tion, in the sheltered harbor of a college campus, the storms that vex the open sea of life. These will come soon enough. There is a golden mean,-and like other golden means it is not easy to find,between ignoring actual life and prematurely thrusting the young into it. We need not send boys to the demons, who infest the walks of men, to be tormented before the time. Let us by all means prepare the young for real life, and not for Utopia. Yet, let us not push them into life while preparing them for it.

Is society, however, constructed on the prize plan, as our college usages embody it? In every country there are fewer good places and appointments than there are inhabitants. Of necessity some, many even, must do without them. The family circle, the schoolroom, and the college community all abound with excellent preparation for these disappointments. In the roughest country schoolhouse there are warm seats in winter, and cool seats in summer, which only a few can secure. All others must be contented without them. The plays, associations, and societies of boys and young men have many assignments and elections which leave some in disappointment. All these give a fine training for the prizes of after-life. But do we often find in mature life prizes and choice positions that are decided by close examinations? For instance, quite recently there was a vacancy in the faculty of one of our historic universities. Rumor says there were not less than twenty applicants. Of necessity there were nineteen men more or less seriously disappointed. If these twenty applicants had been subjected to a prolonged exami nation which was numerically estimated; if the result had been announced in the form of a list of names, the successful name coming first with its arithmetical value opposite, followed by the others at irregular intervals of units and fractions, there would probably have been not only nineteen disappointed men, but perhaps as many mortified men, and almost as many indignant men. The trustees who filled that vacancy will not declare that the man of their choice is demonstrably the best Greek scholar in the list. There are two material difficulties in the way of such an assertion. have never had the privilege of comparing him with each of the others. 2. If this opportunity had been offered, many of those trustees would have the truthfulness and courage to confess that, in the matter of measuring higher Greek scholarship by fractions and hair-breadths, they were not expert.

1. The trustees

These valuable places in life usually depend on reputation, on a generous exaggeration of a man's worth, by his friends, to be generously discounted by opposing opinions and preferences on the part of

the friends of other men, and on other influences and elements. College life will afford ample room and time for the frequent rehearsal and practice of these lessons. We need not gratuitously furnish our students with tests and prizes, successes and failures, mortifications and triumphs, involving a sharpness and insidiousness not often found in the competitions of real life. It may not be best to subject our children to tests, under which the patience, temper, and genial tone of their fathers might give way. The least objectionable prizes are, perhaps, those awarded by a committee of strangers for a single specimen of oratory, for instance. It has been wisely suggested that it might be best to give to the body of students some voice in the assignment of prizes for scholarship.. A special reason for this is, that students know, as the faculty can never know, the habits of study of their associates. They might sometimes be able to throw light on the secret genesis of an imposing examinationpaper. A general reason is, that this will be one step toward making the whole procedure more like real life. It would become more impersonal by the number of the judges. It would approach more closely to the free criticisms, the compensations, the checks of a popular election. Arthur Helps truly says, "If honors were supposed to be given strictly according to merit, that would aggravate the discomfort of the unsuccessful, that is of the great majority of us in the world. At present men find ready consolation in the thought, which is a just one, that not only is merit frequently left unrewarded, but that oftentimes it stands fatally in the way of worldly success."

Where is the office, in Church or State, that we can confidently promise to our pupils on the condition that they can safely pass a close examination on any branch of learning, or in any test of character? We can only tell them that, in proportion as they are faithful to their individual endowments, the probabilities increase that they will stand among those from whom society often calls men to places of profit and honor. Let us come more immediately to the question by speaking of some features in the prize-system:

1. Very few are affected by it, in any way. Not one student in ten aims at a medal or an honor. The great majority of students steadily refuse to respond to any such appeals. The great body of college-work is done without any help from prizes. If so homely an expression may be used, the prize-system, if intended to prize up the average mass of students, is a conspicuous failure. And it is only in a narrow range of effort that these inducements can be offered with any propriety. You cannot offer a prize to the most generous, the most truthful, the most unselfish, or the most humble. You offer them only for accom

plishments and achievements, which, while they rank deservedly high in the technical estimate of school-life, sink to a subordinate rank when we take a wide and generous view of life in all its manifold relations.

2. Let us notice this system, as it affects the successful students. These are, of necessity, a small part of the few who try to gain prizes. Only the smallest part of the small fraction can succeed. These must run the gauntlet of dangers in failure or success, such as the danger of over-exertion with its remorseless penalty on body, mind, and morals; as also the danger of neglecting other duties just as important as the one marked with the golden label. We suppose the student to safely avoid all these risks, and to succeed. It must now be said that he has been urged by motives not the highest. Generous natures may respond to such appeals, but they are generous in spite of this disposition, not by reason of it. This successful man has studied chiefly to outstrip his fellows. Cases are almost unknown where a student has declined a prize, saying, "I have not studied for this. If you pronounce me first in the group where I stand, that is an incident or accident that did not enter into my calculation, and which I do not value. Let thy reward be to another." The student in such cases is moved mainly by the resolution, "I will be first." And this is very near to another, "I will not be second." He who begins life with these selfish maxims, prepares the way for chronic restlessness and for final defeat. It cannot be the will of our Creator that each one of us should try to be first. Earthly society becomes like a pandemonium, in proportion to the number of men who act on these avowed purposes. Our country does not need a generation of men who are set on fire by this energy. We talk often about the evils of ignorance. They are many and fearful. We may, perhaps, overlook the unhappiness of the man who is stimulated by the fierce competitions of educational life, and who rushes into the great world with complacent and exaggerated views of his own abilities and claims, yet little fitted for the common work of life. In a peculiar sense the venerable proverb is true to him, "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."

