I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and we were as cheerful as we could be for a few minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped to be forgiven for such talk, but there were some kinds of folks in the cars that she never had seen before. But when the conductor came to take her ticket she relapsed into her first state of mind, and was at a loss.

"You'll have to look after me, dear, when we get to Shrewsbury," she said, after we had spent some distracted moments in hunting for the ticket, and the cat had almost escaped from the basket, and the bundle-handkerchief had become untied and all its miscellaneous contents scattered about our laps and the floor. It was a touching collection of the last odds and ends of Mrs. Peet's housekeeping some battered books, and singed holders for flatirons, and the faded little shoulder shawl that I had seen her wear many a day about her bent shoulders. There were her old tin match-box spilling all its matches, and a goose-wing for brushing up ashes, and her muchthumbed Leavitt's Almanac. It was most pathetic to see these poor trifles out of their places. At last the ticket was found in her left-hand woolen glove, where her stiff, work-worn hand had grown used to the feeling of it.

"I should n't wonder, now, if I come to like living over to Shrewsbury firstrate," she insisted, turning to me with a hopeful, eager look to see if I differed. "You see 't won't be so tough for me as if I had n't always felt it lurking within me to go off some day or 'nother an' see how other folks did things. I do' know but what the Winn gals have laid up somethin' sufficient for us to take a house, with the little mite I've got by me. I might keep house for us all, 'stead o' boardin' round in other folks' houses. That I ain't never been demeaned to, but I dare say I should find it pleasant in some ways. Town folks has got the upper hand o' country folks, but with all their work an' pride they

can't make a dandelion. I do' know the times when I've set out to wash Monday mornin's, an' tied out the line betwixt the old pucker-pear tree and the corner o' the barn, an' thought, Here I be with the same kind o' week's work right over again.' I'd wonder kind o' f'erce if I could n't git out of it noways; an' now here I be out of it, and an uprooteder creatur' never stood on the airth. Just as I got to feel I had somethin' ahead come that spool - factory business. There! you know he never was a forehanded man; his health was slim, and he got discouraged pretty nigh before ever he begun. I hope he don't know I'm turned out o' the old place. 'Is'iah's well off; he'll do the right thing by ye,' says he. But my! I turned hot all over when I found out what I'd put my name to, me that had always be'n counted a smart woman! I did ondertake to read it over, but I could n't sense it. I've told all the folks so when they laid it off on to me some: but handwritin' is awful tedious, and my head felt that day as if the works was gone."

"I ain't goin' to sag on to nobody," she assured me eagerly, as the train rushed along. "I've got more work in me now than folks expects at my age. I may be consid'able use to Isabella. She's got a family, an' I'll take right holt in the kitchen or with the little gals. She had four on 'em, last I heared. Isabella was never one that liked housework. Little gals! I do' know now but what they must be about grown, time doos slip away so. I expect I shall look outlandish to 'em. But there! everybody knows me to home, an' nobody knows me to Shrewsbury; 't wont make a mite o' difference, if I take holt willin'."

I hoped, as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that she never would be persuaded to cast off the gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain shawl that she had worn so many years; but Isabella might think it best to insist upon more modern fash

"Are your nieces expecting you by this train?" I was moved to ask, though with all the good soul's ready talk and appealing manner I could hardly believe that she was going to Shrewsbury for more than a visit; it seemed as if she must return to the worn old farmhouse over by the sheep-lands. She answered that one of the Barnes boys had written for her the day before, and there was evidently little uneasiness about her first reception.

We drew near the junction where I must leave her within a mile of the town. The cat was clawing indignantly at her basket, and her mistress grew as impatient of the car. She began to look very old and pale, my poor fellowtraveler, and said that she felt dizzy, going so fast. Presently the friendly red-cheeked young brakeman came along, bringing the carpet-bag and other possessions, and insisted upon taking the alarmed cat beside, in spite of an aggressive paw that had worked its way through the wicker prison. Mrs. Peet watched her goods disappear with suspicious eyes, and clutched her bundle handkerchief as if it might be all she could save. Then she anxiously got to her feet, much too soon, and when I said good-by to her at the car door she was ready to cry. I pointed to the car which she was to take next on the branch line of railway, and I assured her that it was only a few minutes' ride to Shrewsbury, and that I felt certain she would find somebody waiting. The sight of that worn, thin figure adventuring alone across the platform gave my heart a sharp pang as the train carried me away.

