PRESIDENT ELIOTS REPORT.

THE annual reports of President Eliot are always interesting; and his last one, which has just been given to the Overseers, contains several important suggestions and facts. The number of students at Harvard, and at almost all the other New England colleges, has not increased very perceptibly during the past five years, which is attributed to the financial depression following the crisis of 1873. But here other causes have also been at work, such as the check imposed by raising the standard of examination.

The President carefully reviews the growth of the elective system for the last ten years, and gives several reasons - now familiar to most of us - to show that this form of instruction is more suitable than that by recitation.

The plans for providing retiring allowances for Harvard officers being new to the majority of our readers, we quote at some length.

"The first plan, which was based upon several existing French systems, provided annuities by means of compulsory annual reserves from salaries, supplemented by equal annual appropriations from the treasury of the University, and accumulated for terms of years, which would ordinarily have been long; the second was based upon the English government system, and simply provided a retiring allowance, varying, according to circumstances, from one-third to two-thirds of the recipient's last annual salary in full activity. The first plan commended itself to a large majority of the instructors; but was opposed, for various reasons, by an influential minority, and at last was rejected by the corporation, partly because it was not acceptable to all the persons intended to be benefited, and partly because it would have devolved upon the corporation the constant care of deposits, large in the aggregate, belonging to individuals in their service, liable consequently to taxation and attachment, and conferring upon the owners a right of criticism and complaint touching the financial management of the University, such as no individuals now possess. The second plan was simpler, called for no sacrifice of present income on the part of the professors, and laid no new responsibilities upon the corporation; after being before the professors and assistant professors for several months, and receiving their almost unanimous approval, it was entered upon the records of the corporation, on the 29th of November, 1880, `for the purpose of exemplifying what the present corporation, after careful consultation with the present professors and assistant professors, regard as a suitable system' of retiring allowances. In July, 1879, Mr. George Baty Blake sent one thousand dollars to the president and fellows, as a contribution towards a pension fund; and, in the spring of 1880, a distinguished graduate of the college informed the president that he intended to give ten thousand dollars for that general purpose whenever the corporation, after consultation with the professors, should have arrived at a system of administration which commended itself to their judgment. Since the action of the president and fellows on the 29th of November last, this gentleman has contributed twenty thousand dollars to the `retiring allowance fund.' This fund is, therefore, fairly started; and those friends of the University who think that its interests would be greatly subserved by the establishment of a system of retiring allowances may be assured that contributions for that purpose will be gladly received, and forthwith carried to an accumulating fund."

The remainder of the Report refers to the other branches of the University; and we gather from it that in general they are prospering. The College proper has a deficit of $ 9,557.27 for the year 1879-80.