science as
its sole object. Whatever tended to this object has been adopted:
everything else has been rejected as irrelevant. We are not concerned
in this place with the general reputation of the Sheffield Scientific
at home and abroad. Singling out only one of its many merits, we can
point to it with pride as the first institution to solve effectually
the knotty problem of discipline. The means of its success are
anything but occult. It has made its pupils feel from the moment
of entrance that they were young men, and must act as such. It has
refused to encumber itself with expensive and useless dormitories,
and the faculty has in the main left the students to themselves. But
whenever interference became necessary, it has acted promptly, without
undue haste or severity, and also without vacillation. Here, at least,
we do not find the ruinous practice of suspending a student one week,
only to take him back the next. The mere existence, then, of the
Sheffield Scientific--to say nothing of its success--by the side of
the powerful corporation of Yale College is fatal to every argument in
favor of the dormitory system.

Most of our colleges are situated in small towns. To this
circumstance, more than to any other, perhaps, is due the
exclusiveness which, in its exaggerated manifestations, is so puzzling
to the city visitor. Petty items of life and character, intrigues,
quarrels and social jealousies have an importance which the world
outside cannot understand. They affect the college more or less
directly. The professor finds it doubly hard to exercise his vocation
in a place where the details of his home life are known and exposed
to comment. The student's power for mischief is increased. He has
only too much reason for believing that he is indispensable from the
business point of view. Besides, as every one knows, close contact in
narrow circles has a tendency to cramp the mind. Trifling annoyances,
real or imaginary, are apt to rankle in the spirit unless they
be brushed away by the quick, firm touch of the great world.
_Kleinstaedtisches Leben_, despite its many advantages, fails to
develop the burgher in every direction. It leaves him one-sided, if
not exactly narrow-minded. Professor C.K. Adams, in his admirable
essay upon "State Universities,"[1] has touched upon this point with
reference to studies. His words should be carefully weighed: "If the
best education consisted simply of making perfect recitations and
ke