The college records have the disadvantage of telling
a formal tale of boys' experiences and discipline,
without entering into boys' feelings. One wishes to
know what the student thought of himself, of his
studies, and of his instructors; what his studies and
his habits were; how much he knew and how thor-
oughly; with what spirit he met his work, and what
amount of active aid and sympathy he received
from his instructors in his work or his amusements.
The past left traditions of solid learning and care-
ful training in the branches of study it assumed
to deal with. One would like to know whether the
present generation, in making what it calls its pro-
gress, has sacrificed anything once useful to its pre-
decessors, aside from the further question whether
such a sacrifice, if ever made, was a matter of
necessity.

Unfortunately the means are wanting; but this is
not all. Attempts without number have been made
to use college life as a groundwork for fiction, and
the result has commonly been failure, for the reason
that the field of interest is too narrow, and the at-
tempt to enlarge it by introducing forced situations
is more fatal to success than the narrowness of the
field. The same difficulty would be found in a prac-
tical treatment of the subject. The details are nu-
merous and fatiguing, the possible combinations few
and simple. The treatment must make atonement for
the want of incident; and such treatment could come
only from a critic who could employ his labor to

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