WE print in another column the class officers of Seventy-six. The selection is the result of the open election system, and, as it seems to us, is happy enough to commend the system to following classes. The system has theoretic strength, as is shown by the marked harmony of the class in its adoption, and, as far as one experiment furnishes a criterion, stands approved in its practical issue. As the matter is one of permanent interest, we shall be pardoned in dwelling for a moment upon the significance of the experiment to judge of its measure of success or failure. It is but fair to state that some doubts are cast upon the working of this system, which, like every other yet proposed, is vitiated by the artificial division of classes by society lines. The experiment, however, is to be judged in the light of former elections and in view of the fundamental principles of human nature. It is absurd to apply the touchstone of perfection to a college election. As in municipal elections, the essence of the plan is the formation of parties, and, in fact, the best selection is possible only when competition is active. The vice, it is claimed, lies in this, that the issues are not raised on the vital points of ability and fitness, but on artificial considerations, as society standing or what not. It is to be observed, however, that so long as societies exist of such size as to divide the class into large sections, and which can be considered as rivals in the feeblest meaning of that term, so long, presumably, society feeling will color the elections. And so far as this is the generous competition of each society to produce the greatest number of suitable candidates to draw the suffrages of the class, who shall say that this artificial stimulus in eliciting the best men for the places is not laudable? This is the new regime, and demands that each element shall present its strongest men as the condition of representation. The evil is for two, three, or any number of elements to come together, as of old, and formally partition out the offices to the various "elements" to be filled as the cliques and lobbyists decide.