to hours of which the present deponent had knowledge forced a specialist in Elizabethan literature to elect--and, being a candidate for a degree with distinction, to get a high grade in--a course in the history of finance legislation in the United States. This was a tragic waste, for so many and so minute are the courses offered that the years at the student's disposal are all too few to cover even a comparatively narrow field. The specialist may well ruminate on the philosophy of Alice and her Wonderland jam. Yesterday he could elect anything, and to-morrow anything; but how empty is to-day! Highly as the modern university regards the serious specialist, a more general sympathy will probably be given to the man who is seeking a liberal education. Such a man knows that in four years at his disposal he cannot gain any real scientific knowledge even of the studies of the old-fashioned college curriculum. As taught now, at Harvard, they would occupy, according to President Eliot's report for 1894-95, twice four years. But by choosing a single group of closely related subjects, and taking honors in it, he hopes to master a considerable plot of the field of knowledge. I will not say that he chooses the ancient classics, for--though they are admirably taught in a general way in the great Oxford Honor School of Literæ Humaniores--the American student may be held to require, even in studying the classics, a larger element of scientific culture, which would take more time than is to be had. For the same reason I will not say that he chooses the modern languages and literatures, though such a choice might be defended. Let us say that he chooses a single modern language and literature--his own.[4] Surely this is not too large a field for four years' study. Of classics, mathematics, science, and history he has supposedly been given a working knowledge in the preparatory school. For the rest he relies on the elective system.