President Eliot's Address Last Evening.

President Eliot, in his address to the Conference meeting. said that few students imagined the importance to the faculty of college public opinion. as in many cases the faculty were powerless without it. Drinking, cheating and lying are cases where the only cure is in the education of public opinion. Another example is the toleration among gentlemen of foul play in athletics, making an umpire needful to punish it. Howling at "errors" is extremely ungenerous and unsportsman-like. and is never seen in English universities. The chief object of college education is to implant in tellectual ambition and a high purpose, and this can be done only by a common sympathy for noble ends. Freshmen bring their home standards with them, and there is a decided difference between the present standards and those of the time when Harvard was a local institution After a man has been here some time he is influenced by oral traditions, and, among other things, boys of 18 or 19 play the same pranks as fourteen-year old freshmen did long ago. By these same traditions, too, the Harvard "breeding," which enable observant people to tell a graduate at first sight, are perpetuated.

There has been one great change here since President Eliot was a student. He never thought of asking a professor about anything, not even about his subject. Now there is much co-operation between the instructors and students, which is fostered by the departmental clubs and reading rooms. The greatest difficulty in the way of a proper understanding between students and faculty is lack of information. There is much printed matter, furnished gratuitously, which is not read. For instance, a student said to the president that the "organization of Memorial was fundamentally vicious, as the steward had an interest in making the board bad, as he got 50 per cent. of every order." This is "fundamentally" wrong. An officer of the Hall did not know that the directors could dismiss the steward without consulting anybody, yet all this is in the "Scheme for carrying on the Hall." Courtesy for other bodies often obliges the faculty to withhold information. When the faculty decided to make the freshman courses elective, the corporation and overseers, in their opinion, had to decide the matter. A member of the faculty handed the scheme to a reporter, and the measure was nearly lost, because those two bodies first heard about it through a newspaper. Many things are rightly done when good reasons cannot be given, and duty to an offender often demands secrecy in cases of discipline. To make a proper public opinion, every man should determine to believe only what is credible, and should cultivate moderation in expression, with a feeling of independence, for there is too much "follow your leader here"

After the lecture, President Eliot answered several questions connected with his subject, and the meeting closed with loud applause.