Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-06-13
Our ColIeges, LlllIe ANA GreAl

New York Sun, 10TH.
Most of our college comnie nce.
ments take place between the middle
and the end of this month, from the
18th to the 30th, and the examinations
are now closing preparatory to the
winding up of the college year. Be
fore July comes, therefore, We shall
have turned out on society a great
host of newly hedged bachelors of
arts, who will have an opportunity OF
iustifying what their sheepskins say of
them. There will also be a fresh crop
of doctors Of law and doctors Of
divinity. whose learning in most cases
will, OF course, be an amusing fiction
of their diplomas. But how could
We keep up all our colleges if they did
not thus crafty the vanity of men 2
There is nothing in the constitution
to prevent schoolmasters and trustees,
banded together in what they call a
college, from writing as many capital
letters as they please after the names
of their friends and patrons.
One of the most notable things in
the development of our system OF
college education is that while the
number of colleges has greatly H.
creased, tie less than half dozen lead
ing universities, the only schools
which are really entitled to such a
name, have simultaneously sWelled
the numbers Of their students so thai
the aggregate in two, at least, of them
has become large enough to be trouble
some. Harvard now enters classes
exceeding two hundred in number,
aud they are steadily getting more
numerous, while Yale, with a prepar-
atOry examination less rigorous, is also
admitting more young men than ever
before. The growth Of Harvard has
been SO great within the last quarter
Of q century that The number of its
living alumni has been increased to a
heavy total, and such an increase
means the further and steadily pro
gressive enlargement Of the classes
for Harvard graduates, where they are
able, are pretty SURF TO send their sons.
if they send them to college az all. to
the alma mater of which they have 80
proud and tender a memory. The bal
thus goes on growing in magnitude al
a rapidly increasing rate. What an
enormous college, therefore, must BE-
the ancient university Of which JohH
Harvard was the first benelactor, anC
to which he gave his name, when the
next century opensi
1t is probably his forecast of this al.
most inevitable growth which " atimu-
lating President Eliot, who is a young
and enterprising man, to the untirinl
efforts he is making to get money fol
che college from rich men without tht
restrictions as TO its use, which ham
per 50 many Of the existing endow
ments. He forsees the speedy eominl
OF the day when the most populou.
university OF the world will have it.
seat on Charles river.
But how is this great community O.
students TO be governed aud instruct
ed? Already there are complaint.
that the young men are running wild
and that each is SO small an atom O
the college world that he pursues hi
way almost unnoticed. The classes
too, are so large that the member
separate into e%liques, which are in
different or even hostile TO each otheI
aud the chief professors have person
ally next TO no intercourse with tn
students. This great and CROWN
company o fpupils in each class max,
necessary the steady enlargement
the machinery Of instruction, so III;
now the professors, tutors and body
teachers generally are alone greater i
numbers than the total Of teacher
and pupils in the majority of the 5,
called colleges of the country.