JUSTICE TO PROFESSORS.

We present below an extract from an editorial in the New York Times, which presents an old subject in a new light:

"There seems to be a good deal of insubordination among college faculties, and in several instances students have been compelled to act with decision and sternness. The Princeton students a short time ago found so much difficulty in enforcing discipline among the professors that they published a statement in regard to the bad conduct of the faculty, in order to array public sentiment against the wrong-doers. The seniors of Hamilton College have been brought face to face with a rebellion on the part of the faculty, and it seems probable that in the end the rebellion will triumph. Only last week representatives from half a dozen colleges met in order to discuss measures for enforcing discipline among professors and presidents, and issued an announcement to the effect that they could not approve the conduct of those college officers who had impudently attempted to instruct students as to their duty in athletic matters. These and various other incidents that might be quoted, show that a spirit of rebellion is abroad among college faculties, and that unless the students are firm and inflexible their authority may be set at defiance by reckless and disorderly professors.

It is very important that our colleges should be well governed, and to this end the conduct of the students should be in keeping with the spirit of the age. It should be assumed that the college professor is a man capable of self-government, and not a foolish old person requiring guardians and nurses. The time has gone by when a professor needed to be treated lid a school boy. It is true, that the professor, living a comparatively secluded life, is ignorant of many things-such, for instance, as the proper odds to lay on any given crew or ball club. Still, he is a thinking and responsible being, and should be treated as such.

In too many of our colleges the professors are treated in an arrogant, dictatorial way that cannot be commended. It tends to destroy their self-respect and to render them detain. The students should understand that it is not their business to supervise the morals or manners of professors, except in the class-room. If the professors are made to feel that they themselves are the arbiters of their own actions, and that they are looked upon by the students as gentlemen and scholars, a higher tone will soon begin to prevail among them. Acts of disorder-such as the "marking down"of students who prefer not to make accurate recitations, or acts of impudent meddling, such as reprimanding students who have thought proper to get drunk-will become fewer and fewer. The professors will come to understand that the students require nothing of them except that they shall not interfere with the students, and so soon as they adopt those course the relations between the faculty and the undergraduates will become harmonious. Nothing can be done, however, while the professors are tyrannically treated, for manly and courteous conduct cannot be expected from those whose self-respect is outraged, and who are daily made to feel that in the eyes of students they are little better than disorderly schoolboys."