MY AUNTS VIEWS.

IT was a very ancient-looking horse. Once, perhaps, he was black, but now only a few gray hairs were left in the corners which time had spared. I say corners purposely, for his bones and joints were so large and visible that the beast seemed like some equine jumping-jack, whose tail must be pulled if you would set the legs in motion. This is but an idle fancy, for you might have pulled that tail with all your might and never produced the least result, unless, perhaps, you pulled the poor animal over. Need I say, then, that he was a very safe family horse? The small boy drove him without peril, except once when he was coaxed into a trot, going down hill, and directly fell down, breaking both shafts. Even then little damage was done, excepting the loss of the shafts and of a few more gray hairs.

The horse belonged to my uncle, and I was spending part of my vacation on his farm back in Hillsboro' County. Chief among the members of the household was an old spinster aunt. Keen, precise, and often despondent, she used to be a terror to my youthful mind. In her gloomy moods she said little, but expressed her feelings by occasional sniffs, which I found very trying. In her more cheerful moments she would unexpectedly spring all sorts of Bible questions upon me, and snort triumphantly when I failed to answer them. In the evening she would sing in a cracked, trembling voice the most dismal of old minor airs until I was sent trembling to bed, there to lie awake in terror, thinking every rat in the ancient house was a gibbering ghost. I once innocently asked her if she ever had a chance to get married; but I never repeated the question.

One summer morning, during this vacation, she announced that she must go to Bixby to do some shopping, and that I must drive her over. I had made different plans, but there was no appeal from her decision, and I obeyed. The only horse she would ride after was the bristly patriarch I have described, while the carriage she preferred was a huge old vehicle that my grandfather bought almost half a century ago. With this unique team we started for Bixby.

My aunt was talkative, and presently she waxed eloquent in expressing her views about colleges.

"This matter of a college education," said she, "is getting to be overdone. Your grandfather graduated at Harvard when he was nineteen; your father was twenty-one; you will be twenty three or four; and so it goes on. At this rate your grandchildren, if you have any," - "Cela depend," I murmured gently, but she did not hear it, - "will be thirty-five before they are ready to enter any profession, and all the while their chances of success will be growing poorer."

"How so?" I asked.

"Why, what good will a college education do unless you can use it? The very period of your life when you should begin to think and act for yourself, when you should be gaining a practical knowledge of men and the world, and working with enthusiasm upon your chosen profession, - this time you spend in a life every law of which is unpractical, in studies which are of doubtful use, and in recreations which are absurd, all for an object which is simply that humbug called general culture."

"But, aunt," said I, "the elective system -"

"Stuff!" she interrupted, "the elective system is a failure. You keep boys steadily at school from the time they are big enough to run alone, pick out their studies for them without consulting their own wishes, give them no chance to learn anything outside of books, treat them as mere cramming machines, and then, after this process has gone on ten or a dozen years, you suddenly remove all restraints and say, 'It is a very difficult thing to lay out a course of study properly, so use all wisdom, and Heaven bless you, my dear.'" Here my aunt gave an explosive snort of indignation. "What wonder," she continued, "that half the number wish to enjoy their sudden freedom, and rush for what you call soft electives, while the rest wander helplessly about choosing subjects for which they are not fitted, and giving them up in disgust for something else just as unsuitable."

"But, aunt," said I, "look at the size of our last two classes. Does n't that look as if public opinion favored the elective system?"

"I know, but wait and see. It is a new thing, and attractive from its novelty, but I tell you a feeling is rising against it. Your cousin Ned writes from Exeter that most of his class and of the class below him are going to Yale. That is a new step for Exeter, and what does it mean? Why, that the parents are growing suspicious of Harvard's present system, and prefer to send their boys somewhere else. Now, if this is the case -"

But this was all I learned of my aunt's views, for just at this point she discovered that I had driven by the cross-road where we should have turned. There was nothing to be done but to turn around. The road was narrow, and I had to back. The gray old patriarch, in attempting the reverse motion, could not manage his huge feet, tripped, sat on his haunches a moment dejectedly, then helplessly rolled over on his side, drew a long breath, closed his eyes, and lay motionless.

I was terrified, for the last time the beast was down, - by the way, he never lay down of his own accord, - they had to use another horse to pull him up again. The prospect looked gloomy, but I unharnessed him, and with my aunt's help drew the carriage back out of the way; then I got a rail from the fence, and, using a large stone as a fulcrum, I began to pry him up according to the most approved rules of Goodeve's mechanics. At the same time my aunt inserted the point of her parasol in a tender spot between his ribs, and we both called loudly on Hercules to aid us. Slowly and painfully the horse arose, with even more difficulty and far less grace than his wooden brother who clambered over the walls of Troy. Finally, thanks to my aunt's energetic thrusts, we got him on his feet again, and in due time proceeded on our journey; but the discussion of Harvard's elective system was indefinitely postponed.