The lack of promptness in the attendance at lectures - and especially nine o'clock lectures - has become an evil which can no longer be overlooked. There can be no doubt that the abolition of compulsory chapel has been the cause of much of the late coming to nine o'clock recitations. If the privilege of late attendance is certainly great and one, which if in its exercise it affected the late-comers only, would be a personal affair, admitting of no public discussion. But where the privilege of a few becomes the disturbance of many, the instructor as well as the rest of the section, then the matter takes a different aspect. Unavoidable tardiness is and ought to be excusable. But the habitual lack of promptitude at lectures arising from the mere sense of the liberty to enter the lecture-room at any time during the hour, is and ought to be condemned. Latches on the recitation-room doors which could be unslipped at five or ten minutes past the hour, have been suggested. We would advocate this as a last resort. But till then we believe that the sentiment of the college is high enough to enforce prompt attendance at lectures without any such school-like expedient.
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Communications.
