and to devote a proper attention to various branches of learning, and
he was sincerely sorry that his other college engagements made it
quite impossible. Before coming to college he thought that it might be
practicable to mingle a little Latin and Greek, and possibly a touch of
history and mathematics, with the more pressing duties of college life; but
unless you could put more hours into the day, or more days into the week,
he really did not see how it could be done.

It was the life of Sardanapalus in college which was the text of some sober
speeches at Commencement dinners during the summer, and of many excellent
articles in the newspapers. They all expressed a feeling which has been
growing very rapidly and becoming very strong among old graduates,
that college is now a very different place from the college which they
remembered, and that young men now spend in a college year what young men
in college formerly thought would be a very handsome sum for them to spend
annually when they were established in the world. If any reader should
chance to recall a little book of reminiscences by Dr. Tomes, which was
published a few years ago, he will have a vivid picture of the life of
forty and more years ago at a small New England college; and the similar
records of other colleges at that time show how it was possible for a poor
clergyman starving upon a meagre salary to send son after son to college.
The collegian lived in a plain room, and upon very plain fare; he had no
"extras," and the decorative expense of Sardanapalus was unknown. In the
vacations he taught school or worked upon the farm. He knew that his father
had paid by his own hard work for every dollar that he spent, and the
relaxation of the sense of the duty of economy which always accompanies
great riches had not yet begun. Sixty years ago the number of Americans who
did not feel that they must live by their own labor was so small that it
was not a class. But there is now a class of rich men's sons.