ORAL DISCUSSION.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRIMSON: -

MY pleasure at learning of a new elective in Oral Discussion was destroyed when I found that it was for Seniors alone, and that I could not take it next year, but must linger about the gates of this paradise until I become a Senior before gaining admittance.

What reason is there for making such a restriction upon a valuable elective? Seniors may be better fitted for it than Juniors; but, also, Graduates are better fitted than Seniors, and the elective might be placed among the Graduate courses. There is no danger that the elective will be overcrowded, since the instructor retains the power of limiting the number who take the elective. The same reason will shut out any men who, having the gift of talking indefinitely without much thought, think to find this course a soft elective.

On the other hand, some men may wish to take the elective who may be unable to do so in their Senior year, or who may find it profitable to take this one-hour course for two consecutive years. If, as has been affirmed, Harvard men generally lack the power of easy, off-hand speaking, ought not an elective, intended to remedy this defect, to be open to other classes besides Seniors? Or if this elective is too advanced for the under classes, cannot something elementary be given us?

X.TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRIMSON: -

SINCE so much has lately been said in regard to a return to the first motto, "Veritas," it may not be out of place to give the interpretation of the second motto, given by Dr. Hedge in his now famous address to the Alumni, on the subject of University Reform (Atlantic, Sept. 1866): "The secularization of the College," he says, "is no violation of its motto, Christo et Ecclesioe. For, as I interpret these sacred ideas, the cause of Christ and the Church is advanced by whatever liberalizes and enriches and enlarges the mind. All study, scientifically pursued, is a study of theology; for all scientific study is the study of Law; and 'of Law nothing less can be acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God.'"

M.