Bristed's _Five Years in an English University_, congenial in its setting forth of the Cantab's carnal delights and intellectual jockeyism; _The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman_, wherein one 'Cuthbert Bede, B.A.' has by 'numerous illustrations' of numerous dissipations, given as good an idea as is desirable of the 'rowing men' in that very antediluvian receptacle of elegant scholarship; are all present evidences of the affectionate interest with which the graduate reverts to his college days. In like manner _Student Life in Scotland_ has engaged the late attention of venerable _Blackwood_, while the pages of _Putnam_, in _Life in a Canadian College_,[2] and _Fireside Travels_,[3] have given some idea of things nearer home, some little time ago. But while numerous pamphlets and essays have been written on our collegiate systems of education, the general development and present doings of Young America in the universities remain untouched. The academic influences exerted over American students are, it must be premised, vastly different from those of the old world. Imprimis, our colleges are just well into being. Reaching back into no dim antiquity, their rise and progress are traceable from their beginnings--beginnings not always the greatest. Thus saith the poet doctor of his Alma Mater: 'Pray, who was on the Catalogue When college was begun? Two nephews of the President, And _the_ Professor's son, (They turned a little Indian by, As brown as any bun;) Lord! how the Seniors knocked about That Freshman class of one!'