men to college, and has helped to create a college enthusiasm. The great universities have the enthusiasm of numbers. The trivial is nothing in the great movements of mind. Local custom and party institutions take a natural and minor place before the supremacy of the institution. To a Harvard or Yale man the university is the all in all. But a small college has the evils of a small village; petty gossip and petty divisions and petty strifes are unduly magnified. The fraternity or the class becomes of more importance than the college on which its very life depends. A single college victory in athletics has done more to put minor matters in minor places, and exalt the college and develop a proper loyalty than a generation of teaching.

And what romance gathers about college sports! How the senses thrill at the whack of the ball or the swash of the oar! The tilting-field was no more to the knight than the field and the river to the college youth. The days of college sports are a treasury of bright memories that shall feed the spirit of youth through years of famine. Men in the full toil of the years, you can not forget how we felt and we strove together.

"Old companions, now seldom met, but never forgotten, soldiers, merchants, lawyers, grave J. P.s, and graver clergymen, I reach to you the right hand of fellowship from these pages, and empty this solemn pewter-trophy of hard-won victory to your health and happiness. Surely, none the worse Christians and citizens are ye for your involuntary failing of muscularity!" ARTHUR S. HOYT, '72.

SUPERSTITION.

T is commonly said that the age of superstition is a thing

those strange and mysterious phenomena which so puzzled and perplexed our forefathers; that we have passed beyond that stage where we looked with awe upon everything which was in any degree shrouded in mystery.

In a certain sense this may be true, but considered in a finer and stricter sense it cannot be. Superstition exists

yet to-day even as in those ancient times when St. Paul stood in the midst of Mars' Hill and said, "Ye men of Athens I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." Nor would we have it past. Superstition, in the sense of sympathy with the unseen is the producing power in man's mind of reverence and veneration. In superstition lies the germ of religion. Although oftentimes it is injurious, degrading, demoralizing, it is only so in its undeveloped form. The chrysalis of the butterfly is of itself a thing of but little beauty or value, but in it lies the possibility of almost perfect beauty.

Superstition is on the road to development as man advances. The average man will not surrender his inborn prejudices in a moment. They are too sacred to be cast suddenly aside, but must be moulded and changed by the softening influences of time. The summits of the mountains may be bathed in the sunlight and reawakened to life by the returning dawn while the valleys are still bound in an icy grasp; so a superstitious faith may be banished from the high places of the earth, from the pulpit and the bar, and still rest darkly upon the hearts of many, binding them with a power that is unseen but nevertheless irresistible.

It is not the bold and outward superstition of the Greeks and Romans in their oracles and omens which we have today, but a form not less subtle surrounding and influencing the minds of the succeeding ages. Napoleon, when awaiting the news of his fleet upon the Nile, learning of the complete destruction of the ship L'Italia immediately read in it a prophecy of the loss of Italy to France. But what, was asked, was the connection between the loss of a ship upon the remote Nile and this territorial province? "No matter," he replied, "you will see that all is ruined. My presentiments never fail me. I am satisfied that Italy is lost." And so it was. But how many of us could believe that it was because of the existing similarity of names.

The witchcraft of colonial times, and later still the ideas held forth in the "Legends of Sleepy-Hollow," are but examples of the power of the supernatural upon the human mind.

There are in the world two vast solitudes, the ocean and the desert. Both are parents of superstition. To the sailor the seething and soughing of the waves are oftentimes the voices of beings more than human; while the child of the desert is moved to awe by the constant contact with the infinite.

In these we have seen the causes of superstition. We cannot but suggest the remedy. Naturally the mind of man strives to go beyond the mere positive fact of a phenomenon, and to those which are supernatural assign a mysterious cause. It is only in the light which science and revelation shed upon us that the darkness of our minds will at last be dispelled and we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known." ROBERT B. PERINE, '90.

Editors' Table.

If there is any time when we are inclined to make a survey of the past, it is when we have added another year to those already gone, and, with fondest expectancy, picture the future in our minds. It is such a comparison of the past with what we see in the future, which will make the future of the greatest service to all.

During the past twelve months we have seen pass from us a Bright, a Cox, a Collins, a Browning, a Grady. We have seen the suffering incident to flood and fire, and a "people with a heart" rallying to their assistance; a German Fatherland mourning two Emperors; a Brazil, set on fire by the spark of emancipation, all ablaze with Republicanism; a centenary anniversary celebrated by a peaceful and thankful nation. We see a West advancing in every way with almost an "Oklahoma" impetus; a South recovering from its misery and diffusing its progressive ideas into every phase of life; a,Nation, united and harmonious, moving steadily forward in science, industry and education.

Hamilton College has not been called to mourn the loss of any of her active body; and for this our hearts should be full of gratitude. She has to a certain degree caught the spirit of the hour. What one, even in his fondest dreams one year ago, ever painted the year in such bright colors? Advance has seemed to be the watchword.

Gifts amounting to $25,000 have been made to the college. The Endowment Fund has again been agitated, and it surely means something when such a man as Trustee Horace B. Silliman is placed at the head of the movement," the man who has shown by his deeds that he has faith in Hamilton College." The Library has been open daily to students, over one thousand books have been added and the whole 35,000 volumes catalogued under the supervision of Prof.

