study, two or three specimens of the best modern English prose, criticise and discuss them in the class, and compare them to discover the characteristic excellences and defects of each. The writings selected for such reading and criticism this year are Macaulay's Life of Johnson, Carlyle's Essay on Johnson, and Burke's speech on Conciliation with America. The essays of Macaulay and Carlyle are compared with respect to their diction, structure of sentence and paragraph, modes of illustration, and general method of treating the same subject. The speech of Burke is studied especially with reference to the rhetorical laws of argument and persuasion.

III. Junior Year.-The study of English Literature is optional during the Junior and Senior years. The Junior class, the present year-open, like all Junior elective classes, to Seniors as well as Juniors-contains 8 Seniors, 36 Juniors, and 4 Special Students. It meets on alternate days throughout the year. The work of this class may be divided into three parts.

I. It is desired, in the first place, that the student should obtain a knowledge of the main facts in the history of our literature. For this purpose, the class reads, for regular recitation, Stopford Brooke's "Primer of English Literature." The lessons assigned from it are made very short, partly that there may be opportunity, during the hour of recitation, for discussion and frequent half-hour lectures, and partly that members of the class may find time to devote to the other portions of the work described below.

2. It is desired, secondly, that the class shall during the year read critically at least two or three representative 'specimens of our best literature. The last recitation of each week is given to this exercise. The works selected this year are Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and the Nonne Preestes Tale, one canto of Spenser's Faery Queen, Shakspere's Hamlet, and selections from Pope's Satires. Members of the class are expected to inform themselves upon the history of these writings and upon the life and times of their authors, and to read them with minute care in preparation for the recitation and criticism of the class-room. Four or five lectures upon these selected authors are read by the Professor before the class.

It is hoped that this careful study of the literature itself in some of its best specimens may not only educate the taste and stimulate an interest in the highest literature, but may also cultivate that habit of thorough and critical reading needful for the appreciation of what is best in letters.

3. The third part of the work of this class is a brief course of collateral reading. Several different courses are laid out by the Professor at the beginning of the year, from which each member of the class must select one. Each course contains a few of the most representative writings of a limited period. The courses for the present year are five, as follows:

COURSE I. Marlow's Faustus and Green's Friar Bacon; Shakspere-four plays and ten sonnets; Bacon's Essays— selections; Milton's L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, Paradise Lost, Book I., Samson Agonistes.

COURSE II. Johnson's Lives of Milton, Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Gray; Milton's Comus and Paradise Lost, Book I.; Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel; Swift's Tale of a Tub, Journal to Stella, letters I.-XII.; Addison's Spectator25 selected papers; Pope's Rape of the Lock; Gray's Elegy.

COURSE III. Thackeray's Lectures on Swift, Addison, Steele, Prior, Gay, Pope, Sterne, and Goldsmith; Swift's Tale of a Tub, Battle of the Books, Journal to Stella, letters I.-XII.; Addison's Spectator-20 selected papers; Steele's Tatler-12 selected papers; Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Retaliation, and Vicar of Wakefield; Leslie Stephen's Johnson, chaps. iii., iv.

COURSE IV. Leslie Stephen's Johnson, chaps. iii., iv.; Macaulay's Life of Johnson; Johnson's Rasselas and Vanity of Human Wishes; Cowper's Task, Book I.; Burke's two American Speeches, Reflections on the Revolution in France -the first half, Letter to a Noble Lord; Burns--selected poems.

COURSE V. Burns-selections; Wordsworth selected poems in Arnold's edition; Shelley-selected poems in Stopford Brooke's edition; Keats' Hyperion, Odes, and Sonnets; Byron-one canto of Childe Harold; Lamb-selections from the Essays of Elia; De Quincey's Recollections of Lamb and

Wordsworth, Suspiria de Profundis; Shairp's Essay on Wordsworth.

With each of these courses is given to the student a short list of the books which he may consult with advantage for the history and criticism of the literature he is reading. It is believed that such a brief course of reading not only cultivates a taste for what is best in letters, but also gives the student an intelligent notion of the relations of literature to the social and political history of the period in which it was produced, such as he could hardly gain from a text-book. The care with which the reading is done is tested by a series of written examinations held at stated intervals throughout the year.

