students in attendance have senior classes, in the classical course, numbering five and under. And sixty-two and a half per cent. have senior classes of ten and under. In all the colleges reporting, the average number in the senior class (classical) is eleven. Deduct ten of the largest colleges and the average senior class of the remainder is only eight; deduct twenty colleges and the others average senior classes of seven.

The number of graduates in a given period is a much better criterion of the work accomplished by an institution than the total number in attendance. A college is established to secure a specific result. Students resort to it to receive a certain amount of culture and discipline which is tested by examinations and indicated by the testimonial of the college. When the inquiry, then, concerns the amount of work done by an institution in twenty-five, or fifty, or a hundred years, it is equivalent to asking what has been its contribution to the number of liberally educated men. The question is not as to the number on the catalogue; not how many have been in attendance a few months, or a year, or two years, but as to the number who have completed to the satisfaction of competent judges the work necessary for a degree. To say of a college that it has given instruction to so many hundreds, in a given number of years, or thousands it may be, while it has graduated but a small fraction of those who have been enrolled in its regular elasses, is not quite the language of commendation. The inquiry at once suggests itself, what has become of the large fraction who did not complete the course?

What proportion of the students that are matriculated in the colleges of the country from year to year remain till their graduation, there is no means of knowing from published documents. The probability is that the number of graduates, taking all the colleges, is much less than half the number that enter. The only college, so far as I know, whose general catalogue contains the names of

all the members of the several classes, as well as the graduates, is Williams. In that institution for the sixty years, from 1820 to 1880, a little less than sixty-four per cent of the matriculates have finished the course. The statistics of Marietta give a ratio approximately the same; the graduates in her forty-eight classes being a little more than sixty-three per cent of the number matriculated.

As the course of study occupies four years, and the catalogue gives the members of the four classes, if a class during its course of four years suffered no diminution the number of graduates for a series of years would average one-fourth of the number on the catalogue for the same time. But losses will occur through death, sickness, poverty, etc., and if the graduates average onefifth of the names on the catalogue the record is a good one. Taking the forty-eight catalogues of Marietta the number of graduates is a little more than one-fifth the number enrolled on the catalogues. This permanence of students in a college may be expressed also by comparing the number of seniors with the number of freshmen for a series of years. For our whole history the seniors have been to the freshmen as seventy to one hundred. In some instances a class has numbered more at the close of the senior year than at the beginning of the freshman.

Including that of the present year the number of classes graduated, as already stated, is forty-eight, and the total number of graduates is five hundred and sixtysix, giving an annual average of twelve, nearly. Harvard College in its first forty-eight classes numbered three hundred and one graduates; and its annual average did not reach the number ten till it had sent out eighty-two classes; and to reach an average of twelve required eighty-eight years. Cornell University gives the first degree in the arts to six students the present year, and Washington and Lee University conferred but a single college degree the last year.

Our first class of graduates numbered four, and there

has been one other class of four. There have been three classes of twenty-two each. There have been fluctuations here as elsewhere. Most colleges have had classes of three, two, one. Four is our smallest class. Many institutions have occasional blanks in their early history. The forty-seventh class at Harvard numbered eleven; the next year was a blank, there being no graduates. Marietta has been fortunate in escaping the loss of an entire class. A small class one year does not imply a succession of small classes. In 1868 the number of graduates was a small one, as our record shows. But in the ten years. following there were more graduates than in any other ten years in our history. And three years after the graduation of that small class there was a larger number admitted than in any other year.

While, thus, looking at the succession of individual years, there have been fluctuations in attendance and in the number of graduates, there has been steady progress if we regard the decades of years. In the first nine years, covering the number of classes in the administration of the first president, the number of graduates was eighty-five. In the nine years of the second administration the number was ninety-three. In the first ten years of the third administration there were one hundred and nine graduates; in the second decade, one hundred and twenty-eight; and in the third, one hundred and fifty-one. Thus each period shows an advance over the one preceding it, the gain of the fifth over the fourth, however, being much the largest of all. The last decade shows also a higher degree of permanence than either of the preceding decades. The annual average of graduates for the whole period being a fraction over twenty per cent. of the number on the catalogue, the average for the last ten years is twenty-three per cent.

It is not strange that the friends of an institution should desire for it large classes. This is an indication of prosperity obvious enough to the most simple. But, as a test

of excellence, it is by no means trustworthy. The desire for large numbers is a temptation to make the terms of admission too easy to adapt the requirements to the attainments or lack of attainments of the candidate. The hospitality so characteristic of western homes is worthy of all commendation, but the hospitality of a college which is open to all comers, regardless of their fitness, does not commend itself. Unfortunately the ambition to secure students is not limited to the west or to institutions still young. Some of the oldest and richest colleges in the country seem to be as eager in the race for numerical supremacy as rival cities in the strife for growth in population. Western colleges that aim to do genuine and thorough work are thus exposed to a double embarrassment; obliged, on the one hand, to meet the strong desire for numbers manifested by colleges and universities that think more of the name than the reality, and on the other to encounter the strenuous efforts for patronage put forth by institutions of long standing and high repute that might better rely upon the prestige which comes from large endowments and historic fame.

If we look at the highest educational good of the student, the small college, other things being equal, has indeed the advantage. The method of instruction at the United States Military Academy, where the number in the recitation room is always very small, is unquestionably the best for the pupil. And one of the chief arguments for the elective system is that classes would be divided into sections and thus the instructors would be enabled to do their work more efficiently. Taking the whole period of our history the average number in the class room has been about fifteen. It can hardly be doubted that more improvement has been made, a better education secured, than if the number had been twice as great. With thirty in a class two sections would be necessary and that would require an increase of instructors. That hitherto the number of teachers in our larger colleges has not kept

pace with the increase in the number of students cannot be questioned, and in this respect therefore the character of their work has not improved. The evil of large numbers in a recitation room is obvious enough when those reciting together are of the same grade; it becomes much more serious when a portion of the students are two or three years behind the others in discipline and attainment. If the friends of Marietta are desirous that the classes should be larger, they must remember that this renders imperative a corresponding increase of endowment, if the same standard of excellence be maintained. It is worthy of notice that many of the successful men of the country have come from small colleges or from small classes. Of the nine gentlemen composing the present Supreme Court of the United States six were members of small classes and three of large classes. And one of these three spent the first three years of his course in a small college. In the first class of a prominent college in Illinois there were two graduates; one of them afterwards became the governor of that state. The late Judge Folger, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in the State of New York and afterwards Secretary of the Treasury under President Arthur, was the only graduate of his class.

The impression is prevalent that students often enter college too young; that maturity of years is requisite in order to profit by the course of study, and therefore, the older students derive more advantage than the younger. Our experience of fifty years does not confirm this. It shows, on the contrary, that when a lad is well prepared for entrance he is old enough to do the work required. The average age of our alumni at graduation is twenty-two years and seven-tenths. The average age of those who have held the highest rank in their respective classes is twenty-two and four-tenths. A very considerable number of these fell much below the average age. The influence of a well-arranged course of