meet the Sophomore class.  One hundred hyenas!  My entrance was greeted with groans, ‘Ahas!’ ‘Hums!’ I spent half an hour in the vain attempt to explain the subject.  Before I was half through I had made up my mind to return to the city by the first train.  On leaving the room I met Professor ——­, who comprehended the situation at a glance.  He said that he had been through it all himself—­that it had taken him two years to get control of his classes.  I learned afterward that this is the usual time allowed for such purpose.  The president on meeting me, said in his usual abrupt, nervous brogue, ’It’s nothing against the men, sir!  It would be just the same if it were anybody else, sir! (!!!).  Just go on, sir.’  I finally decided ‘to go on, sir,’ but I hardly retain my self-respect when I remember how I submitted for three months to a series of petty annoyances unworthy the lowest gamins of New York.  Students purposely made mistakes to give others an opportunity to groan.  The Sophomore class was divided into two sections after the third week.  By dint of strict watching, which so absorbed my attention that I could do little in the way of instruction, I succeeded in obtaining tolerable order.  Usually, a painful silence was observed, every one knowing that there was a hand-to-hand fight going on for the mastery.  The Junior class could not be divided because of other studies.  Their recitations (?) continued to be a bedlam, a pandemonium.  I afterward learned that some students, who already had some knowledge of the subject, remained on purpose to create disturbance.  One of them, a son of a trustee, I caught blowing snuff through the room.  It was a favorite trick of the class to drop a bundle of snuff in the stove.  Each one of the fifteen recitations that I had with this class was spoiled by some disturbance.  On two occasions some of them stole the keys of the room and locked me in with part of the class.  Fortunately, I was able to drive back the bolt.  The president was less lucky.  Twice he and his entire class were obliged to climb down from the window by a ladder.  There is no use in multiplying words.  The treatment to which I was subjected was shameful.  What made it even worse was, that the authorities permitted such conduct toward one whom they had invited to take the initiative in beginning a new study.  It was a perfectly-understood thing that I had accepted the temporary appointment more to relieve the college than for my own benefit.”

The writer of the above is now one of the leading professors in another college.  His name and reputation are among the best in the land.  He writes concerning his present position:  “We have here two hundred and fifty students, all told.  The utmost courtesy prevails, both in the recitation-room and in the streets.  During the five years that we have been in existence as a college I do not remember that a single rude act has been committed toward any professor.  I attribute this to a variety of circumstances.