A Western View.

"At this moment, when President Eliot of Harvard University has gone to Europe for a well-deserved vacation, it would perhaps be not out of place to comment on the tremendous progress which Harvard has made under his administration. The corps of instructors, containing some of the most eminent names in American scholarship and letters has been doubled; the size of the classes has increased from about one hundred to very nearly three; and the great elective system, broadening, expanding and enlightening the minds and purposes has been brought to a state of perfection which Yale and Princeton must follow, or be worse distanced than now. Religion is no longer forced upon the students, who are left to form their religious convictions with mature thought, and not to imbibe early in life a feeling of hostility and contempt for all religion. Perhaps it is to be deplored that Harvard's proximity to Boston tends to inculcate in young minds the dilletate spirit which pervades the Athens of America. Take it all in all, though, President Eliot has accomplished a great deal even if he has not been as wholly successful as he hoped. Our immortal orator, Henry Clay, once said, 'The noblest task possible to man is to teach the young to be earnest and upright; self-reliant and confident; patriotic and courageous.' This Mr. Eliot has done, or striven to do, and as far as he has succeeded, we can rightly congratulate and praise him. Let him enjoy his vacation in the tranquility which accompanies the knowledge of labor well done, conscious that he has left behind him the foremost as well as the oldest American university. - Western Exchange.