The Undergraduate

Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and Professional Students in the United States and Europe. 'Ekκáστω σúμμaΧΟι πáντεζ. January, 1860. Printed for the Association. New Haven, Conn.

WE are not unused to the sight of College Periodicals. They have commonly greeted us in the form of monthly numbers, each containing two or three essays which sounded as if they might have done duty as themes, a critical article or twosome copies of verses, and winding up with a few pages in fine print, purporting to be editorial, jaunty and jocular for the most part, and opulent in local allusions. It would be unnatural, if these juvenile productions did not often reflect the opinions of favorite instructors and the style of popular authors. A Freshman's first essay is like the short gallop of a colt on trial; its promise is what we care for, more than its performance. If it had not something of crudeness and imitation, we should suspect, the youth, and be disposed to examine him as the British turfmen have been examining the American colt Umpire, first favorite for the next Derby. But three or four years' study and practice teach the young man his paces, so that many Bachelors of Arts have formed the style already by which they will hereafter be known in the world of letters. We are always pleased, therefore, to look over a College Periodical, even of the humblest pretensions. The possibilities of its young writers give an interest and dignity to the least among them which make its slender presence welcome.

But here we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. “ The Undergraduate ” has almost the dimensions of the “ North American Review,” and, like that, promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College, and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions. Its objects are clearly stated in the well-written Prospectus and Introduction. They are briefly these: — “ To record the history, promote the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and Professional Students, and their Institutions.”

The name, “Undergraduate,” shows by whom it is to be managed ; but its contributors are, and will doubtless continue to be, in part, of a more advanced standing. There are articles in the present number which we have read with great interest, and without ever being reminded that they were contributed to a students’ journal. The first paper, for instance, " German Student-Life and Travel,” is not only 'well written, but full of excellent suggestions, which show that the writer has reached the age of good sense, whether he count his years by tens or scores. “A Student’s Voyage to Labrador” is a well-told story of scenes and experiences new to most readers. Not less pleased were we to have an authentic account of the two ancient societies of Yale College, “Brothers in Unity” and “ Linonia,” rivals for almost a century, and still maintaining their protracted struggle for numerical superiority. Articles like this will interest all students, and many outside of the student-world. “The Undergraduate” would not treat us fairly, if it did not temper them somewhat, as it has done, with specimens of more distinctly youthful character. Perhaps it might be Safe to lay it down as a law, that, the tenderer the age, the wider the subject, and, contrariwise, the older the head, the more limited and definite the probable range of discussion. It is safe to say that a young man’s essay is most likely to be interesting when he writes about something he has seen or experienced, so as to know more about it than his readers. Disquisitions on “ Virtue,” “ Honesty,” “ Shakspeare,” “Human Nature,” and such large subjects, are valuable chiefly as showing how the colts gallop.

On the whole, “The Undergraduate” is most creditable to the enterprise that gave it birth, and to the young men who have contributed to it. If we should give any additional hints to that just whispered, it would be, that more care should be taken in looking over the proofs. Calvinism should not be spelt Calvanism, Thackeray Thackaray, nor Courvoisier Corvosier, —neither should traveller be spelt traveler, nor theatre theater. These last provincialisms, particularly, should not find a place in a journal meant for students all over the English-speaking world; and if, as we hope, contributions shall hereafter appear in the new Quarterly from any persons connected with our neighboring University, it should be a condition that the English standard of spelling should be adopted in preference to any local perversions.

With these suggestions, we give a most cordial welcome to a periodical which we trust will begin a new period in the literary history of our educational institutions.