DRURY COLLEGE.

IN a so-called progressive country like ours, where invention after invention is developed from the ingenious Yankee mind with startling rapidity, and where institutions of learning are scattered as rapidly as the products of the Patent Office, it is no easy task to keep posted on the latest improvements, and ignorance of the progress of education may sometimes be pardoned. Still, we felt we were behind the times when we were obliged, after reading on a catalogue the name of Drury College, to confess that we had never heard of it before. A perusal of the catalogue has given us some idea of how they furnish young ladies and gentlemen with a liberal education in Missouri.

Drury was founded in 1873, on the principles of co-education. From it we gather the interesting statement that "young gentlemen can take their meals at the Ladies' Boarding Hall at $2.50 a week," and the general regulation that "gentlemen shall not visit the rooms of the lady students, nor ladies the rooms of the gentleman students." Care has been taken that young ladies and gentlemen shall not quarrel, for we read that "scuffling, noisy sports, and disorderly company" (whatever that may be) are at all times strictly prohibited. Drury is even ahead of Dartmouth in the way of reforming college morals. To quote again from the rules: "Students must wholly abstain from all profane, vulgar, or unbecoming language. They must not use any intoxicating liquors as a beverage, nor go to any billiard or bowling saloon."

The courses of study for the four years embrace about as much classical reading as men do here in the advanced sections of the Freshman year, and as much mathematics as is required in our lowest divisions. We are pleased to learn that Rhetoricals are continued throughout the four years, and though our ideas about them are a trifle vague, we fancy they are very instructive. A weekly exercise in the English Bible is held, which all students are required to attend.

The catalogue alludes to the many advantages in the way of art-schools, music-schools, preparatory department, etc., which the college affords, but lays peculiar stress on the location. Springfield, Missouri, the seat of this Institution of Learning, is celebrated, we are told, for its salubrious climate. The heats of summer are there less intense than in many places farther north, while this elysium is yet far enough south to escape the "rigors of northern winters." "At the same time the clear, dry air, entirely free from the malaria which infects so many parts of the West and Southwest, acts as a clarifier of the blood, and a gentle tonic to the energies of persons enfeebled by long inhaling the pestiferous air of ague-breeding regions." One would fancy it a charming place for fellows obliged to leave college on account of ill health. But we caution such against the examinations. They have them once a month! The annual examination takes place at the end of the College year, and is conducted before "a disinterested committee of gentlemen of education from various districts of the State." The catalogue does not explain itself, but we suppose they are proctors.