"For grave violations of good order, seven students were dismissed from college in the course of the year, and nineteen were suspended for periods varying from two to fifteen months." - Dean's Report.

This remark naturally will remind many of the latest case of suspension, which for a time excited no little comment, and has not yet been wholly forgotten. Of this case it is not my intention to speak particularly, but it has occurred to me that, however officious it may appear, still it is not altogether inappropriate to mention one or two objectionable things in the laws and in their administration.

The fact that there have been violations of good order, and of such a character as to call for severe measures, shows that not all the rules of the Faculty have been effectual. And when they have failed of their end, where dismission and suspension have been the penalties, it is no wonder that lesser offences have been frequent. Every one knows, too, that shouts of fire are heard as often now as they were Freshman year. Nor does the number of privates and publics for snowballing ever decrease because the men cease to snowball. It needs no seer to discover the reasons. Not one in fifty of those who shout from their windows can be reported; in snowballing there are few chances that a man will be observed; what would be called serious disorder many times escapes notice. To be sure, when a man is detected, the authorities are not slow to award him his punishment, but thirty-two or sixty-four demerits have little effect on most men. Besides, the trifling nature of many cases renders the idea of any penalties absurd. It would be an unpleasant thing to have a public for profanity sent home, but a public for noise or ball-playing in the yard bears no odium with it. At the worst, such offences are only offences against good manners.

Severe penalties are, however, sometimes adjudged for what seem to the majority of the students but trifles. I do not doubt that each one can think of examples in his own class where this has happened. Suspension under the best circumstances is open to the charge of injustice. It is hard to say that a man shall be deprived of all instruction by the College for three or six months for a mere technicality; because he failed to attend the requisite number of prayers, because he was absent a certain number of times from church without an excuse, because perhaps he was seen on Jarvis "Bloody Monday night." It is still harder to say that a man must be separated for a longer or shorter term from the University, because to what seemed to him a rude remark from an officer of government he made a rude reply. But when it happens that the charges against a man do not appear to be substantiated, then it is that the undergraduates are given to discussing the present system of penalties. There will probably no one be found who thinks that a man, even if caught in disorderly conduct at one end of the yard, should be held responsible for like occurrences at the other end, merely because they happened the same evening. No officer, when he detects a thief at one place, charges him with all the thefts that have occurred the same night. To be suspended with many men means to lose their good reputation, to regain which a long time will be necessary. It is desirable, therefore, to give the benefit of all the doubts to the student, rather than to treat him as presumptively guilty.

Our relations with our instructors are for the most part pleasant. There is not, as is said to be the case in many colleges, a continual state of warfare between students and professors. Their hesitation in dismissing a man is very grateful to us, while any requests on their part are usually heeded. From the President's remarks in his Report about compulsory attendance at all college exercises, there is hope that it will not be long before this is a thing of the past.

But I wish to suggest, what is not at all a new idea, that when students are amenable to the civil authorities they be left to them to be dealt with, that in cases of mere disorder in the yard or rooms the penalties be done away with. No one, I think, has noticed that smoking in the yard has become more frequent since the abolition of the rule against it. That the same result would follow in the case of disorder is probable.

S.