It has been well said "that the heart has some intellect, but the intellect has no heart." The play of fierce passions may be as keen in intellectual contests as on the race-course or at the gaming-table. Sometimes the dreadful reaction comes on at once. The prize is scarcely in the hand when the disappointing "Is this all?" springs to the lips, and the envied hero of the crowded chapel, with the generous applause still thundering in his ear, is not a happy man. The

strain on body, temper, mind, and spirit is often severe; and after all, the proof is only that he is in some respects above those immediately around him. The prize has no absolute meaning or significance. It is only relative. It only means that his classmates know less than he does. It gives to society no proof that he is learned, or even a lover of learning. Thomas Carlyle, long ago, said that "He is not a strong man who takes convulsions, though seven men cannot hold him; but he is the strongest man who can take up the heaviest burden and stand the longest under it." He is not the best student, or the most generous lover of wisdom, who, to gain a palpable prize, can spend a few sleepless hours. He may do that and still shrink. and shrivel up into a keen, cold, selfish, even sensual man.

3. Let us look at the system as it affects the unsuccessful. These make up the great majority of all who are moved by prizes. It is an unfortunate feature of a system that dooms necessarily the great majority of its followers to disappointment and defeat. Just in so far as these have studied for prizes they have the painful sense of failure. There are not a few, we hope, who, with the generous elasticity of pure-minded youth, can instinctively throw off the temptation to consciously wrong tempers and feelings. But we have to speak of common men and natural tendencies. Trench says the doctrine of human depravity may be proved from the dictionary. Perhaps the words in common use by those in prize-rings may bear testimony to the dangers that lie in this stimulus. Those who strive together are apt to fall into strife. Contending leads to contention. The common word contest is ominous, and so are triumph, victor, and defeat. Zealous and jealous sound very much alike. Animation in such efforts may easily lead to animosity. The literal phrase, "One ran against another for the prize," suggests the possibilities of collision. To sum up the result of a struggle in the statement, "John beat William," is ambiguous and suggestive. The English phrase, “Senior Wrangler," is, to say the least, not a very happy name for a peaceful victor. The words fellow-students, classmate, are softening, educating, uniting. But the words competitor, rival, are not so. If you try to say fellowcompetitor, or rival-mate, you perhaps commit an etymological as well as a moral solecism. Many competitors do, perhaps, withstand the tendency of all these antagonizing impulses. But they, above all others, did not need prizes to draw them out. He who has a moral tone which enables him to "breathe in tainted air," could surely have been aroused by some of the many appeals which can be safely made to students. Surely, motives can be offered which are free from these obvious dangers. All the noblest rewards offered to our race, in the

sphere of moral interests, are free to all. If I lose mine, it cannot be because another has come in before me. It must be because I am slothful or faithless. Cannot the ideal college world be a broad plane, or a succession of high planes, on which many may find ample room to walk abreast? Why make educational life a sloping, slipping pyramid, on whose sharp, selfish top only one human being can stand? Give full scope to all the best native impulses of the young, which will urge them to say cheerfully to their fellows, "Come, let us all go upward." Do not lead them into the temptation, where one is urged to say to his friend, "My success depends on my getting ahead of you." Southey used to show his rare old volumes to friends, saying, “You never saw that edition before, did you?" and when the expected answer came, "No," he would say with the naturalness of a child, 'I would be very sorry if you had seen it before." It is not best to place the young student where he is tempted to say to his friend, "I am very glad your knowledge was not greater." We quote again from the wise pages of the late Arthur Helps: "The riding-school seems to furnish a good model. Put a bar up and say, 'All those who leap over this shall be considered good horsemen,' and then the youths who do succeed in leaping over it will congratulate one another and have a feeling of pleasant companionship rather than a bitter rivalry with each other. You may have as many bars as you like, of different heights, in order to test different degrees of excellence in horsemanship; but do not inquire too curiously into the exact merits of each individual rider, nor seek to put him in what you may call his proper place. That will be found out soon enough when they all come to ride across country,-the difficult country of public or professional life."

4. The prize-system in its relation to the body of the students is, at best, negative if not positively hurtful. You lose for them the healthy example of your foremost men, who are obviously moved by the prizes. The common men stand off, take sides, perhaps bet on results, but are not quickened by the artificial zeal of their ambitious fellow-students.

5. The relation of this system to the public may be very briefly noticed. At a late commencement the distinguished gentleman invited to address the societies was asked to act as chairman of the committee to award a prize. He declined from motives that met the sympathy and approval of thoughtful men. There is, perhaps, some danger that the excitement of winning and bestowing prizes may bring into our educational assemblies, on commencement occasions an element and an atmosphere not the most favorable to the best educational work.