AN OUTGROWN CUSTOM.

It has often been remarked as strange that the oldest College in America should have so few customs surviving from tradition and it is true that when we look about us we can recognize few habits that have been imposed upon us by antiquity. One custom, one very antiquated custom, we still have, however, and it has very little to recommend its continuance save its antiquity. The custom referred to is the ringing of the College bell every morning at 7 o'clock.

In most instances the College authorities have allowed the students to regulate their personal habits in their own way. But in this case they presume to dictate that all who dwell within a certain distance of Harvard Hall, and especially those whose windows open towards that centre, shall be obliged to lie awake for the space of five minutes at 7 o'clock. The mode of life at the University has so changed in recent years that many students find no occasion, whatever for rising before 8 o'clock or even later. Why then should those who live within sound of this bell be subjected to this continual nuisance? The seven o'clock clang performs no conceivable useful function and only serves to add one unnecessary discomfort to the Yard dormitories.