Some of the passengers who sat near

asked me about my old friend with great sympathy, after she had gone. There was a look of tragedy about her, and indeed it had been impossible not to get a good deal of her history, as she talked straight on in the same tone, when we stopped at a station, as if the train were going at full speed, and some of her remarks caused pity and amusement by turns. At the last minute she said, with deep self-reproach, "Why, I haven't asked a word about your folks; but you'd ought to excuse such an old stray hen as I be."

In the spring I was driving by on what the old people of my native town call the sheep-lands road, and the sight of Mrs. Peet's former home brought our journey freshly to mind. I had heard from her last just after she got to Shrewsbury, when she had sent me a message.

"Have you ever heard how she got on?" I eagerly asked my companion.

are

"Didn't I tell you that I met her in Shrewsbury High Street one day?" I was answered. "She seemed perfectly delighted with everything. Her nieces have laid up a good bit of money, and soon to leave the mill, and most thankful to have old Mrs. Peet with them. Somebody told me that they wished to buy the farm here, and come back to live; but she would n't hear of it, and thought they would miss too many privileges. She has been going to concerts this winter, and insists that Isaiah did her a good turn."

We both laughed. My own heart was filled with joy, for the uncertain, lonely face of this homeless old woman had often haunted me. The rain-blackened little house did certainly look dreary, and a whole lifetime of patient toil had left few traces. The puckerpear tree was in full bloom, however, and gave a welcome gayety to the deserted door-yard.

A little way beyond we met Isaiah Peet, the prosperous money-lender, who

A NUMBER of circumstances have served to arouse in the educated part of our American people an interest in the discipline of its colleges and uniIn England questions of this sort do not find much place in the public mind. Parents are content to leave their sons to the discretion of the school authorities. The moral and disciplinary condition of the universities is not often heard of in public debates. On the continent of Europe there is even less interest in the social quality of the higher educational establishments. The reason for this difference between the state of mind in the Old World and that in the New is probably in some measure attributable to the more active moral sense of our people; but it is doubtless in some part due to the fact that our institutions of learning are generally in the control of trustees chosen in one way or another from men who are engaged in other work than teaching. European universities, with rare exceptions, have no relations to the public which will permit their graduates, much less those

who have no relations with the schools, to influence the conduct of their authorities.

Owing to the essentially democratic condition of our population, the character of a young man has more effect upon his course in life than in the Old World. The greater dependence of the youth upon his own qualities for success in the world makes it of more importance that his habits should be such as to fit him for his career. Family influence can help him but little, and thus his personal qualities are of greater moment in the eyes of his natural guardians. It is therefore not surprising that parents watch with anxiety the conduct of their sons in our institutions of learning.

It cannot be denied that there is much reason for fear as to the effect of the influences which await a young man when he goes from the home to a great school. Whatever be the organization of the life in such an establishment, the youth is necessarily parted from all those circumstances which serve to

mould his character and control his conduct beneath the family roof. In place of those conditions he finds himself in a large and more or less free society, composed of his teachers and of the young men of his time. The ideals of his classmates are naturally somewhat peculiar. College society retains the average motives derived from a long past. These motives are unqualified by the experience of active life, and so remain archaic. However much the teaching body of the school may endeavor to affect the tone of the student life, it always abides singularly by itself, a creature of youth; not alone of the youth of our own day, for the traditions of other generations dwell there. It is indeed to this isolation of student life from the influences of the moment, to its separation from the active world, that we owe much of the good which it affords to those who partake of it. In it as in a stream a youth's intellectual frame is purified and strengthened by the motives of his kind. If he be strong enough to keep afloat, the effect is wonderfully bettering.

Though the influence of academic life is on the whole extremely advantageous, acting in a myriad ways to widen and deepen the better motives of youth, it brings dangers with it. At the age when young men generally resort to these schools, their propensities towards ill as well as towards good are strong, and are uncontrolled by habit. In all such assemblages of youth, like minds tend to form small societies, in which there may be moral gain or moral loss. No school, however small or however well watched, is free from the possible evils of such association. At most the system of government can only diminish the dangers. In no case can they be entirely avoided.