IV. In the Senior year an advanced class in English Literature is formed, open only to a limited number of those who have pursued in the Junior year the course just described. This class numbers this year I graduate student, 13 Seniors, and 2 Special Students; it recites two hours a day on alternate days throughout the year. The object of the study of this class is to gain a somewhat thorough knowledge of the literature of some brief period. The period chosen for the study of the present year is that embraced between the years 1789 and 1832. A course of lectures is given the class, during the first six weeks of the term, upon the history of this period, especially in its relations to literature. Then the principal works of Burke (after 1789), Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, De Quincey, Lamb, Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are divided among the members of the class for reading. They read these works, and, in turn, present before the class careful analyses and full discussions of what they have read. In this manner every member of the class either reads himself or hears discussed at length nearly every one of the most important specimens of our literature during the period studied. The regular discussions of the class-room are supplemented by a course of lectures upon the period. The class are required to take notes of all discussions, and the thoroughness with which the work is done is tested by a series of written examinations.

V. English Composition.-The Freshmen present, once in two weeks, exercises in the simpler forms of composition,

which are discussed before the class. This work is under the direction of Mr. W. E. Mead. Every member of the Sopho. more and Junior classes is required to write nine essays in the year; every Senior must write an argument for debate before his class, and either four essays or two public orations. All these exercises are read and corrected by the Professor of Rhetoric. The Sophomores meet also nine times a year for general oral discussion and criticism of their themes; and every member of the Junior class meets the Professor privately, once a term, for individual criticism upon his work.

ELOCUTION.

PROFESSOR Hibbard.

I. The Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Classes are required to present declamations, mostly of their own selection, fortnightly.

It is expected of each student that he will make a good variety of selections, chiefly from standard authors.

The classes are divided into sections of ten or twelve each, and the exercise for each section occupies one hour. Criticism is made upon personal defects, and suggestions are given with regard to vocal culture and proper courses of practice.

During the Sophomore and Junior years occasional exercises are required to be taken from some particular author.

The work in this department is largely of a practical character, and aims to preserve and develop in each student, as far as possible, his best personal characteristics as a speaker.

2. To those who desire a more intimate knowledge of the theories of Elocution, this study is made elective in the Junior year. The same rules govern the admission of students to this study as to those in other departments.

The class this year contains 7 Seniors and 15 Juniors.

The work of the first term is given to the Mechanics of Speech and to the Theories of Vocal Expression, together with numerous examples in practice. The text-book used is Russell's Vocal Culture, which is supplemented by occasional lectures.

The work of the second term is in Gesture, chiefly in accordance with the principles of Austin's Chironomia. Practical illustrations of the subject are given, and the text-book used is Bacon's Manual of Gesture.

The third term is devoted to the study of the best expression in the forensic, dramatic, descriptive, and narrative styles. Each student is required during this term to prepare one forensic, and one descriptive, original declamation to be delivered before the class for criticism. The purpose of the work of this term is to render each student competent to judge correctly of his own expression of thought and feeling, and to intelligently criticise others.

History and Political Economy.

PROFESSOR WESTGATE.

I. The required studies of this department are, The Constitution of the United States and Political Economy.

1. The Constitution of the United States is taught on alternate days throughout the first half of the Junior year.

Effort is made to impress the distinction between constitutional and statute law. The aim is to make clear and fix in the memory the precise provisions of the constitution. Cooley's "Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States" is used as a text-book. It is believed to be of great value as an authoritative statement of the existing interpretation of the constitution. Lectures are given upon the constitution itself, in which the meaning, reasons, and history of the various clauses are discussed and the nature of our government set forth. The time of the class is divided about equally between recitations and lectures.

2. Political Economy is a Senior study four days in the week during the last half of the year.

Walker's Political Economy is employed as a text-book. Supplementary lectures on special topics are given from time to time. Among the subjects thus discussed are the relations of capital and labor, and the various attempts to improve these