Yale is eminently a cosmopolitan institution. When two years ago state clubs were being formed at Yale, some one remarked that if the same experiment were attempted at Harvard, there would be two clubs, one from Boston, and one from the rest of Massachusetts. While this statement is by no means true, it suggests the sectional character of the other New England colleges. A few figures will sustain this claim. In 1883-’84, out of 824 students in the academic and scientific departments, only twenty-nine per cent. were from Connecticut. There were nineteen men from California, six from Colorado, seven from Georgia, fifty-one from Illinois, thirty-three from Ohio, twenty from Missouri, and sixty-five from Pennsylvania. Almost every state, and many of the territories, were represented, and the very fact that Yale draws its men from so many widely different sources has an important influence upon the character of the students. The swift-coursing, tingling blood of the West is infused into the old, staid, New England institution, which restrains, modifies, and directs it. The enthusiasm of Yale is due in a great measure to this western element. There is a whole-heartedness about Yale students which you will find in no other eastern institution. Nor is money at Yale the basis of social standing. A man may command any position which he has the character or ability to attain. It is generally supposed that in a large institution the numbers in a class prevent that personal contact with the instructors which smaller classes afford. This objection can be easily answered. Let us suppose that a freshman class numbers one hundred and fifty students, and that the curriculum includes five studies. The class will be divided into five sections of thirty men each, and will recite to five instructors in order. There are fifteen recitations a week, so that every member of the class recites three times a week to each of these instructors, and that, too, in a class of only thirty. This affords all the “contact” that either instructors or instructed need or desire. The divisions are arranged according to excellence in scholarship at the end of every term, so that each division has its own standard of attainment; hence the diligent are not retarded by their more leisurely classmates. Recitations and examinations are marked upon a scale of four. When one’s average standing falls below two, he is given the choice between leaving college or entering the class next below. This unpleasant experience is known as being “dropped.” For irregularities and tardiness in attendance, the penalties are inflicted in the form of “marks,” which have no influence upon scholarship standing. The penalty for “cutting” chapel on a week day is two marks, on Sunday, eight. As these marks accumulate, parents are informed by “letters home” when a certain limit is approached, which varies in the different years—more latitude being granted to seniors and