class. And

so it often happens that a class meeting is a sort of juvenile caucus, without that shrewd regulating element which persistent experience is, in the end, sure to develop. Under this condition of class organization and custom it is not strange that the wrong thing is quite as likely to be recommended as the right thing. Hence it is not unwholesome to have the notion prevail in a college that a class meeting will injure any cause that it recommends. It is unwholesome to have the opinion prevalent that affairs are in the hands of the boys.

It may well be inferred that these views are not compatible with what may be called the democratic form of university government. There are probably few things more needed in America than a spirit of respectful obedience to recognized authority. It is as true as it is trite to say that a man is never fit to command till he knows how to obey. Our educated classes should not have this part of their education neglected. It is because this very important element of our education is not neglected in our Government schools that all over the world our military and naval officers are recognized and praised for those qualities which mark them unmistakably as belonging to a distinguished order of gentlemen.

Students as a class have no respect for hesitation or weakness: on the contrary, they have a real admiration and liking for power. Of course, power must rest upon reason and must be exercised with wisdom. If the student community is convinced that the authority of the faculty is generally wielded in a spirit of reasonableness, it will have far more respect for the source of that authority than it would have if the faculty were to show distrust of themselves by calling in the advice of those whom it is their business to guide and teach. If the assumption of superiority of the professor over the student in judgment as well as knowledge is to be abandoned, why is the student any longer to seek instruction?

Undoubtedly, authority must be exercised with great discretion. It is probably true that in general the colleges have far too many rules. There is nothing more unfortunate than the supposition on the part of students that anything is admissible provided it has not been specifically prohibited. Almost equally pernicious is the habit of nagging students for their small faults. Far more wholesome results may be obtained by the inculcation of general principles, leaving the application VOL. CXLIX.-No. 392.

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