ties which he may meet afterward,
without which he must necessarily be at
a disadvantage, especially when he is
taking up new studies.
WE ought to have more lectures.
Scarcely once a year, except dur
ing Commencement week, do we have
the opportunity of listening to a discourse
from an eminent person. Hitherto our
only means of getting a lecturer has
been to engage him under the auspices
of some one of the organizations of the
students, generally the .Athletic Asso
ciation. •
A good lecture while a student's mind
is fresh with educational topics, goes
further to fix itself in his mind than at
any other time ; and has a tendency to
set him to thinking on lines which he
would not, had he not the opportunity
thrust upon him. At Commencement
every one is too busily engaged to think
candidly of what is being said, and if not
busy with his own affairs, he tires of the
tedious exercises so much that really he
little appreciates the importance
. of
them. Were they given from time to
time during the year, no doubt their
importance would be fully appreciated.
We seem to be in want of that which
the students of some institutions have
so much of, that they fail to appreciate
it as they should, evidehtly.
Could an arrangement be made so
that we can have at least one good lec
ture each term, it would be much ap-
THE FREE LANCE.
predated by the students and would
undoubtedly justify the trustees in
granting the privilege.
SO great is the abuse arising from the
systems of granting degrees in
America, that unless one is acquainted
with the circumstances under which a
would-be meritorious person has receiv
ed his degree, the term used means very
little. For several years there have
been institutions of such character, that,
for a compensation, without going as
far as to require an examination of the
candidate even, have conferred degrees
on persons not having a phase of the
advancement which the degree should
indicate they had.
Many students have and do now pur
sue courses of study in our colleges with
no other object than thus obtaining a
"handle" to their names, This means
to them the obtaining of a degree by
the easiest possible means, and leads to
a bad practice which has spread to un
deserving non-collegians. ' The practice
of mere land surveyors calling them
selves Civil Engineers, of carpenters
using the term Architect, and men en
gaged as machinists the term Mechani
cal Engineer, and many other examples
of men using such terms when they have
no learning in higher mathematics or de
signing, is through ignorance of the
meaning of such terms, promulgated by
the general public so much that many
use the terms without the sanction of