A. B. Again.

That harmless pigskin with the symbol, A. B. on it, is at present causing no little discussion. The following letter from the Nation, the hotbed of this discussion, may prove interesting:

"Not only is the college degree of A B. delightfully indefinite, but it is worse than indefinite. For, while the public are taught to believe it a symbol of good work done in some of the departments of the college menu, in fact it often means nothing more than that its receiver has managed to remain four years at college without having been guilty of any violent disregard of college laws, and has shown during that time that he has tried to study some one or two subjects.

When academies are permitted to give college degrees, a two-fold injustice is enacted. Such a giving of college degrees is unjust both to the public and to the poor student, who will sooner or later learn to his sorrow the great difference between his A. B. and, for example, that from Yale.

While I, too, "am a thorough believer in the elective system, yet I do not believe that any one is entitled to the degree of A. B." who has not done a certain amount of brain work, who has not been educated up to a certain point. It is by no means necessary that A has done the same work in kind as B for him to receive the same degree; but it is necessary that they be equally educated, equally equipped for future work along their respective lines. For example, just how much French and German is an equivalent for a certain amount of Greek is for the gentlemen of the faculties of our colleges - not academies - to decide. That the equation cannot be made with mathematical truth, is no argument against the approximation of the truth. Let us learn something in this matter of college degrees from our cousins across the water."