Note and Comment.

The following is copied from a student's notes of one of Prof. Norton's recent lectures, - "Moral sentiment is of very slow growth. A few days since Mr. Lowell was speaking to a body of students, 20 or 30 in number, in regard to civil service reform. He spoke with great earnestness in respect to the reform as having a moral element, as being of no less importance than the old anti-slavery contest, in some aspects, perhaps, even of greater consequence than that. When he spoke in this way in regard to the moral principle involved in civil service reform, a very considerable part of that body of students laughed a little, as if it were a joke. It was an illustration of what I have been just now pointing out, the slow growth of moral sentiment. There really is nothing so important for you, for young men of this time, as to feel that the civil service reform is a moral cause; one, therefore, which demands of every youth his support, and concerning which there cannot be two sides in the thoughts and feelings of enlightened rational and moral men. There may be, of course, difference of judgment in regard to specific measures; but there can be no difference among right-minded men in regard to the essential principles on which the cause rests."