s the West-Pointers submit to in regard to their
uniforms. For the real idea of the cap and gown is to encourage
discipline, order, and neatness. We fancy that it is the mission of woman
in this generation to show the world that the tendency of woman to an
intellectual life is not, as it used to be said it was, to untidy habits.

A TENDENCY OF THE AGE

This ingenious age, when studied, seems not less remarkable for its
division of labor than for the disposition of people to shift labor on to
others' shoulders. Perhaps it is only another aspect of the spirit of
altruism, a sort of backhanded vicariousness. In taking an inventory of
tendencies, this demands some attention.

The notion appears to be spreading that there must be some way by which
one can get a good intellectual outfit without much personal effort.
There are many schemes of education which encourage this idea. If one
could only hit upon the right "electives," he could become a scholar with
very little study, and without grappling with any of the real
difficulties in the way of an education. It is no more a short-cut we
desire, but a road of easy grades, with a locomotive that will pull our
train along while we sit in a palace-car at ease. The discipline to be
obtained by tackling an obstacle and overcoming it we think of small
value. There must be some way of attaining the end of cultivation without
much labor. We take readily to proprietary medicines. It is easier to
dose with these than to exercise ordinary prudence about our health. And
we readily believe the doctors of learning when they assure us that we
can acquire a new language by the same method by which we can restore
bodily vigor: take one small patent-right volume in six easy lessons,
without even the necessity of "shaking," and without a regular doctor,
and we shall know the language. Some one else has done all the work for
us, and we only need to absorb. It is pleasing to see how this theory is
getting to be universally applied. All knowledge can be put into a kind
of pemican, so that we can have it condensed. Everything must be chopped
up, epitomized, put in short sentences, and italicized. And we have
primers for science, for history, so that we can acquire all the
information we need in this world in a few hasty bites. It is an
admirable saving of time-saving of time being more important in this
generation than the saving of ourselves.

And the age is so intellectually active, so ea