narrow than those in authority are apt to perceive.  It does not affect the great body of students, who are filled with robust life, and whose very faults are conceits and extravagances rather than misdeeds.  But disorder spreads from one to another:  originating with the morally perverse, it gathers sufficient volume and momentum to overpower at times even the very best.  To protect the better class of students, then, were there no other reason, the faculty is bound to interfere energetically and in season.  Its position is not unlike that of the commander of a regiment.  The colonel will not unfrequently wink at a certain amount of dissipation among the officers, and even among the privates.  He may say to himself that the offence is one hard to prove, that perhaps it will wear itself out in time, that perhaps it is best not to draw the reigns too tightly.  But no commanding officer can afford to tolerate for an instant the slightest movement of insubordination.  He must put it down on the spot, without regard to consequences, and without stopping to inquire into abstract questions of right and wrong.  No one, of course, will assert that the head of a college is to act according to the military code.  The differences between soldier life and college life are fundamental.  Yet there are certain resemblances which prompt and justify the wish that a touch at least of the military spirit might be infused into our colleges.  The spirit, be it carefully observed, and not the forms, for the incompatibility between the military and the literary-scientific methods has been demonstrated repeatedly, the most recent evidence being furnished by those colleges that have attempted to combine, under the terms of the Congressional land-grant, agriculture, the mechanic arts, classical studies and military tactics.  But a touch of the military spirit would be possible and beneficial in many ways.  It would make the relationship between professor and student more tolerable for both parties.  The mental drill and substantial information acquired through the college course are undoubtedly great.  Still greater is the formative influence exercised by the body of students upon the individual member.  But the greatest lesson of the course—­and the one which seems to have escaped the otherwise close observation of President Porter—­should be the lesson of deference to position and authority.  This deference to one’s superiors in age and position, this respect due to the professor simply because he is a professor, and aside from any consideration of his personal character or attainments, should be the first thing to impress itself upon the student’s mind, the last to forsake it.  For it is a high moral gain, a controlling principle that will stand the graduate in good stead through all the vicissitudes of after-life.  Unless it be acquired we may say with propriety that the college course has fallen short of its highest aim.  For the acquisition of this spirit of respect, military training is superior to civil.  One officer salutes another, the private salutes his officer, simply because the person saluted is an officer.  It may be that he is disagreeable or boorish in manners, or even notoriously incompetent.  This matters not:  so long as he wears the epaulettes he is entitled to an officer’s salute.  Honor is shown, not to the transient owner of the title, but to the title itself.