the mind of the ordinary student in a way that no book can. This fact, however, has not prevented the library from becoming, not a dominating part, but at any rate an enormously important part, of university life.

In an American university the library is usually, architecturally, one of the most pleasing buildings. It has not the mellow grandeur of the Bodleian. Its beauty is modern, although often developed from classical designs. It is in most American universities a dignified building, spacious, airy, with bountiful windows, and generous seating room. The amount of money spent on purchasing books is large; the foreign reviews are supplied plentifully. Probably in no other country has the technique of library work been developed so highly as in the United States. The system of classification is excellent; the seeker after knowledge loses little time in obtaining the book he asks for. Indeed, the American student-but this is true of students in every countryhas come to rely too much upon the library. He does not buy books for himself, not because he is poor (for he finds money to spend on other things), but because he prefers to read them in the library for nothing.

Although every student should buy some books for himself, and should form his own chosen collection, yet the library is an essential, and perhaps on the whole the pleasantest, part of American university life. In those large, quiet buildings, with their beautiful ceilings, their magnificent windows, their bookcases open at hand, the students come, and do more than merely study: they acquire culture and refinement. They work for examinations or for classes, but every now and then the eye strays to a shelf where are books outside their class-work, and they take down and read a play of Chekhov, an essay of Matthew Arnold, or an article from the latest Review. It is true that the university student has his troubles, his examinations, and he must face them. He cannot enter the library, saying simply in the spirit of Montaigne :

My intention is to pass the remainder of my life quietly and not laboriously, in rest and not in care. There is nothing I will trouble or vex myself about, no not for science itself, what esteem soever it be of. I do not search and toss over books but for an honester recreation to please, and pastime to delight myself: or if I study, I only endeavour to find out the knowledge that teacheth or handleth the knowledge of myself, and which may instruct me how to die well and how to live well.

Although the university students have more practical and immediate aims when they enter the library, they have something -the more imaginative have, at any rate of Montaigne's spirit, too. They cull and garner sweetness in a building which, owing to the somewhat Spartan conditions of student existence, has become for them not so much a storehouse of books, as a great, quiet club. Here is society and solitude: silence, yet in company,one's own thoughts, among a pleasant society of men and books.

As all universities exist for the distribution and advancement of knowledge, and for the training of the mind, the American universities must be judged according to their achievement in respect of these aims. What kind of intellectual training do they provide, and what standard do they reach ?

The chief difference that a stranger who is familiar with Oxford or Cambridge notices is the absence of specialization in the undergraduate courses. It is impossible to pass through an American university and to proceed to the degree of Bachelor of Arts by studying only in history and its cognate subjects, or only in classics, or only in mathematics. All freshmen have to take courses in English, which includes composition and literature. Four years is the normal time required by a student for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the first two years he will probably study a variety of subjects, including two languages, and mathematics or science. In the last two years he will concentrate more nearly, but not completely, upon his chosen study-upon history, or classics or mathematics or whatever he likes best. The degree of Master of Arts is obtained by further attendance at lectures, and by writing a thesis, in which specialization is enforced, so that the Master of Arts may be assumed to have reached a respectable standard of attainment in his selected field. Nevertheless, while he has a better general equipment, he is probably not so well equipped in his particular field as is the undergraduate who has obtained a first-class in one of the Final Schools at Oxford or the Tripos at Cambridge.

On the other hand, where the Oxford and Cambridge system of training scholars tends to stop, the American system only begins. The clever and aspiring English undergraduate is content with a first-class, or, still better, with two first-classes. He then goes out into the world as an administrator or a teacher, or he stays in the university and becomes a don. In the United States the

