The Monthly.

The first number of the Monthly is filled with good reading, solid and serious, on the whole. It opens with a history of Six Years of Voluntary Chapel,' which is as interesting as it is instructive. Professor Peabody explains very clearly the reasons which led to the abolishment of compulsory chapel and for the undoubted success of the present system. The article is one which it will be well for every man in college to read for his own satisfaction and edification.

Hutchins Hapgood writes a short plea for the preservation of the childish simplicity and contemplativeness of all of us, which the college career tends to destroy. He says: "A college course is useful primarily because it helps to retain-by virtue of its emphasizing influence-that element of genius in each man which he may possess; it helps each one of us to retain that simple interest in the world and its beauty, in things unconnected with ends, which may serve to rest and sooth us all through life and may keep for us that unconcern, that charming insouciance, which is the glory of the child and the artist."

The essay on "George Eliot's Theory of Realism," is very interesting, especially in its comparison with the theories of Mr. Howell's and the modern school. It is a thorough piece of work and well-done. The dozen pages which follow it are occupied by "Bifurcation," a difficult thing to classify. It is apparently a story with occasional suggestions of a plot but in reality it is a discussion, chiefly religious, which ends with a sermon. There are two characters in it-one a minister-that would do good to the heart of a lover of complexity; the other a New York girl who thinks. The story is full of ideas but they are not well arranged and the ending is unsatisfactory.

"A Pound of Tea," is a pleasing little thing, well told on the whole and entertaining.

The most noteworthy verse of the number is W. F. Herrick's "Translation of Horace, Ode XVI, Book III," which won the Sargent Prize for 1892.

The one editorial is quite to the point. Its sentiment is one which we believe the whole University can sympathize with. One paragraph is well worth quoting:

"The point most desired to be emphasized is that a board which will grant a student an A. B. in three years, and, at the same time refuse another student an A. M. in four years, is in its action glaringly inconsistent."