We publish to-day an article on the "Amherst Senate," written by one of its members at our request. It is our purpose to publish from time to time authoritative accounts of the rise, the mode of operation, and the success of the attempts at co-operative government which have been tried at several colleges, and to compare the various systems with the plan of a conference committee which is shortly to come up before our faculty. The Amherst Senate, inasmuch as it is the oldest and best known of student governing bodies, first deserves our attention. Much has been written about it, much indeed which is untrue or misleading, and we hope therefore that this article may correct any wrong impressions which have been made.

The Senate is both a deliberative, and an executive body; its executive functions are to decide upon matters of college discipline, and of college athletics, but all its decisions are subject to the absolute veto of the president of the college, who acts as presiding officer at its meetings. Just here is a marked difference between the Senate, and our proposed conference committee. This committee is to have no executive power, but its report, in the form of a resolution, must be acted upon in the same way as the report of any faculty committee. So we see that in the one case, a body, with nominal executive power can have its decrees annulled by the will of one man, while in the other case, a committee, with no such powers can have its resolution adopted or rejected only by the vote of the entire faculty. It should however be said that President Seelye has never, we believe, exercised this right, and so the Senate's decrees have been final. The jurisdiction of the Senate extends over matters of discipline, which would not probably come within the province of our conference committee. Wherever among students, there is a tendency to carry school-boy tricks and manners into college, a trial of the delinquents by their fellow students has always been found very beneficial, and the Amherst experiment has proved most successful in this respect.

As a means of conference between students and faculty, the Senate, judging from our correspondent, has not been so successful. He says, "unlike every similar body, probably, the Senate has the sympathy of the faculty to a greater degree than that of the students." This is unfortunate. A conference committee, in order to accomplish the end it has in view, must have the utmost confidence and sympathy of the students at large, and the moment it ceases to have this, it fails in its object. As a means of communication, it is not of so much consequence what the faculty may think of it, but how it is regarded by the students, whether or not it reflects their sentiments and their desires.

Amherst must, however, be congratulated on having a faculty so broad minded as to recognize the fact that students are not boys, to be trusted only within range of the proctor's eye, but men, capable of governing themselves, and of exercising surveillance over the few unruly school boys, who, by some accident, succeed in entering college.