THE NATION, AND INTERCOLLEGIATE SCHOLARSHIPS.

IN the first number of the Magenta there was given an extract from an article by T. W. Higginson in the Scribner for January, proposing the plan of a Graduate Scholarship, to be open to applicants from every college in America. The Nation of February 20, in its customary tone of ignorant ridicule, throws cold water on the scheme, and severely criticises the author of the article in Scribner. The writer in the Nation grants that "liberally endowed and carefully administered scholarships are among the most efficient attainable means of higher education in our land," but thinks there would be great practical difficulty in finding an organization to properly administer this particular trust. We see no reason for apprehending such a difficulty. Few of the hundreds of scholarships already established in our colleges, few of the many charitable institutions throughout the land, the managers of which need the best judgment in deciding between many applicants for assistance, fail to accomplish their object through a faulty administration. If the millionnaire will provide the means, safe and sure ways will be found.

Mr. Higginson says that this scholarship will produce emulation between the high scholars or the colleges similar to that between the boat-crews at the Regatta; the Nation thinks this emulation would be a feature disastrous to the good effects of the system, and seems to entertain a very poor opinion of the College Races for this very reason, that they foster such great rivalry between men for the sake of mere glory. We find it hinted that the time may come when the college authorities will forbid these brutal displays, and that the art of rowing may be sufficiently well cultivated in each college by itself. It is thought, too, that "it the regatta crews could be drawn by lot from the undergraduates, so that the chance of selection would call out a general physical education, the whole aspect of the case would be very different." There is no doubt about the altered aspect. The opinion of Professor Hadley of Yale is quoted to the effect that the Yale oarsmen have been so often beaten because they have been good scholars, implying that boating men are, as a rule, poor scholars. Every one having much acquaintance with oarsmen knows that such is not the case. Some of the most prominent boating men at Harvard have been high scholars. The following extract from the Pall Mall Budget of February I, 1873, also goes to prove that workers in the boat are not always idlers in the study:-

"The Oxford Undergraduates' Journal says: `It is with sincere pleasure that we are able to make mention of the many good classes taken last term in the schools by rowing men. Of those who have won their blue E. Giles took a first in Modern History, and F. H. Hall in Classics, J. E. Edwards-Moss a second in Law, and C. C. Knollys in Mathematics. F. E. Armitstead, also, whose aquatic reputation is surpassed by that of no blue, took a second in Classics. Several men who have rowed in the Trials took good classes, foremost among whom should be mentioned W. M. Furneaux, who stroked one of the Trials in '70, and rowed No. 2 in '71, and now has taken a first in Classics. A goodly number of those who have rowed in their college boats have taken high honors.'"

If the crews of the different colleges never met in friendly strife, the merits of their different styles of rowing and training could never be compared; each college would persist in the same method year after year, never having opportunity to test its strength or correct its faults. Is it not the same with mental training in different institutions? In each a different method of instruction is pursued, and each completes the training of its scholars in a style which, in that locality, is considered pretty nearly perfect. These scholars graduate from their respective colleges and become teachers, perhaps professors, or professional men. They are successful, often famous, in their several departments; but it can never be said of any one of them whether, under a different kind of undergraduate discipline, his mental faculties might not have received a higher cultivation, thus rendering him capable of greater advancement in after life. The Intercollegiate Scholarship will not be a sure test. It will not follow that the system of the college sending the winning candidate in any particular year is all right, and that the others are all wrong; but if the prize is taken for many successive years by the same college, or by several whose modes of instruction are similar, it will behoove the unsuccessful academies to look to the differences between themselves and the former, and see whether there be nothing to abolish in the one case or to copy in the other.

As to the emulation which the Nation considers so dreadful a thing, we cannot see any harm in fair rivalry between different persons for a good object, whether it be in boat-racing, in scholarships, or in anything else. It is the unavoidable concomitant of every struggle where all cannot win, and does more good than harm. It may be said that the fame of winning this scholarship will be a partial inducement to the contesting student. Such will undoubtedly be the case until young saints come to college and human weaknesses are known only to the uneducated.