ON PRIZES.

Perhaps no similar institution offers as many prizes to encourage literary and scholarly activity as does the University. But in the case of the Bowdoin Prizes, only are they competed for in anything like adequate numbers. Last year sixty-seven men submitted essays for these. Yet even this number is misleading, for all who composed dissertations were not in the truest sense competitors. Too many handed in theses written for courses, after little or no revision, on the hope that they might "draw something." And the other competitions suffer considerably from a lack of interest.

This is partly owing to ignorance of their existence and nature. The Dante Prize, the Sales Prize for Spanish students, the Summer and Bennett Prizes in political science, the Boott and Knight Prizes in musical composition. The very desirable Lloyd McKim Garrison Prize for amateur poets, the Potter prizes in Comparative Literature,--these are some of the most important of the other rewards offered for intellectual effort. They are often overlooked, not only by the diffident or lazy, but by men who confine their competition to the Bowdoin Prizes. There are also prizes exclusively for Freshmen,--the Belknap in French and the Wilder in German.

Most of the essays are not due for several months; but success requires an early start. In the past, procrastination has often reduced a competitor to handing in an old thesis, hastily put into shape. When the CRIMSON prints the notice of "last day," the opportunity will have gone. The Catalogue gives the details regarding the competitions; both old and new students would do well to read them. In the variety of prizes offered, something will surely be found to satisfy every man's specialty.