COLLEGE POLITICS.

DURING the somewhat heated discussions of college polities which were rife at the time of the Senior Class elections, it was frequently urged that certain measures were objectionable because they were not democratic. This appeared to be considered by many as a final argument. The moment that any plan was suspected of a character not thoroughly popular, that plan was ipso facto condemned. Good or bad, it was at once abandoned by the majority.

Whether this popular hatred of anything which savors of oligarchy is or is not desirable depends upon the object of the class elections. If this object is to elect the men who may at the moment chance to be most popular or most widely known among their classmates, the purely democratic elections which we have this season witnessed attain it with comparative certainty. If, on the other hand, the object is to elect to each office the person best calculated to fill it with credit, it is by no means so certain that democracy should be the leading characteristic of the elections.

The theory of government at present popular can be reduced to the following simple proposition. The best government is that by which the greatest happiness is secured for the greatest number of people. The greatest number of people are happiest when they have their own way. And, consequently, the best government is that which permits the greatest number of people to have their own way.

The result of the practice of this theory - whether observed in national or in college politics - is not all that can be wished for. It cannot be denied that offices are frequently assigned to persons totally unfit to hold them; and while it would be folly for a student to venture to advance his opinions upon the proper government of a great nation, an expression of his theory of the proper constitution of a college class is by no means so ridiculous.

A body of men, varying in numbers between one hundred and fifty and two hundred, enter college together. For the most part they are strangers to each other, and the vast differences in antecedents, in habits, in tastes, and in character which cannot but be found among them, prevent them from forming one great circle of friends. They cannot but separate into cliques, more or less distinct; and they cannot in four years become so completely familiar with the character of every classmate that they can unhesitatingly declare that a certain man is best fitted to hold a certain office. It is safe to say that the majority are forced to accept one of two alternatives, - to vote for a candidate with whom they are personally unacquainted, and of whose merits they know only from the testimony of others; or to back steadily the man of their acquaintance who appears to them to be best fitted for the place. As each man's acquaintance is different from that of his neighbor, and as each man's opinion is generally formed in a manner peculiar to himself, a conscientious adherence to the last method would tend to produce a number of candidates positively appalling. Most are sensible enough to perceive this, and most cast their votes for regular nominees, although cases have been known in which infatuated persons have unsuccessfully backed a single idol for every office on the list.

It seems, then, to be generally allowed that an agreement upon certain nominations is absolutely necessary to a satisfactory election, and the only dispute is in regard to the manner in which these nominations are to be made, - whether by regularly organized bodies, or by knots of individuals hastily gathered together for the purpose.

The college societies are limited in numbers, and their constitutions are such that an election to any one of them is a decided honor, - is a certificate of the possession of certain qualities which tend to fit a man for a prominent position. The members of these societies are elected with great care, and usually with great deliberation. Each class admits from the class which follows a few men, chosen with care from among the entire body of their classmates. These few men meet together from time to time, and elect others from their own class to join them, forming in the end a carefully chosen body, which will include, on the whole, the most prominent and the most deservedly prominent men in their class. Every man whose character and ability fit him to become a member of a society has usually an opportunity to do so. A non-society man, as a rule, either chooses or deserves his position.

The societies are limited in number, and are frequently assembled at meetings. In the course of a few months every member is sufficiently intimate with his fellows to be able to pronounce upon their merits, and to declare intelligently their fitness or unfitness for the various offices which it is necessary to fill.

These societies differ in character. In some the literary element is predominant; in some, the social. The most prominent class-offices differ in like manner. For some, marked literary ability is required; for others, that social ease which, for want of an English term, we call savoir faire. It is but reasonable to suppose that the men who possess these characteristics to the most marked degree, and who are therefore best fitted to fill the offices for which these characteristics are required, will, as a rule, be members of the societies whose object is to promote these very characteristics. It is but reasonable to suppose that a limited body of literary men, who have been gathered together at short intervals for a considerable time, will be able to nominate the literary representatives of a class with more accuracy than will the greater number of outside barbarians, whose attention has never been regularly drawn to the subject, and whose judgment has never had a chance for regular exercise; and it is still more reasonable to suppose that a limited number of men of fashion can select a more fitting incumbent for a purely social office than can a great assemblage, to many of whom society is but a name. As men must be nominated, then, it would seem decidedly best that they should be nominated by bodies which avowedly possess the qualifications adapted to securing good nominations.

This plan is certainly not democratic, and it may at first sight appear unjust. That many excellent men might be excluded from positions which they are fitted to hold cannot be denied; but in this, as in all political matters, the subject must be regarded in a very general way. It should be remembered that the members of every class enter college, as infants enter the world, on perfectly equal terms, and that the subsequent differences in their positions are due in a great degree to their antecedents, to their characters, and to their abilities. And, on the whole, it can hardly be denied that this oligarchical method will in the end secure the best class-officers.