With the holding of the first classes at Yale yesterday afternoon all of the larger eastern institutions have formally opened and have almost universally reported increased registration and improved facilities.

Approximately 400 men compose the academic freshman class, at Yale while the same number has entered Sheffield. The annual rush between the sophomore and freshman classes resulted in a victory for the latter after an unusually long contest. This is the last year that the freshmen will be isolated from the rest of the undergraduates. Their present dormitories on York street will be abandoned for the new system whereby the freshmen will have Berkeley Oval, in the dormitories surrounding which the juniors now live.

Music Building for Yale.

The Yale Corporation has announced a gift to the university of a building for the School of Music, as a memorial to the late Albert Arnold Sprague, of Chicago, a graduate of the class of 1859. The building will be erected on the corner of College and Wall streets, and will contain a library, lecture and practice rooms, and a concert hall. The architect will be Mr. C. A. Coolidge, who designed the freshman dormitories here.

Princeton Gets Louvain Professor.

Professor P. Van den Ven, formerly of the University of Louvain, Belgium, has accepted an invitation to become the Spencer Trask lecturer at Princeton University for the coming year. He will give graduate courses in Byzantine history and art.

Professor Van den Ven was a refugee from Louvain at the outbreak of the war, and after reaching England became a member of the faculty at Cambridge. He recently came to this country, and will take up his duties at Princeton at the opening of the university on Thursday.

The cannon rush, scheduled to take place Wednesday evening, and the annual baseball rush have been abandoned for this year, owing to the death of Stockton Wells '19, of Madison, N. J. Wells died from an attack of heart failure induced by participation in the annual election rush Wednesday afternoon. Action was taken in regard to the two remaining rushes of the season at a meeting Wednesday afternoon of President Hibben and Dean McClenahan with Senior Council and four class officers. The advisability of holding rushes in future years was recommended to the Senior Council for deliberation.

Columbia Largest in World.

With a prospective enrolment of 20,000, Columbia easily retains its title of the largest university in the world. In fact, no other institution of learning in the world even approaches it in size. For this supremacy Columbia has the European war to thank. Before the war broke out the University of Berlin, with 14,000 students, was well on the way to leadership. Today, however, it is lagging far in the rear. While it is hardly fair to compare Columbia's statistics with those of other American universities because the word "student" does not mean the same to all of them, the tremendous public service which Columbia performs cannot be overlooked. Before the year is over 20,000 men and women will have come under the direct, personal influence of the university. Some of them will study in the regular class-rooms in the various departments, and the rest will receive extension instruction from members of the faculty. A new feature of the work this year will be to give the thousands of the city's immigrants first-hand information about the duties and ideals of Americans.

Department of Journalism at Virginia.

The first complete department of journalism in the South has been established this session at the University of Virginia, under the direction of Professor Leon R. Whipple. Practical courses in news writing, advertising, publicity, editorial writing and history of the press will be given with credit for a B.A. or B.S. degree. The actual writing and editing of news will be done by students for the Charlottesville Progress, an evening daily. Twenty students from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and other Southern states have enrolled in the courses. The University of Virginia believes that the new work will meet with the strong demand of Southern students for training to meet the newspaper problems of their own section.

All Registration Records Broken.

All records for attendance at the Pennsylvania State College are broken this year with a total enrolment of 3800 in all courses. This is an increase of 550 over last year. The freshman class has been limited to 600 owing to lack of building accommodations, more than 200 applicants having been rejected.

Completed registration statistics show that the total enrolment of Williams College is 510, divided by classes as follows: 103 seniors, 111 juniors, 111 sophomores, and 185 freshmen. Of the freshmen 156 are new students this year.

Late registration figures at the University of Illinois show 4608 students enrolled in the Urbana colleges and schools. This number is a gain over last year at the same time of about 9.6 per cent. The professional schools in Chicago will open on October 1. They will add about 500 more if registration there is normal.

1855 Students at Technology.

Complete registration figures for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows an enrolment of 1855, against a figure of 1765 last year at this time. It is the eleventh consecutive year with an increase, and the full registration this year will reach 1900. This is about one hundred more than last year, which was itself seventy more than 1913. Such progress in the student body makes it evident that the removal to the new Tech on the river bank will not be a moment too soon.

The whole number of first-class men in Tech is slightly above 400, not counting more than 250 others who are in the Institute for the first time, entering by upper classes. Of the freshmen, Boston supplies 60, and other places in Massachusetts about 80 in number, send 220 more.

Of the Massachusetts cities that send ten or more freshmen, Cambridge leads with 19, followed by Newton, with 16, and Brookline and Lawrence tied at 13. Somerville has 10. Seven cities have five or more, Melrose 9, Taunton 8, Brockton 7, Lynn and Malden 6 each, and Lowell and Lexington 5 each. Arlington sends 4 and a dozen other places 3 each. The number of women at Tech is also increasing, there being 17 in the registration already.