THAT ancient adage, "College is a world by itself," to which the century and a half of Yale bear abundant testimony, has the force of an axiom. To one in the least conversant with the inner administration and conduct of College, no proof of it need be adduced; it is indeed self-evident. Peculiarly governed, possessed of peculiar politics and laws, with its cares and joys, a spot to which memory will, with fond affection, ever return, the position of College, at this time, should be regarded with a due attention by collegians, its own sons.

Students come to College to study. Despite of contrary assertions claiming that there are other and higher objects of the course than study, such as social activity, high literary culture, or improvement of faculties, other than mental, the main end of a student's life is study. Such is the almost universal testimony, for never a Freshman came here, without this end in view; never a Senior, upon graduating, if deficient in this point, who did not regret his loss. Its constant abuse only renders the principle more firmly established. But study is not our sole object; there are indeed other and grand ideas which every collegian should strive to fulfil, yet always mindful of the great fact that study, literary effort, and other kindred pursuits are but the materials on which to found the enduring structure of life. There is a world outside of these College walls, for the improvement of which College was designed, and yet the daily life here, even at the present

moment, when assuredly a comprehension and thorough acquaintance with the times is to be expected of students, apparently aims to render this object null and void. The sin may be one of omission, rather than of commission, yet the neglect of outside life, its theories and its ever-occurring events, lowers intelligence, vitiates study, and strongly tends to demoralize not alone the scholarship, but also the position of College. The educational institutions of our country, obeying the spirit of the land, attempt preparation for a life essentially opposite to that favored by foreign universities; no such inducements to a scholastic retirement are proffered by them, as are extended to the student of Oxford or Heidelberg. The nature, habits and customs of the country, its character, constitution and very laws, by their own genius, call loudly upon us for a life of activity; and it is wrong to deny the validity of this call, actually a crime not to respond, while here, by preparation and attention thereto; not to be "up and doing." Further, if the testimony of those who have gone before us may be considered valuable, we are not to look upon College as a mere preparation for a professional course, nor regard it as an excellent subordinate drill for this end, while we fail to see in it anything beyond. Every Class Oration indeed abounds in allusions to life-work and life-duties, to which the profession is but an appendage, but these are uttered by those themselves upon the eve of departure; distant from the great mass of College, they are notes of warning but little attended to. Therefore is it that so many make shipwreck of their existence here; they lack a due insight into the real idea of College life. Before they have fairly set sail upon their voyage, their only hope is wrecked; carelessness and dissipation, physical or mental, have shut in the view, and under their contracting influences, forgetful of the object of the four years spent here, or else entirely mistaking it, at its close they find themselves in a position whence escape is arduous in the extreme, it may be, impossible. While we are beginning to realize Retszch's sublime conception, let us not, at least in so early a stage of the game of life, darken and avert the countenance of our protecting angel, by a useless surrender, be it through neglect or mistake, not even by a hazard of each successive hope to our enemy; rather may that face be illumined with joy at our success, than that we fall vanquished by our own delinquencies. The failure to thoroughly comprehend the purpose of College life, and the consequent discord between the course pursued by the majority of students, and that proposed by each of them, both at the beginning of his course, and of each subsequent term, renders College to many not alone a gigantic disappointment, but an absolute injury.

A most prominent feature which would strike a careful observer into the ways and doings of College, and one which perchance equally with any other, would induce coincidence with the adage at the head of this article, is the ignorance common to all students; an ignorance to him apparently as amazing as it is peculiar to them. Nor would his observation be incorrect. These classic shades tolerate an extent of ignorance, a destitution of general information, which would be derided by those without their pale. The nature of student life, while it is removed from the whirl of business, with its attendant din and turmoil, and while it, in part, prompts attention to a different sphere from that regarded by men in active life, is forced from its proper purpose and ceases to fulfill its legitimate aim, when it teaches exclusion of these essentials. No system which has in view the formation, instruction and polish of the mind, the intellect, or which lays claim to any improvement of these, however slight, can be a correct, nay a trustworthy one when it ignores a practical application, while the improvement is being perfected. Now practice cannot follow upon theory, when the means which are to be made use of in producing that designed, are not even understood. Such is pre cisely the case in hand. If, in accordance with the commands of theory, we exercise the mind, and do so without a thorough knowl edge of the character of the means to be operated on, we must despair of a prosperous issue. General information is the key-stone to intelligence and understanding, for from its nature it cannot be otherwise; and this being neglected we make a failure from what should have been eminently a success. And yet how constantly, almost universally is this neglected! The student may be perfectly familiar with the character of Pericles and of Cincinnatus, and the deeds of the godlike Achilles may be as trite to us all as the wondrous love and the mournful hardships of silver-footed Thetis, and of the other bathycolpean heroines of the Iliad, yet we at the same time are distinguished by a most scholarly ignorance of the geographical divisions of our native land; we know little or nothing about the colonial history of America previous to the Revolution, and are as much in the dark concerning the past policy, as of the history of the government. To many of us the term "Federalist," for instance, suggests no idea; perfectly unsuspecting are we of the most splendid collection of State papers which ever favored the formation of, or gave counsel to a government, and, moreover, we may be wholly ignorant that such a party as the Federalist party ever had an existence. Nor are many of the terms of constant use in commercial and financial affairs more manifest to

us, while military rudiments and terms needed a war to call our attention to them! Indeed a wager might safely be laid that we are better acquainted with the lonchæ, peltae and oblong shields of antiquity, than with the most ordinary arms used in modern service; the tactics laid down by Plutarch were, until very recently, understood by fifty men where one was at all conversant with Hardee. Answer might be made, and perchance with reason, that the course of study prescribed does not embrace, or at least pays but slight regard to, topics most essential to a firm foundation of character. Antiquity, its customs, laws and governments receive especial notice, while modern civilization, with its history and practical workings, does not attain to a proper consideration. Whether the course of study prescribed, be the best one which could be devised under the circumstances, and whether improvement may not be suggested, is a matter not here debatable. It does not in the least invalidate the claims of individual effort, that it is unassisted by the prescribed course of study, nor does this furnish a pretext for neglect. Personal duty commands attention to something beyond the studies, and where are we to look for higher authority? The reason urged, that inasmuch as the College authorities do not set before us text-books upon most requisite matters, therefore we are excused from obligations to them, is both shameful and absurd. None would endure a system of College espionage, either in our daily life or in any project undertaken by us, in accordance with law and order; the books read, the ideas promulgated, the opinions formed are not made dependent on those who are, for the time being, the curators of our education; why then submit to an imagined despotism, one of our own creating? By our own act we can not fail to enslave ourselves if we are careless of general information in regard to the plans, practices and workings of life. Even in case we imagine ourselves down trodden by a tyrannical course of study, we might search long and in vain for an excuse founded upon this, and able to release us from the demands of Duty, for in so doing we force ourselves into self-deception.

The age, stirring as it is, calls aloud for men of action, and above all, for educated, active men. If ever men stood in need of a thorough, accurate education, not a mere drilling in the technicalities of a prescribed course, but a well established formation of the mind and the brain, they do now. The careful reading of history with the benefits which it bestows, acquaintance with man's character, general information-all gained in College, by individual effort, hand in hand with the regular studies, now make manifest their value. If these are made characteristics of students as a body, and not confined to appreciating