ISO
EUITOH1A1.S.
VOL. VII r
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11
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nltion of six years of ceaseless toil, some
caution should be taken at least. Never
should a student be conditioned unless
failure is inevitable. It is too great a dis
grace for an American to bear. We have
little sympathy for that professor who
boasts of how many he fails to pass.
Nor have wc much faith in a system of
marking thai makes three mistakes out of
one; that allows twenty probabilities for
mistakes and gives the student the benefit
of none, but the credit of all mistakes
made. For one whose judgment is strong,
ly in favor of such a system, we have
great pity. "We care not where it origi
natcd, whether in the "half dozen Uni
versities of Europe," or in the mind of a
single individual, wc, in the name of
common sense, pronounce it and its au
thor a ridiculous failure.
Examinations arc law and must be
obeyed. The responsibility of the teacher
is necessarily great. It matters not how
thorough, how learned or how sedate, if
he is not capable of that responsibility, he
must lose the respect of students; when
prejudice dethrones justice before his
very gaze and under his own control, wc
must impeach his honest'.
Such arc some of the existing evils
that pertain to examinations in col
leges. If the' are to remain they must
sutler reform. Until then, they are des
tined to have a lingering enmity attached
to them.
THE FAItM.
The Agricultural Farm has been greatly
crippled for the past two years, owing to
the lack of means; but, by the influence
of a few friends in the last Legislature, it
gained a sullicicut appropriation to put it
again on the road to success. The He
gents at their recent session gave some
$5,400 for its support, which, with the pro.
cceds of the farm will give the Professor
sufllcicnt means to attempt some of the ex
perimcuts that such a farm should undertake.
The crops are looking well this year;
they arc as follows ; wheat (50 acres, corn SO,
oats 1-1, clover 5, besides potatoes, millet,
garden &c. That the Prof, has not been
idle even under disadvantages, may be
seen from the following statement. There
arc now growing on the Farm U-l kinds of
apple trees, G4 pear, 20 cherry, 12 plum
and 1!)3 peach trees, all of the best and
most hardy varieties; also 3 kinds of cur
rants, 5 of raspberries, 00 of grapes and 7
of strawberries. Under the more favor,
able circumst-nccs in which the Farm is
now placed, we may soon expect to see
much improvement.
Students are allowed to workout part or
all of their expenses on the Farm, receiv
ing ten cents per hour for their labor.
They are charged cost for their board,
which, for the past term, has ranged from
$1.SG to $2.00 per week. Thus a little over
three hours work per day would pay for
board. The Farm is now collecting trees
for an arboretum ; have already some thirty
or forty kinds which they expect to in
crease as fast as time and means will permit.
Why cannot the societies begin to
start libraries of their own. They have
their halls pretty well fixed and furnished;
now the question will be, how shall the
money, collected in the future, be spent?
In getting up suppers, socials and festi
vals, or shall it be applied to some use
that will be beneficial in the future? To
be sure, the amount of money thus re
ceived will not be large, but it will do to
commence with. I do not see why the
societies might not give some public
entertainments with a little cash at the
door as one of the most prominent lea
tuicfc. Certainly they could give as good
entertainments, as most of the traveling
troops do. and these aie well supported.
The money thus collected could be added
to our ordinary iccoipts.
Prize contosts might bo inaugerated
horo as lhoy arc in most of the Eastern
colleges. The people of Lincoln would
