the: student does not realize that it is his own interest and not that of the Faculty that is mainly concerned in the maintainance of order. This very feeling is the cause of nearly all the college disturbances, and it is only by removing the cause that this trouble will disappear. Give the students more power to govern themselves. A system of govern ment has been tried at Amherst for the last ten years and has proven very successful. All matters of order, discipline, etc., are re ferred to a senate, at the head of which is the President of the college. Ten senators arc chosen from the college classes, four from the Senior, three from the Junior, two from the Sophomore, and one from the Fresh man, A student may be absent from one tenth of the recitations in any branch without being accountable to any one but himself; thus the government of the students is placed entirely in the hands of the President and the students themselves. The business of the Faculty is simply to teach. Compare with this system a college government, by which if one is unwell, he must go through three courses of red tape to get an excuse from recitation, and then make up the work and have a private recitation to the professor in charge. Then in regard to compulsory attendance at religious exercises. When a student has reached the age of twenty years, he can hardly be elevated in his religious character by attendance on religious worship, which is not voluntary. Compelled attendance is in consistent with genuine worship, and defeats its own end. In institutions founded and supported by the State, is this forced religion especially out of place. The State may be a Christian State, but to make attendance at religious worship a condition for enjoying the educational privileges of the State is a viola tion of the freedom of opinion and conscience inherited by every citizen. THE FREE LANCE. If more responsibility were given to young men in these directions, more character and individuality would undoubtedly be developed. But when a person has been trained up to the age of twenty-three or four in a puerile system of discipline, he has formed a habit of depend ence which will cling to him through life, and in a measure defeats the purpose of education. H. R. L. THE IMPROVEMENTS MADE AT OUR COLLEGE I Published fur the benefit of those of our Alumni, who have not been able to visit us within these years.l THE last few years have been marked by the general advance of higher education. All of our prominent universities and colleges have met with prosperity. At none have the changes wrought been greater than at P. S. C.; and especially is this true of the last two years. All the students have felt the spirit of progress pervading our atmosphere, and they have gained great faith as to the future of our alma mater. Her foundation is such that her future must be greater than the ma jority of institutions of our present capacity. It is worth while to not,e the advances within these last two years. In ’B7 ground was broken for a botanical laboratory with a conservatory annex; this was finished the same year. The botanical laboratory is a modest, substantial, two-and-a-half story building, containing several rooms, besides the main laboratory, which answer for offices and recitation rooms. It is situated within a convenient distance of the college. At a dis tance of about 600 feet to the south of this building stands the Armory and Assembly Hall, of striking architecture, which is one of the finest halls of its kind in the State. It contains all conveniences found in modern assembly halls, one of which is the dead floor, The seating capacity is from 1,500 to 2,000. FOR ALUMNI FROM ’B7 TO ’B9.
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