But as the exigencies of the country became more and more pressing, the wisdom of this precept was lost sight of. In the spring of 1864, in reply to a second application in behalf of the two lower classes, Mr. Seddon returned the following opinion to the Conscript Bureau: "I can not see in the grounds presented such peculiar or exceptional circumstances as will justify departure from the rules acted on in many similar instances. Youths under eighteen will be allowed to continue their studies. Those over, capable of military service, will best discharge their duty and find their highest training in defending the country in the field. "March 10, 1864." In compliance with this opinion, the Conscript Act was finally enforced at the University; the classes were still further reduced by the withdrawal of such as came within the requirements of the act, or who were determined to share at all hazards the fate of their comrades in the army. The University, however, still struggled on; and when General Sherman's forces entered the place, there were some ten or twelve boys still keeping up the name of a college. The bell was rung by one of the professors, and morning and evening prayers attended to during the stay of the United States forces. The students present, with two or three exceptions, were those whose homes were in the village. The two or three who were from a distance, left on the advent of the Federals, walking to their homes in neighboring counties, there being no other means of locomotion in those days. But one Senior, Mr. W.C. Prout, graduated at the ensuing commencement, having taken the whole course. There were three others who received diplomas at the same time. For the first time in thirty years, the President was absent from these exercises, having been summoned by President Johnson to Washington City, to confer with him and with other North-Carolina gentlemen on the condition of affairs in the State. Not a single visitor from abroad attended the commencement, with the exception of some _thirty gentlemen dressed in blue_, who had been delegated to remain here and keep order. The residents of the village were the only audience to hear the valedictory pronounced by the sole remaining representative of his class. Where were the hundreds who had thronged these halls four years before? Virginia, and Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, and Georgia were heaving with their graves! In every State that had felt the tread of armies, and wherever the rough edge of the battle had joined, there had been found the foster-children of North-Carolina's University;[22] and now, sitting discrowned and childless, she might well have taken up the old lamentations which come to us in these later days more and more audibly across the centuries, "Oh! that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!"