Professor Bryce on American Universities.

Professor Bryce, of Oxford, Eng., in his recent work on the American Commonwealth," devotes a chapter to American universities and colleges. "Diligence, he says, is the tradition of the American college, especially of those which are remote from the influences of large cities. Even the greater universities, as Harvard, Yale and Columbia, have never been primarily places for spending three or four years pleasantly, and incidentally places of instruction, as was the case with Oxford and Cambridge during the last century. Every student at an American college goes to college with the fixed idea of learning something.

"Harvard, Professor Bryce naturally recognizes as the leading American university. The largest staff of professors, instructors, etc., is that of Harvard with 62 professors, instructors and lecturers in the collegiate department. [In this respect Prof. Bryce is mistaken. According to the Catalogue for 1888-89, Harvard College has 95 professors, instructors and lecturers.] Columbia comes second with 50; Johns Hopkins, 49; University of Michigan, 47; Yale, 46; Princeton, 39. The salaries paid to professors at American universities and colleges are very small when compared to the general wealth of the country and the cost of living. The highest are those in Columbia, a few of which exceed $5,000 a year. In Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins and Cornell they generally fall below $4,000."

Professor Bryce admires the Harvard yard and the Yale campus. "At Harvard and Yale the brick dormitories and class-rooms are scattered over a wide extent of well-kept lawn; ancient elms planted in every corner lend an additional pleasing effect to the whole.

"The freedom in choice of studies varies with the universities; in some the students can elect their studies from the very beginning; in others after two years. This so-called elective system, which has reached its height at Harvard, has been for many years, and is still, the subject of a warmly waged controversy turning upon the question whether Greek should be compulsory or not.

"At Harvard, one-third of the students come from schools supported by the public treasury.

"The theological faculties in American colleges are as a rule denominational. Harvard, however, although formerly not, has at present an unsectarian faculty, in which there are several divines of Trinitarian denominations."