WE are glad to see that the Professors have decided to appear in caps and gowns on Commencement Day; this may be considered a step in the right direction. It certainly has detracted very much from the pleasure and dignity of Class Day and Commencement that this step has not been adopted before. Now, to revive a rather antiquated subject, we should consider it a second step in the right direction if the students should follow the good example of those from whom they have derived so much benefit, and do the same thing. It would be much less expensive and, as it seems to us, much more picturesque. At Columbia, in the exhibitions given by the "Philolexism," a literary society, the orators and members appear in caps and gowns, and the effect is most charming. A great many of the poorer, that is to say, the more indigent, students, are compelled to go to a great expense in order to procure dress-suits, - sometimes much greater than they can afford. The caps and gowns would not cost more than ten dollars, and would be a delightful memento, after graduation, of one of the most memorable, perhaps the most memorable, occasion of college life.

Dress-suits are ruined as a general thing, either by the mud or the dust, and after having been, as in many cases, purchased for "that occasion only," prove useful only for the Poco or the faithful scout. Let us have caps and gowns by all means.