THE COLLEGE DIRECTORY.

THE December number of the "Old and New" contains the College Directory for 1874 - 75, and the statistics to be gleaned from it are very interesting.

The American tendency to apply the name of "college" to every school that attempts to impart anything beyond the first rudiments of knowledge is well shown here. There are three hundred and thirty-five institutions mentioned in this Directory, which differ in everything but in name. At one of these institutions there are 1,330 students, and at another there are 7 students, but they are both called "colleges."

When a college has more than two hundred students it is entitled to be called "large," for the majority of the colleges of the United States contain, it seems, less than this number. In speaking of this abundance of small fry, the editor of the magazine says: "It is true that we are probably wasting force by multiplying the number of such institutions. One good one is better than five poor ones. It is not certain, however, that it is true that one large one is better than five small ones." He thinks, too, that "the bottom of all difficulties in the higher education here . . . . is the difficulty of obtaining first-rate teachers in large enough numbers." This difficulty seems to have been overcome at Harvard; for of all the Colleges in the United States which this Directory mentions, we have the largest number of "Officers of Instruction and Government."

But five of the 335 Colleges have more than a thousand students; they are,

Oberlin College, Ohio (for men and women), . . . . 1,330

Harvard, . . . . . 1,196

University of Michigan, . . 1,163

Columbia,. . . . . 1,114

Yale,. . . . . . 1,031

The indignant supporters of down-trodden woman will not find, from the statistics presented here, many arguments to support their cause. There are sixty-seven colleges mentioned where women are taught together with men, and twenty-eight more where they alone are admitted. The fact that these institutions do not have more students shows that it is not necessary to open any more at present. Vassar, of course, leads the list of Colleges only for women, and she has but four hundred and eleven students.

Still, it must be admitted, that the reports from Vassar give evidence of success, sufficient to rescue from doubt the possibility of training women in the branches of study pursued at our larger Universities.

The "Old and New" is doing a great service to the educational interests of the country by collecting these statistics and publishing them regularly. In the future the numbers of the Magazine containing these facts will be invaluable for reference, and the yearly publication of the Directory will show clearly the progress each College is making.

The other parts of the December number are not without interest to undergraduates. Mr. Robert Grant, the class poet of '73, contributes a poem called "Hymen in Washington," which is very good, and is evidently more carefully written and more free than his poems of the same nature which used to appear in the Advocate. Mr. Hale also prints this month the address which he delivered in the summer to the graduating classes of Vassar and Cornell. It is called a "Life of Letters," and is well worth reading.

In fact, the "Old and New" for December may be called decidedly a number for undergraduates.