paratory Department-a department which embraces, besides those preparing for the regular courses, a large number that study for a more limited time. This department is under the charge of a gentleman Principal, whose strength is expended chiefly upon oversight, classification, and discipline, and an associate Professor of Languages, who gives himself to the teaching of the advanced classes in Latin and Greek. The other classes in this department are taught by successful pupils (gentlemen and ladies) from the higher departments. After the Preparatory Department, we have two courses open to young ladies-the 'Ladies' Course,' and the regular 'College Course.' The Ladies' Course is a course of four years, requir ing, as conditions of entering, a good elementary English education, and a year's study of Latin. It embraces all the studies of the regular College course, omitting all the Greek and most of the Latin, omitting also the Differential and Integral Calculus, and adding lessons in French and Drawing, and some branches of natural science. Those pursuing this course recite with the college classes in the same studies. Separate classes are organized for the ladies in essaywriting until the commencement of the third year, when they are added to the Junior College class in this exercise. Their training in this department is limited to reading and writing, none of the ladies having any exercise in speaking. The great majority of our young ladies pursue this course, and it was supposed at the organization of the school that nothing farther would be required for them; but in 1837 four young ladies prepared themselves for the Freshman class, and were received upon their own petition. Since that time it has been understood that the College Course is open to young ladies, and we have always had more or less in the classes: sometimes the proportion of ladies to gentlemen in the course has been as high as one to four; at present it is one to ten. We have observed no special tendency to an increase in this proportion; for the last three years there has been a diminution. The ladies in this course are under the same general regulations and discipline as in the other course, and are responsible to the lady Principal. At the termination of their course they receive the regular degree in the Arts. Eighty-four ladies have received this degree, and three hundred and ninety-five have received the diploma of the Ladies' Course.

The Theological Department has never been opened to ladies, as regular members. Two young ladies attended upon all the exercises of the department through a three-years course, and were entered upon the Annual Catalogue as 'resident graduates pursuing the Theological course.' This was nearly twenty years ago, and we

have had no applications since. Doubtless the same privileges would be afforded as formerly.

The association of gentlemen and ladies out of the class-room is regulated as experience seems to require. They sit at the same table in families and in the Ladies' Hall. Young gentlemen call on ladies in a social way at the parlors of the Ladies' Hall and of private families, between the hour for tea and half-past seven in the winter, and eight o'clock in the summer. They walk in groups from one class-room to another, as convenience and their sense of propriety may dictate, with the help of a suggestion, if needed, from thoughtful and observing friends. Now and then the young ladies have permission to attend an evening lecture given under the auspices of the College, and in such case to accept the attendance of young men. No such association is permitted in the case of religious meetings. They do not ride or walk together beyond the limits of the village, except on a holyday, under special arrangements. There is no association of the sexes in literary societies, or other voluntary and independent organizations.

It seemed necessary to give this detail of arrangements, that the conditions upon which the solution of the problem has been conducted with us may be fully understood. In speaking of results, I wish to be understood as giving not merely my own individual judgment, but the unanimous opinion, so far as I understand it, of all who have had responsibility in connection with the school. If there has been any diversity of sentiment on the subject, it has been unknown to me. Others might choose different terms in which to express their opinions, but I shall endeavor to make no statement from which I suppose that any one of those that are or have been associated in this work would dissent.

Among the advantages which seem to be involved in the system, as we have observed its operation, are the following:

1. Economy of means and forces. The teaching force and other apparatus required in all the higher departments of study is made available to a larger number. In most Western Colleges the higher classes might be doubled without any detriment, and often with great advantage. Scarce any one of these schools has had larger classes than our own, and yet only once or twice have we had occasion to make two divisions in any college class, including the ladies pursuing the same study. In the preparatory department, classes must be multiplied on account of numbers; but in the higher departments of instruction, where the chief expense is involved, the expense is no greater on account of the presence of

ladies. If a separate establishment were attempted for ladies, affording the same advantages, the outlay in men and means would have to be duplicated; or, as would often happen, the force would have to be divided, and the advantages as well. Of course, if there were obvious disadvantages in the arrangement, the argument from economy would have essentially no weight. We must have the best system of higher education at any necessary cost.

2. Convenience to the patrons of the school. It has been a matter of interest with us to note the number of cases in which a brother is accompanied or followed by a sister, or a sister by a brother. I can not give exact statements upon this point; but it is an interesting and prominent feature in our operations. This is most convenient and wholesome; each is safer from the presence of the other; and the inducements to attend school, to the one or the other, are increased by the possibility of having each other's company. The want and tendency in this direction are shown in the fact that in the vicinity of every flourishing college, opened for young men only, a ladies' school, equally flourishing, is almost sure to be established, requiring afterward a good degree of vigilance to keep apart those who have thus naturally come together.

