He might then devote himself exclusively to elementary studies; or, if more advanced, he could readily find a collateral subject, which would not distract his attention from the main department, and might form an agreeable and useful alternation. The truth is, however, that the law is liable to all the objections which apply to the old collegiate regulations, which make time the only element of qualification for distinction. The board of visiters of that university should have gone a step further, and instead of stating the _number_ of schools which a pupil should be compelled to attend, unless his parent or guardian wished otherwise, they should have recommended, not enforced, a particular system of study for those desirous of attaining high literary distinction, or of becoming well educated; still retaining the valuable feature, that they, whose opportunities, tastes, or capacities, do not admit of their following the recommendation, may choose their own subjects. What this system ought to be, we will now inquire into. It will enter naturally into the consideration of the latter part of the question canvassed before the Convention--"ought students to be confined to their classes, or _allowed to receive degrees when found prepared on examination_?" The affirmative of the proposition, as regards graduation, seems to be the natural view; yet there are few institutions at which this course is permitted. If the pupil be constrained to follow a prescribed and unbending series of studies, as is the case in most of the universities of this country and of Europe, it would appear to result as naturally that the negative view should be adopted. In the Convention, the most opposing sentiments were here again elicited; and, as on other topics, they seem to have arrived at no fixed conclusion; all that we are informed being, that "the discussion of the topic was discontinued."