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58 REPORT OF PRESIDENT. 5

matics. The comparatively indifferent showing of students in Mathe-
matics is largely due to the fact that the entrance requirements in
that department were raised a full year and the academies had only a
few months' notice of the change. Nevertheless, we have fewer col-
lege students entering with conditions than ever before and we have
felt justified in dropping two classes which were formerly taught for the
benefit of such conditioned men,-one in Latin and one in Mathe-
matics.

In spite of the insistence upon the higher entrance requirements,
there has been practically no falling off in the number o students, the
difference between the enrollment this session and last being only one
name in favor of last session. The registration on September 3, the
first day of the session, was unprecedentedly large. As the total enroll-
ment indicates, the excess of 23 above the highest previous first day's
registration was due to the greater promptness of entrance, facilitated,
no doubt by the opening of the session about one week later than usual.

The following statistical table presents interesting facts:
The Students, 1907-'08.

Your attention is called to the gratifying fact disclosed by a com-
parison of this table with the corresponding one of last year that, with
practically the same enrollment, the Bursar has mad ebetter collections
than last year by £2,272.63, leaving the amount due smaller by $1,323.
It ought to be explained, moreover, that the amount of the open ac-
counts will be greatly reduced before the close of the session.

The general spirit and bearing of the students has been excellent.
In the month of October the newspapers created the impression that
there was serious trouble between the Faculty and the students. Again
in the recent past undesigned misrepresentations of the state of affairs
in the College community have gone abroad in the press of the State.
In both cases it has been necessary to make a public correction of news-
paper sensations. See letters by the President of the College in the
Biblical Recorder of October 23, 1907, and May 6, 1908. The session
has not passed without cases of serious discipline. These have all
been cases of hazing. Early in the fall a man was dismissed for this
breach of college law, Later two others offending in the same way
received the same punishment, and five others for a different type of it
were suspended. The success of the Faculty in finding out these men
and the vigor with which they were handled probably explain the fact
that there has been less of the hazing shame here this year than for
many years past. And there is beyond a question a steady advance of
student sentiment against the practice. It is not yet broken up, and it
is likely to occur sporadically for some time to come; but it is on the wane, and we look for its extinction. The Faculty hold that it is
better to foster this wholesome development and to rely upon it, than
to shift the relations of Faculty and students on to a wholly different
plane, as the detective policy would do. After once resorting to that
policy it would probably require a long time to recover again the
cordiality of friendly intercourse which is our pride today and which,
be it remembered, is after all our chief means of education.

The usual fall term special series of religious meetings in the College
began November 3d, Dr. William E. Hatcher, of Virginia, conducting
them. The immediate results in reclamations and conversions among
the students were less striking than in many former meetings, but the
later results showed that these services made a deep and abiding im-
pression on the life of the College. The manifold and gracious influence
of the College pastor, Dr. J. W. Lynch, upon all the phases of college
interest and activity is beyond appraisement. It is constantly enlarging
as the college community makes new discoveries of the depths of his
spirituality and the riches of his mental equipment. The Sunday
School, of which Dr. J. H. Gorrell is superintendent, has been able to lay hold of a larger percentage of the students than has been the case here-