Cornell has just had its annual gymnasium sports. From the Cornell Sun we learn that these sports were unusually successful. From the same source we learn that many features of the meeting were, to say the least, unique. In the first place, the athletes of Cornell are not contented with winning mere empty honors, or even with receiving the customary medals for proficiency in their chosen specialties,-as may be seen from a glance at the prize list, on which appear clocks, statuary, silk umbrellas, easy chairs, and books without number. This method of rewarding athletic excellence may, at the first glance, seem rather peculiar, but, we are sure, a closer inspection of the system will reveal some points of excellence which are not to be found in the present method of prize-giving in vogue at Harvard.

As we understand it, this new departure in the matter of prizes is intended to supply a long felt want, by instituting a series of "scholarships" in athletics, very much as we have a system of scholarships for literary excellence. To explain: let us suppose that a man comes to Cornell with but a meagre allowance of cash, and mental abilities, but with a plentiful endowment of muscle. It is tolerably obvious that, under the old-time order of things, his progress to knowledge will be beset with difficulties of a financial nature. But under the new system no such hindrance exists. "Nous avons change tout cela, says Cornell, "A man may come to our college, poor, but deserving. What shall he do to obtain the necessaries of student life? Simply this, he may enter the feather-weight sparring, and win an easy chair; in the middle-weight he may secure a clock; in the heavy weight he can easily obtain a silk umbrella; by winning the horizontal bar, and the flying rings, he may stock his library; and so on, until nothing remains to be desired,"

This, in brief, is the new scheme of self-support inaugurated by our sister college at Ithaca. It has many points to commend it. We should like to see the plan tried at Yale. If it succeeded there, we might venture to try it ourselves.