A College Problem.

"Dick" Cleveland, son of the former President of the United States, undertakes to do at Princeton as a student what Owen Johnson as an author sought to do at Yale through the influence of a popular piece of fiction, which, after all, was not entirely fiction. Nearly all the big schools in the country have to do with the problem which Princeton now is debating. In all of them there are societies and clubs, more or less secret, membership in which is esteemed an honor to be prized, and the influence of which in many instances is highly beneficial. But the trouble is that these clubs tend to take a place of overshadowing importance in the student mind, and that in the nature of the situation many worthy men must fail of election to them. The problem is not merely a student problem. It is the expression of an inherent human tendency. Maroon a hundred persons on a Pacific island and in a fortnight they will split into two or three groups. The English universities have a college system, and the world in which a man will live is determined by himself by his choice of a college. Many American schools have the fraternity system, notably Cornell, where there are more than half a hundred societies. Where the fraternities do not exist other social organizations take their places. At Princeton the eating clubs, some of them of respectable antiquity with traditions to cherish and trophies and souvenirs to treasure, hold the field.

Now the significant thing is that the Princeton faculty hopes that the movement of the little company of sophomore reformers will succeed. The club elections have come to be too important a feature of school life, almost making or marring a college course. The best men do not always disclose themselves during the two years in which the upper classmen are "looking over the material" and making their selections for the coveted memberships. Some men are good mixers and others are shy and make their way slowly. Some are predominantly athletic, some altogether athletic, some are grinds and others are general good fellows. The puzzle is how to realize the ideals of college democracy and still give men a chance to enjoy to the full precious fellowships that are possible only in limited circles. Harvard considered the matter when the Freshman dormitories were established. Yale tried to eliminate certain abuses when it made tap day a college affair and not a public exhibition. Now Princeton is dealing with this very human question, and very likely the end will be not a complete revolution but some measure of real reform. --Boston Herald.