President Lowell was the principal speaker at the annual dinner of the New England Association of Oberlin Alumni, at the Hotel Bellevue yesterday evening. His subject was announced as "Oberlin and Harvard," but after the first introductory remarks, he spoke on a subject which concerned not only Oberlin and Harvard, but also every college and university in the country.

Retention of facts, said President Lowell, is not the main desideratum in a real education; what the student learns, he forgets after ten years, but the mental processes which he developes as he learns, remain by him and assist him through his whole life.

And it should be the aim of every educational institution to equip a student with all the mental processes it can, and thus permanently develop his breadth of view, rather than fill his mind with minute facts soon to be forgotten.

Observation is a prime requisite of the broad-minded graduate, but it must also be a sort of observation that is of assistance through a microscope as well as from a mountain-top; in other words, a wide range of observation.

The American college is still on trial; if it can evolve a system which will develop broad-minded processes it will succeed; but the problem is at present complicated in the larger universities by the presence of professional schools, which, by drawing men away from college in three or even two years, shorten the period in which they have the opportunity for acquiring this wide scope, and thereby stunt their intellectual development.