We trust that the seniors sincerely appreciate the great privilege offered to them exclusively of inspecting the observatory of the college on certain specified evenings of this month. None of the various ceremonies which give indication of the near departure of a graduating class possess deeper significance than this one. The visit to the observatory may be regarded as the very crowning of the four-years' monument of study erected by every student of the college-as the final "finishing off," to use the phrase of the young ladies' seminary, of his college life. If the origin of the custom were investigated we have no doubt it would be found to have arisen at the time when a knowledge of astronomy was considered necessary for every educated gentleman, and when the good old system of prescribed courses sedulously guarded and maintained this as well as many other of the now discarded requirements for the degree of B. A.

But now the astronomical observatory has become, instead of an instrument of actual instruction, a mere means of scientific research, and the knowledge of astronomical science has faded from the minds of the collegian. But still this survival of an old custom has remained to us, and what the former student was required to take perhaps a year's labor to acquire-a knowledge of the elements of astronomy-the present senior is expected to acquire in one evening. To such an extent have the modern methods of education superseded those of the past!