Hoyt. This may seem of minor importance, but every student knows by experience the advance, when he remembers the uncatalogued mass upon the shelves two years ago. A new excuse system was presented, which has made a wonderful change in regularity, and as a system meets with approval from all. We welcomed on our Campus with returning spring, a perfect monument of a noble heart-Silliman Hall. In this we are in advance of three-fourths of the colleges of America. Who can tell of the benefit already derived from the presence of this building among us? We do not claim that since we had this addition we have become the Utopia of morality and religion. Yet it is a fact that there has taken place during the past year a change for the better, and it argues well for the college as well as for the students themselves. The low and vulgar is gradually leaving us, and in its place we find more nobleness and manliness. We have as much social enjoyment, but that enjoyment in the main is more elevating, tending more to produce refined and cultured gentlemen, the standard by which every one is judged.

With this improvement and advancement, has come also a change in the attitude of all toward athletics. Muscular Christianity seems to have given rise to a new athletics, as compared with that of several years ago. We seek now an athletics which elevates both mind and body. The old stigma placed upon an athlete is no more. He is looked upon no longer as little less than a “trained brute," ready for the "mill." The representative athletes of Hamilton captured the New York State Inter-Collegiate Athletic pennant at Albany, May 24, and the general welcome and celebration to them on their return is a good illustration of the feeling toward athletics among the body of students and Clintonians. The year 1889 has been one of note; but may we not make '90 the “red letter" year in the history of the college? Let us see.

We need your

Alumni, you have a duty to perform to your Alma Mater. financial aid; but we need you even more to raise the standard of the college in your community, and to advertise it among the young. Send your sons to the scene of your early study and enable the college to do the work she is so eminently fitted to do.

Ye honored Curators, sit down and add up the beneficent measures passed by your honored body during the year. Are we not right when we affirm that very little arithmetic is needed to solve the problem; that it differs little from nothing added to nothing, and that the sum represents the results of your meetings? How long before there will be a change? Fill the vacant places in your board with live, wide-awake men of the new school," then imbibe some of their spirit yourselves, and, like an invalid under careful treatment, the college will become stronger and stronger.

The Faculty, by no means, have done all their duty. You, too, have something to do to bring Hamilton College where she belongs. In doing this, be assured you will have the support of the whole body of students.

We, the active members of the college, may have caught the spirit of the hour, and altogether there may be advance; but oh, how little that tells ! How much need there is for greater activity! If every one does his duty we predict for Hamilton during 1890, a change in the examination system, a base-ball championship, a foot-ball eleven worthy of the name, the Inter-Collegiate championship cup at the Utica contests, and, by reason of these, a completed endow

ment and a $20,000 gymnasium. Let every man in college realize that by aiding in securing the first mentioned results and honors, the last will follow almost of necessity. The hour will demand it, all will unite to secure it, and it will be done.

THE College athletic season just passed, has succeeded in making foot-ball in this country second to no college sport. This success has come, because it does not interfere with base-ball, our distinctive American game, and does require in a pre-eminent degree those qualities that tend to make any game requiring them a favorite among college men. Pluck, judgment, muscle are the requisites of good playing. Nearly every American college to-day has its eleven, and why should not Hamilton? Syracuse, Rochester, Union, our rivals in athletics, all have elevens. That we have not already organized a foot-ball team has been due to carelessness, rather than inability. To-day we have the best possible material, and in order to bring a team into readiness for the work of next fall, it behooves us to effect an organization at once. There need not, and should not, be any conflict between the interests of the nine and eleven. Immediate organization, training of the candidates in the gymnasium, all the practice possible in the spring, will enable the college to put an eleven in the field for the fall work that will not fail to reflect credit on college and students.

But all this presupposes liberal financial support, which must be forthcoming promptly and willingly if such an undertaking be made a success. We think we express the college sentiment in saying: We hope in the future our foot-ball eleven will be a thing of flesh and not of paper.

In the spring of 1889 the Faculty passed a resolution changing the date of the Clark Prize Exhibition from Tuesday of Commencement week to the Wednesday following the last Senior examination. The exhibitions of '88 and '89 have thus been held upon the latter date and have sufficiently proven that the change was unwise.

It has long been considered that the Commencements of Hamilton are inferior to none of those of other colleges for a display of rhetoric and oratorical ability. Among the exercises of Commencement week Clark Prize was always considered by the alumni and visitors as the most interesting. While the Prize Debate is a better display of ready ability, the Clark Prize is more enjoyable, for then is heard the finest rhetoric and often the best speaking of the Senior class. Since the exhibition has been held at the earlier date, many of the alumni and friends of the graduates, wishing to be present at Commencement, are unable and unwilling to make the two visits to Clinton, and so the contest is only heard by the students and the few friends of the speakers in the village.

The reason for the change was said to be that Commencement week was too crowded with exercises, but if Prize Declamation should be placed as before on Saturday evening and the Clark Prize on Tuesday, it seems as if there would be time enough for all. Better a little crowding in Commencement week, if need be, than that the main feature of the week should be placed where those most interested in it should be unable to be present or inconvenienced in order to attend.

The Faculty would surely please the alumni and students by placing the exhibition in its old place in Commencement week.