THE PRESIDENT'S REPORT.

THANKS to the courtesy of the Secretary, the Fifty-First Annual Report of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College is before us, containing 150 pages of information of more or less interest to the undergraduate world.

It is interesting to see that the number of students in the University has more than doubled within the last thirty years, the present figure being 1370 against 611 in 1846-47. In the College the figures for 1876-77 are 821, against 272 in 1846-47. Within the same period the whole number of teachers in the University has increased from 25 to 124.

In order to console those who live in nightly dread of awaking to find their way to terra firma cut off by the flames, we print the following: "A fire ladder has been purchased. Two ladders long enough to reach the highest windows in the College dormitories are now kept in the Yard to serve as fire-escapes in case of need. At night a watch is kept about the buildings, with a special view to the early discovery of fire."

The report calls attention to various needs of the University, among which is "a new hall to contain lecture-rooms for the College." "At least sixteen lecture-rooms," it is stated, "are imperatively demanded." Further the University needs a fire-proof building for the Divinity School Library, "a new gymnasium of three times the capacity of the present building," and apparatus and collections for the Fine Arts Department. The President, moreover, calls for three new professorships, namely, a professorship of Jurisprudence, a professorship of ecclesiastical history, and a professorship of hygiene.

In the Dean's report concerning the examinations for admission in 1876 we learn that fifty-two per cent of the candidates failed to pass in English composition, while the percentage of those who failed in Greek composition was only twenty-seven per cent, and in Latin only twenty-five per cent.

Reserving the matter of greatest interest till the end, the Dean concludes his report with some remarks on voluntary attendance at recitation. After a number of tables of statistics concerning the attendance of Seniors, which will no doubt prove highly entertaining to the members of the three lower classes, the report closes as follows:-

"It is impossible to trace in these figures the operation of any rule connecting scholarship with the more or less free use of the privilege in question. Upon the whole, then, the fair deduction from the returns of last year, whether they are examined with respect to average results, or with an inquiry into individual cases, appears to me to be the same which was drawn by my predecessor from the first year's trial of the system of voluntary attendance, - that the influence of the system on the general scholarship of the class, so far as it is exhibited by the marks given by instructors, is imperceptible, either for good or evil. And without laying too much stress upon the fact that in the lower part of the class, where abuses are most likely to occur, it is found to be consistent with a considerable gain in percentage in the Senior year, it may at any rate be fairly concluded that the facts do not show that the interests of the less diligent class of students are sacrificed. If our further experience should confirm these negative conclusions, we should only have to consider how we may best and most safely secure the more industrious part of our students the permanent enjoyment of the positive advantages of the system . . . . . That these positive advantages of the voluntary system are not gained in full measure by the whole of any class may be freely admitted; but they should not for that reason be withheld from those whose dispositions to work and sense of duty may reasonably be expected to enable them to profit by such opportunities."

As to that highly entertaining document the Treasurer's report, we can only recommend its careful study to all aspirants for the position of business editor of the Crimson.