in a dragoon-regiment under a false name. Later he was discovered by his friends and sent to Oxford, where he met Southey. In 1795 he lectured and even preached in the Unitarian chapels around Bristol, and founded a short-lived journal. Coleridge and Wordsworth early became fast friends, spending much time together. Their talks on poetry led to their jointly bringing out the Lyrical Ballads (1798), containing Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, and the little book marked a new departure in poetry. A year later appeared his translation of Wallenstein, one of his best bits of work. During these years, troubled with rheumatism and neuralgia, he began to use opium, and the habit grew and enslaved him. It ruined his health, was fatal to his imagination, and weakened his will. Very sad is his lament over his own decay in his beautiful ode on Dejection. He had before contributed to the London journals, and now began to issue a weekly paper, The Friend, which, however, lived but a few months. As a poet and philosopher Coleridge ranks high; while as a critic he is unsurpassed. Besides his poems, his finest works are, perhaps, Biographia Literaria and Aids to Reflection. He wrote but little poetry, but that little deserves to be printed on purple vellum and bound in covers of gold. He died at London, July 23, 1834.
Colfax (kōl′făks), Schuyler, a vice-president of the United States, was born at New York, March 23, 1823. Removing to Indiana, he published a newspaper at South Bend, which he made the foremost Whig journal in the district. Chosen a representative to Congress by the newly-formed Republican party, in 1854, he remained a member until 1869 and was three times speaker. He was elected vice-president on the ticket with Grant in 1868. He died on Jan. 13, 1885.
Coligni, Gaspard de (deh ko-lēn′yē), a French general, was born Feb. 16, 1517. A soldier at 22, he fought bravely in the wars against Spain, and was made general of infantry by Henry II. In 1552 he was made admiral of France, though he never commanded on the sea. In 1557 he stubbornly held St. Quentin, with a handful of men, for 11 days against the Spanish army, and, though all hope of defending the town was gone, he refused to surrender and was captured, fighting desperately at the head of a few soldiers. This defense saved France from being overrun by the Spaniards. Imprisonment followed, during which he became a Huguenot. As able a statesman as he was a soldier, he succeeded in outwitting the Guises and securing for the Huguenots freedom of worship. The bad faith of the queen-mother, Catherine dei Medici, brought about the second Huguenot war, in which Coligni was chief commander of the forces of Henry of Navarre, afterward Henry IV. When peace was concluded, Catherine took advantage of the marriage of Navarre with the sister of Charles IX, the king, to order the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572). Its chief victim was Coligni, who was murdered in his bed, at Paris and his body thrown into the street. Personally, Coligni was one of the noblest Frenchmen of the 16th century and had a profound love for his country.
Colleges, American. The course of study in our American colleges has been constantly enlarging and widening. The knowledge required for entering has also risen greatly, so that now colleges proper—as distinguished from the many high-schools and academies calling themselves colleges—furnish young men with an education fully equal to that of the undergraduate departments of English and German universities. The high conditions of admission are shown by the fact that 15 per cent. of the candidates for the freshman class at Harvard fail to pass the entrance examinations, while ten per cent. fail each year at Yale. Besides the regular course, almost all colleges offer the student, especially in the last two years of the course, elective studies, which, if he prefers, he can exchange for studies in the regular course. Training in writing and public speaking is also carried on, either under the direction of the faculty or in the exercises and debates of the literary societies and in the editing of college papers. Elective studies as a system were not introduced into Harvard till the accession of President Eliot (1869). They have since been widely adopted in other colleges. A student's expenses of course vary greatly. In city-colleges, like Yale, Harvard and Columbia, the extremes are from about $450 to $3,000 a year. At the country colleges of the east, a poor student's bills need not be more than $350, while at the smaller western colleges they may be still less. Moreover, all colleges grant aid to poor students of good brains, while teaching and tutoring or “coaching” often pay the whole of a student's expenses. Harvard bears the name of a Congregational clergyman. Princeton was founded to train up able ministers. And in fact, all the early colleges were founded for a like purpose. Many western colleges were also started as home-missionary schools. The aim of colleges has since greatly widened; yet college-professors to-day are in the main Christian men, and the influence in colleges on student and on the country is a Christian one. One feature of college life is its student-societies, open—most of them literary—and secret. These societies are often known as fraternities, with chapters in many colleges. In 1908 there were 32 men's fraternities in connection with American colleges, with 1,013 active chapters and a total membership of 198,507; in