To meet the evils arising from the social effect of academic life, the managers of such schools have for centuries been framing systems of discipline. The ideal sought to be attained is the control

of the youth's action throughout his academic course, or at least during the term time of the schools. The ends towards which the discipline is directed are in the main as follows. In the first place, the design is to obtain such a control over the time of the student that there will be no room for evil. In the second place, the object is to develop habits of regular action, so that a good methodical routine of life may be induced. Last of all, there is an effort, at least in the schools which inherit the English custom, to turn the attention of youths to religious considerations, with the hope that the sense of moral obligations may be strengthened thereby. Our American colleges have derived their methods of discipline mainly from the English seats of learning. In the schools of the mother country, the ideal of discipline was first developed under the influence of the priests, and the system of disciplinary culture took an ecclesiastical form. To these earlier ideas of priestly training there has been added more or less of another ideal of discipline derived from military training; so that in a large part of our American institutions, in nearly all of those in which discipline has a place in esteem, the project of control of the students rests upon theories of training which have been found applicable to two very peculiar walks in life, — to the soldiers of the church and to those belonging to the arm of the secular law. It is easy to see that the ideals of discipline fit for the needs of a school which is designed to train priests of the ancient pattern or to shape soldiers may be very far removed from the true purposes of universities. The aim of our academic culture at the present time is to make a man of varied, elastic mind, who can readily turn himself to any of the multifarious duties of ordinary life. The discipline to which candidates for the army or the church are subjected is intended to breed certain very particular habits. If they are to enter the priest

hood, they need in a way to be withdrawn from the tide of the world's life, to be elevated to a peculiar intellectual and moral plane. In the old theory of the priestly function which prevailed in the times when our schools took their discipline from the church system, the candidate for orders was supposed to be even more removed from secular influences than he is at present. He was expected to enter on a very formal habit of life; to acquire a tone quite different from that which should characterize men of the world, even in the better sense of that term. The training of the soldier, which has much affected the ideals of American schools, is even more special than that of the church. The first object of the discipline which fits a man for military life is to instill the habit of prompt and unquestioning obedience to the orders of a superior. The aim is not to develop the individual initiative, but rather to suppress that quality. It is not to be denied that the ideals of military discipline afford very much which is of value in the walks of civil life. The sense of honor and of duty, the obligation of personal sacrifice, are among the highest ideals which any training can give. Nevertheless we must hold that the education of the soldier is not that to which we would willingly subject the body of our youth, for the reason that the motives of a military system are not such as can be made to fit in the system of civil life.

Resting upon these somewhat peculiar ideals of control, the system of discipline in our academic institutions has undergone a very gradual development. Slowly and imperfectly it has been adjusted to the needs of our ordinary society. The motives of our college life are almost necessarily behind those of the age. It is a fact well recognized by those in the tide of the world's affairs that some of the influences of a disciplinary sort which affect the college boy are not such as to prepare him for the career

upon which he is to enter. Every year we hear from the public press, or privately from the spokesmen of the various professions to which the graduates of our schools resort, that the young men have to learn new ways of action, and with difficulty adapt themselves to the ordinary work of secular affairs.

This doubt as to the fitness of collegebred youths for the work of the world finds a practical expression in the determination of many narrow-minded business men not to receive such youths into their offices. They prefer to take untrained lads as office boys, and bring them up to their trades, rather than to break down the habits which have been formed in the very remote field of academic life.

This criticism from the outer world has reached even the cloistered life of some of the colleges. It affects the students even more than the teachers, though both are accessible to its influ

ence.

The young men who are wise enough to foresee their trials in the world are apt to become restless, from the sense that their academic life is not one which will fit them for the paths into which they are to enter. They either work in a discontented manner, or they look upon college life as a time of frolic, an interlude between childhood and the duties of the world, which is to be taken to its utmost as pure enjoyment. The result is that in our American people, who are more given to care for their children than the parents of any other country, we find that year by year there is a lessened eagerness to send their boys to our higher institutions of learning. Most of our colleges gain slowly in numbers of students, if they are so fortunate as to escape a decrease in attendance. But few of the greater schools are prosperous, as regards the numbers in their classes, up to the measure of increase of our population. Clearly the meaning of this is that the people doubt the fitness