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FEW colleges offer as great a number of public lectures or lectures upon as varied subjects as Harvard. When one considers the number of lectures which have been delivered here the past few years this is especially noticeable. Whether it can be considered indirectly due in any part to the influence of the elective systems in giving us a broader view of the methods of Education may be a question; but it is certain that in the days of prescribed work, when the college pursued each year a narrow routine, public lectures were seldom if ever given. They are a growth of later years and each year they have steadily increased in number. The topics have been varied, - we have had lectures upon Theology, Literature, Government and other subjects covering a wide range. The College Conferences also were of an instructive nature, notably the practical series devoted to the choice of a profession. While we have within our own walls men well read and experienced in these subjects, who are themselves capable of speaking in them, we have also drawn and continue to draw lecturers from all parts of this country and of Europe. In this way we meet men of different stamp from ourselves, viewing the subjects from another point and presenting them in a manner which cannot fail to be beneficial for intellectural development.

To the average undergraduate, however, the full value of the lectures seldom presents itself until it is too late for him to profit from them. We are inclined here at college to try to do too much, to have a hand in that thing or this thing and in consequence to do many things indifferently instead of a few things successfully. We plead no time to stop to take the voluntary advantages offered us by the University; and yet it is certain that at no time after college life do we find these advantages under as good circumstances. These varied lectures and conferences offered us now will never be offered so conveniently when we have left college and entered upon professional life. Now, therefore, while we have the time, we should avail ourselves of them and every advantage which the University offers toward the development of the rounded intellectual man.