A Letter from Professor Lane.

President Eliot has received the following letter from Professor Lane in reply to the votes passed by the President and Fellows of Harvard College on the 26th of February:

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, March 1, 1894.

DEAR SIR:- I have received your communication of February 26, 1894, informing me that my resignation has been accepted by the Corporation.

I am overwhelmed by the noble spirit with which the Corporation has, entirely of its own motion, met my simple request to be allowed to resign.

It has been a favorite idea with me all my life that an officer of the University should retire in the fulness of his health, strength and activity, and I am glad to have the opportunity of doing so myself.

Please receive from me and communicate to the Corporation the assurance of my grateful appreciation of the terms in which my services are spoken of.

It will give me great pleasure to accept the position of Pope Professor of Latin, Emeritus, from Sept. 1, 1894, if the Board of Overseers shall see fit to consent to the appointment.

You will also kindly receive my thanks for the invitation to continue to give instruction. I shall always love to do what I can for the University. At different times my colleagues have generously stepped in and taken my duties in addition to their own, and I shall be particularly glad in any emergency to show my abiding gratitude by doing such services for them.

With regard to the retiring allowance, when I first thought of resigning I was only dimly aware of the existence of such a thing, and I certainly had no idea or expectation that I should in any way benefit from it myself. I need not say that the unexpected and generous provision made for me is very welcome, and relieves me from all pecuniary cares for the rest of my life. I only wish I could have foreseen it long ago in the day of small things. I am, however, sincerely glad that my colleagues have this to look forward to, and I am sure that the hope of such final reward will tempt many young and promising men into the service of the University.

Thanking you and the Corporation for the generous trust in me which you have always shown, I am,

Very faithfully yours,

(Signed) GEORGE MARTIN LANE.