selected when in milk from a flock we had, and
which were left with them for a longer or shorter period. Our fund was
ample, and I think judiciously dispensed.

The laws and regulations of our _Verein_ extended to the police and the
moral government of our little community. The students were divided into
six circles, (_Kreise_,) and for the government of each of these we
elected a guardian or councillor (_Kreisrath_). These were our most
important officers,--their province embracing the social life and moral
deportment of each member of the _Kreis_. This, one might imagine, would
degenerate into an inquisitorial or intermeddling surveillance; but in
practice it never did. Each _Kreis_ was a band of friends, and its chief
was the friend most valued and esteemed among them. It had its weekly
meetings; and I remember, in all my life, no pleasanter gatherings than
these. Myself a _Kreisrath_ towards the close of my student life, I bore
home with me no more valued memorial than a brief letter of farewell,
expressive of affection and gratitude, signed by each member of the
_Kreis_.

Our judiciary consisted of a bench of three judges, whose sessions were
held in our principal hall with all due formality,--two sentinels, with
swords drawn, guarding the doors. The punishments within its power to
inflict were a vote of censure, fines, deprivation of the right of
suffrage, declaration of ineligibility to office, and degradation from
office. This last punishment was not inflicted on any student during my
residence at Hofwyl. Trials were very rare; and I do not remember one,
except for some venial offence. The offender usually pleaded his own
cause; but, if he preferred it, he might procure a friend to act as his
advocate.

The dread of public censure, thus declared by sentence after formal
trial, was great and influential among us. Its power may be judged from
the following example.

Two German princes, sons of a wealthy nobleman, the Prince of Tour and
Taxis, having been furnished by their father with a larger allowance of
pocket-money than they could legitimately spend at Hofwyl, conceived a
somewhat irregular mode of disposing of part of it. They were in the
habit of occasionally getting up late at night, after all their comrades
had retired to rest, and proceeding to the neighboring village of
Buchsee, there to spend an hour or two in a tavern, smoking and drinking
_lager-bier_.

Now we had no strict college bounds, and