clever Bachelor of Arts or Master of Arts, who aspires to an academic career, works for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). He remains for years still at his university, or he goes off to another. He may engage in teaching somewhere, but he will come back to a university. He must attend more courses of advanced lectures; he will take part in seminary (that is research) classes; he will prepare a thesis which must embody original work and will probably make a substantial book. In any large American university there are many students of any age from twenty-three to thirty years or more, who are researching in the libraries or laboratories for their doctor's degree. It is for them that the system of emoluments chiefly exists. Every university offers scholarships, or fellowships, or part-time posts called assistantships, for promising students who will work for a "superior" degree. They may come from any university. These older students, who exist in the English universities, but in lesser numbers, give the class-room of a professor something of a continental air. It is among them that he finds his best students. They-some of them-are the future professors. They work with him, he trains them; they research in the work on which he himself is researching, he may find their work useful to himself. The possession of the degree of doctor proves not merely that a man has reached a certain intellectual level, and has acquired a certain precise amount of knowledge, but also that he has gone through a very definite course of training, which fits him for the advancement of learning. Practically every American who becomes a professor has proved his capacity, and acquired training, in this particular way.

Perhaps the nearest approach to the idea of an "honours student in an American university is one who has been elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. This body was founded in the year 1776 at William and Mary College, Virginia, and within a very short time it became national. Chapters" of the society were founded at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and all the colleges of reputation. To-day there is a chapter in every university and at all the colleges of recognized standing. Every year each chapter elects, out of the students who have the highest academic record, a certain number to be members of the society. Out of a university of seven thousand or eight thousand students, there might be any number from about thirty to fifty elected. These

are, for the most part, usually taken from students about to graduate B.A. ("seniors "), a few being taken from the students of the second year (sophomores). There are no duties and no privileges connected with membership, but to "make Phi Beta Kappa" is a distinction which is coveted, and is a guarantee wherever a student goes of scholastic attainment above the ordinary.

Academic life all over the world is an example of unity in difference. Every country has its own system; every university has its own customs. But the profession of learning, the pursuit of knowledge, is cosmopolitan. Yet between the universities of the English-speaking world there is, naturally, a higher degree of community than between the English universities and those of continental Europe. A student or teacher who transfers himself from England to America, or from America to England, easily finds himself at home. He sees everywhere the eternal youthfulness of the race, the young men, their carelessness, their loyalty, their enthusiasm. He sees the perpetual struggle between pleasure, ambition, duty. He beholds, perhaps, mankind at its best, before the love of money has come in and before worldly anxieties have bred fear. In these imperfect beings, who come and go unendingly in their splendid youth, he recognizes the grace that doth shine in their faces. For they are part of that divine stream of ideals that flows forever to the unknown sea.

R. B. MoWAT

RUGBY FOOTBALL

Rugger. By W. W. WAKEFIELD & H. P. MARSHALL. Longmans, Green. 1927.

THOU

HOUGH Rugby football was in existence before, it would be as well to look upon the foundation of the Rugby Union as the important date in the history of the game from which its subsequent development can be traced. There are those still alive who have all the changes in their memories; who have seen the great alterations in the methods of play as well as the spread of the game to all parts of the globe where Englishmen are found. Even more have they witnessed the spread of the game on the continent-to France, to Germany, to Italy, Spain, Belgium and Czechoslovakia. It is difficult indeed to see where it is going to end, for as years go on the game becomes more popular than ever. Each season sees a distinct growth in the number of clubs, particularly in the schools, many of which have left the Association game for Rugby, though there should be ample room for both. It seems probable that the chief reason for the change lies in the fact that the amateur has been driven out of the other game to such an extent that his opportunities for playing are extremely limited, and he is very liable to find himself out in the cold in certain localities. Facts must be faced, and the mere differences in the attendances at the matches played by the Universities tell plainly which code of rules holds sway at the moment.

The matter can well be left there, for it is not proposed to go into the history of the game in detail; indeed it would be impossible to do so with limited space. The salient features of the last thirty-five years have been the introduction of the four threequarter game, firstly by Wales of course, and gradually afterwards by the other countries, beginning about 1893. At this period the Rugby Union were faced with the fact that a large proportion of the north of England wished to alter their rules so as to make payments to players for broken time. The great northern counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire were left to themselves, and to this day the breach has not been healed. It was, in the opinion of all, a most unfortunate affair and certainly contributed largely to the slough of despond into which Rugby football in England at one time sank.