It cannot but be gratifying to those who desire the spread of Harvard's influence throughout this country, and who also desire to see at Harvard the growth of a more cosmopolitan and national spirit, to observe how steadily has been the growth in numbers of students at Harvard, coming from points outside of New England, from New York, Pennsylvania and the Southern and Western states. The causes which prompt this growth are many of them indirect.

But the most direct cause of any increase of this sort lies in the continually enlarging number of Harvard graduates who settle in the West and South and who exert their influence directly and indirectly towards increasing the representation of their localties among the students of the college. The Harvard clubs now firmly established in all the larger cities of the country exercise a very considerable influence of this sort. But it is open to the students themselves even before they go forth from the college as graduates and take their positions in the world to exert an influence in drawing students to the college. No influence is so quick to turn the decision of one who is as yet undecided what college to attend, as the personal influence or report of some neighbor or friend who is already in attendance at any college. It is ture that the choice of college for many is practically settled when the choice of a preparatory school is made. But of late years this state of affairs has been changing rapidly. No longer as of old, can it be said that an Exeter student is sure to go to Harvard and an Andover student to Yale. Fifteen of the present freshmen class at Harvard are from Andover and yearly the number going from Exeter to Yale has been increasing. Many students at Harvard also come from schools where no direct influence is brought to bear in favor of any particular college.

At some colleges already associations among the students have sprung up akin in their aims to the Harvard clubs of the great cities. Students from any particular locality have banded themselves together for the purposes of social amusement, of encouraging and aiding in increasing attendance at their own college from the locality they represent, and of advancing their mutual interests while in college. There are many reasons why a plan like this or some modification of it might well be adopted at Harvard. A club formed among the students of San Francisco, from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, or from any particular state could be of decided usefulness to the college and very likely also a source of influence and benefit to its members. We know of no way in which the students of the college could better serve at the same time their own interests and the interests of the college than by the organization of such local clubs among themselves, similar in plan to often directly connected with the Harvard Clubs of the great cities.