MR. ADAMS'S COMPLAINT.

IN his Phi Beta Kappa oration, quoted in the last Magenta, Mr. Adams touches a chord which by both faculty and students should be made to vibrate in response. With characteristic calmness and decision he brings against Harvard two serious charges, the more serious because coming from one who at home and abroad has done high honor to his Alma Mater, and whose public utterances, in this latitude at least, are never heard but with attention.

The counts in the indictment of Charles Francis Adams vs. Harvard College, as the readers of his oration will remember, are, in brief, these: that our course of instruction is utterly deficient in two branches, both of the utmost importance in fitting young men to take part in public affairs, - said branches being, 1, the art of composition; 2, oratory. In the course of his argument in favor of these departments of instruction, our complainant exhibits in strong light the high estimation which he puts upon them in contrast to the indifference with which they are regarded by "the powers that be."

These charges are not new; they have been heard in other though humbler quarters before, and, what is worse, Harvard cannot do otherwise than plead an unqualified "guilty" in the face of them. If it be urged that a short course in rhetoric and a few themes are sufficient for the first object named, that of making our students good writers, then why these severe complaints from those who are presumably qualified to make them? But there is even less to be said against the second charge, inasmuch, as far as can be seen, Harvard's policy toward oratory is to bundle it off to oblivion among the other "lost arts," with all possible speed. Unless the Boylston prizes, which we owe to a private individual and not to the College itself, be considered an exception, oratory has here no recognized existence whatever. Thus Mr. Adams is literally correct when he says on this point: "At present nothing of the kind is attempted."

In our efforts to avoid the spread-eagle know-little-and-talk-a-great-deal style of oratory in favor with our average American stump-speaker, we have touched the other extreme, and have laid ourselves open to a kind of censure which such articles as that on "The Repressive Influence of Harvard" may be supposed to represent. When one of our own professors publicly acknowledges that there is more than a grain of truth in the remark of an outsider to the effect that a Harvard graduate, however much he may know, can say but a few sentences on any subject, while a Yale man can talk fluently about anything that he does or does n't know, is n't it in order to begin a reformation somewhere? And if anywhere, it must be within the College course. The preparatory schools have as yet done little or nothing toward making writers or speakers of those they send out. It belongs, then, to the older institutions to take the lead, bearing in mind that while college graduates are not expected to become demagogues or inordinate office-seekers, they are expected to use their superior education for the greatest good of their fellow-citizens. Whether as editors, authors, or public speakers, the public has a right to demand that they use both tongue and pen with all the power that in them lies to support the best interests of the commonwealth. With this end in view they can not be too persistent or too thorough in their preparation.

Since writing the above, it has come to my knowledge that a teacher in elocution has now been provided for Seniors. Thankful for small favors, let us hope that this is the beginning of such extensive additions to our course as Mr. Adams advises.

C. H. B.