THE LITERARY CONTEST.

ALTHOUGH our College has so decisively declared itself against engaging in an intercollegiate literary contest, such as is proposed for the coming summer, we confess to having many lingering regrets for the somewhat inconsiderate determination at which we so hastily arrived. We think that these are shared by quite a large number of our fellow-students, who are curious to see how our men would stand in comparison with those of other colleges, and to find out whether we are really much worse off for our lack of collegiate instruction in writing and speaking, which we have so often been called upon to deplore; and by a few, perhaps, who, though certainly believing that Harvard would make but a poor show in the contest, wish that she had taken part in it, in the hope that thus, at least, the Faculty might be convinced of our needs and shamed into adequately providing for them. What could we gain from college instruction in oratory? Every one will acknowledge that the elements which constitute a good speaker cannot be furnished us by any teaching whatever, and that the most that can be done is to develop them by exercise and judicious criticism. Difficult as it is to write an article for a college paper on a subject in which we are interested, we know how much more difficult it proves to write a theme or a forensic, of much less length and poorer quality, and we have no reason to think that the case would be different with regard to elocution, especially when we remember what a wretched farce recitation in that study used to be. A step in the right direction was taken when an instructor in elocution was appointed for the Senior Class, who devotes a portion of his time to each man who desires it. Such help in one's endeavors for self-improvement is invaluable, and if a similar instructor in English composition were to take the place of the present exercises in that department, few will doubt that all the students, the diligent as well as the idle, would be vastly pleased, and that the quality of the work done would be greatly improved. With such help as this given to all the classes, we could ask for nothing more but object and opportunity. The columns of our two papers are open to our essays at writing, and without denying their excellence, we may say that they would be very much better if they could command, as they would like, a stronger literary support; but for practice in speaking hardly a chance is found, even in our societies, of which all the students are not members. No one can forget that some of the greatest English orators won their first laurels, and gave the first indications of a brilliant future, at the debates of a society whose only object was exercise in speaking; and Col. Higginson in the Boston Advertiser recently called attention to the excellence which the students at Amherst seem to have gained from somewhat similar practice in their open societies. Is it not worth our while to consider if it would not be advantageous for us to have a society, open to all, for practice in that facile expression of our thoughts which if we lack, it has been well said, so far as others are concerned, we might as well have no thoughts at all?

M.