3. Another advantage we find in the wholesome incitements to study which the system affords. This is a want in all schools, provided for often by a marking and grading system involving a distribution of honors and prizes. An acknowledged defect in this plan, not to speak of any thing unwholesome in the spirit of rivalry which it induces, is in the fact that it appeals to comparatively few in a class. The honors are few, and the majority soon cease to strive for them. The social influence arising from the constitution of our classes operates continuously and almost equally upon all. Each desires for himself the best standing that he is capable of, and there is never a lack of motive to exertion.

It will be observed, too, that the stimulus is the same in kind as will operate in after life. The young man, going out into the world, does not leave behind him the forces that have helped him on. They are the ordinary forces of society, and require no new habits of thought or action in order to their effective operation. We have introduced a marking system into the recitation-room, pertaining solely to the performance there, and used for the information of teachers and guardians, and the pupil himself: not for the assignment of grade or distribution of honors, or for any publication whatsoever. We rely upon the natural love of a fair standing with teachers and associates as the supplement to the higher motives for exertion, and have not found it a vain reliance.

4. Again, the social culture which is incidental to the system is a matter of no small importance. To secure this the student does not need to make any expenditure of time, going out of his way, or leaving his proper work for the pleasure or improvement resulting from society. He finds himself naturally in the midst of it, and he adjusts himself to it instinctively. It influences his manners, his feeling, and his thought. He may be as little conscious of the sources of the influence as of the sunlight or the atmosphere; it will envelope him all the same, saving him from the excessive introversion, the morbid fancies, the moroseness, which sometimes arise in secluded study, giving him elasticity of spirits, and ease of movement, and refinement of character, not readily attained out of society. It seems desirable that our young men especially should enjoy these advantages during the period of their course of study, while the forces that form character work most efficiently.

5. Closely connected with this influence is the tendency to good order which we find in the system. The ease with which the discipline of so large a school is conducted has not ceased to be a matter of wonder to ourselves. One thousand students are gathered from every state in the Union, from every class in society, of every grade of culture-the great mass of them, indeed, bent on improvement, but numbers sent by anxious friends with the hope that they may be saved or recovered from wayward tendencies. Yet the disorders incident to such gatherings are essentially unknown among us. Our streets are as quiet by day and by night as in any other country town. There are individual cases of misdemeanor, especially among the new comers, and now and then one is informed that his probation has been unsatisfactory; but in the regularly organized classes of the College and Ladies' Departments, numbering from two to four hundred in constant attendance, the exclusions have not on the average exceeded one in five years, and in one instance a period of more than ten years elapsed without a single exclusion from these classes. This result we attribute greatly to the wholesome influence of the system of joint education. The student feels that his standing and character are of grave consequence to him, and he is predisposed to take a manly attitude in reference to the government and regulations of the school. An admonition in the presence of the students assembled in the chapel has always been more dreaded by an offender than a private dismis. sion. Offenses against propriety, that in a body of young men forming a separate community would seem to be trivial, change their aspect when the female element is added to the community; and

that better view adds greatly to the force of wholesome regulations. From the beginning, the use of tobacco has been prohibited to our students. In the presence of ladies the regulation has a force and significance that could not be otherwise secured, and has been maintained with a good degree of success. College tricks lose their wit and attractiveness in a community thus constituted. They are essentially unknown among us. There are no secret societies, and, so far as I know, there has been no tendency toward them. The relations of the classes to each other are comfortable and desirable. With a sufficient degree of class feeling to give unity and collective force, there is an entire absence of the antagonisms which sometimes appear in college life. It may be a mistake to attribute this fact in any degree to the social constitution of the school, but it seems to me to be a natural result. The general force of the society controls and limits the clannish tendency. We have had no difficulty in reference to conduct and manners in the college dininghall. There has been an entire absence of the irregularities and roughnesses so often complained of in college commons.

6. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that the arrangement tends to good order and morality in the town outside of the school. Evils that might be tolerated, in the shape of drinking-saloons and other places of dissipation, if young men only were present, seem intolerable where ladies are gathered with them. The public sentiment requires their suppression. Of course, this influence alone would not be sufficient; but it increases and intensifies the moral forces of the place which withstand their introduction.

7. Another manifest advantage is in the relations of the school to the community-a cordial feeling of good will, and the absence of that antagonism between town and college which in general belongs to the history of universities and colleges. The absence of disorder in the school is the prime condition of this good feeling; but beyond this, the constitution of the school is so similar to that of the community that any conflict is unnatural: the usual occasion seems to be wanting.

8. It can hardly be doubted that young people educated under such conditions are kept in harmony with society at large, and are prepared to appreciate the responsibilities of life, and to enter upon its work. They will not lack sympathy with the popular feeling, or an apprehension of the common interests. They are naturally educated in relation with the work of life, and will not require a reädjustment. This seems a matter of grave importance, and we can scarcely be mistaken as to the happy results attained. If we are