Most of our colleges are situated in small towns.  To this circumstance, more than to any other, perhaps, is due the exclusiveness which, in its exaggerated manifestations, is so puzzling to the city visitor.  Petty items of life and character, intrigues, quarrels and social jealousies have an importance which the world outside cannot understand.  They affect the college more or less directly.  The professor finds it doubly hard to exercise his vocation in a place where the details of his home life are known and exposed to comment.  The student’s power for mischief is increased.  He has only too much reason for believing that he is indispensable from the business point of view.  Besides, as every one knows, close contact in narrow circles has a tendency to cramp the mind.  Trifling annoyances, real or imaginary, are apt to rankle in the spirit unless they be brushed away by the quick, firm touch of the great world. Kleinstaedtisches Leben, despite its many advantages, fails to develop the burgher in every direction.  It leaves him one-sided, if not exactly narrow-minded.  Professor C.K.  Adams, in his admirable essay upon “State Universities,"[1] has touched upon this point with reference to studies.  His words should be carefully weighed:  “If the best education consisted simply of making perfect recitations and keeping out of mischief, the smallest college would be incomparably the best college.  But the best education is far more than that.  Perhaps it is correct to say that it is an inspiration rather than an acquisition.  It comes not simply from industry and steady habits, but far more largely from that kindling and glowing zeal which is best begotten by familiar contact with large libraries and museums and enthusiastic specialists....  It is the stir, the enthusiasm, the unceasing activity, and, above all, the constant intercourse with men of the same pursuits and the same ambitions, that develop the greatest energies and secure the highest successes.”

[Footnote 1:  North American Review, Oct., 1875.]

Professor Adams, it will be observed, is contrasting small colleges with larger ones.  We are not bound by his concessions in favor of the former.  And we may also take the liberty of advancing his comparison a step by claiming for large cities, no less than for large colleges, the superiority over small ones.  Without intending disrespect, we may even put the direct question, Would not your own university, for whose advantages you are contending, be better off to-day had it been placed in Detroit instead of Ann Arbor?  Is there not something dwarfing in the atmosphere of a small country town, where character is undiversified and life uneventful?  Were books the sole source of knowledge, were the acquisition of ideas and principles the sole aim, we could wish for our professors and students nothing better than monotony of life.  But success, whether in professional or scholarly pursuits, depends largely upon temper