MR. LEHMANN'S ADDRESS.

A large audience was present last evening in Sanders Theatre to listen to the address by Mr. Lehmann on the subject "The University as a Training Ground for the Public Speaker." President Grilk of the Union introduced Mr. Lehmann, who spoke in an interestingly reminiscent vein.

Mr. Lehmann began by speaking of the true function of a University. A question that is too often asked, asid he, is, "Do the universityes fit men for practical life?" This arises from the mistaken conception that the purpose of the University is to teach men the useful and practical in life. On the contrary the true object of a university is to educate the minds committed to its charge in the broadest manner possible, to store the mind with knowledge and culture. Like life, the university teaches not directly but by indirection. In after experience with the world a man can build on this broad and sure foundation. It is this general culture which has given to England and the world that most remarkable man of the age-Mr. Gladstone.

In considering the narrower phase of his subject-public speaking in the university-Mr. Lehmann spoke of the universities with which he had been most intimately acquainted-Oxford and Cambridge. In these two universities, interest in public speaing and debating is represented by the Union Debating Societies, open to all members of the two institutions. Having survived the prejudice which they at first awakened, they are today a most influential factor in English university life. Each society has a club-house, containing rooms for debating and reading, beside dining halls and rooms for social meetings. The weekly debates attract great numbers of men and awaken keen interest.

There are scores of men in public life in England today, said Mr. Lehmann, who, like Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Asquith and Sir William Harcourt, owe much of their success as public speakers to the fact that they took part in these Union debates while at college. Here they acquired an excellent training by addressing large and heterogeneous gatherings, which cannot be acquired by speaking before smaller though more intellectual societies. Mr. Lehmann hoped that in the near future some such organization as the University Club might do for Harvard what these clubs have done for Oxford and Cambridge, not only by training men in public speaking, but also in teaching them a true devotion to a broader knowledge and culture.