As I foresaw at the time, this arrangement has proved very disadvantageous to the Department, & has reduced the number of pupils, at once, more than one half. During this year the whole number of students in the Department has been 224. The applications for the next term do not amount to 100; nor, when all have been received, can it reach 110. I therefore, Gentlemen, appeal to you, for your interference in this matter, requesting that the restriction may be removed, & this Department put upon the footing of the others in this particular. Otherwise, I fear that as at present organized, it cannot exist another year. I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, your ob'd't. servant HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{71} [Addressed externally to the President and Fellows of Harvard College.] [REPORT OF COMMITTEE.] CORPORATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, July 26, 1845. The Committee to whom was referred the Memorial of Professor Longfellow on the subject of the arrangement of the studies of the undergraduates by the faculty of the College, & desiring that the restriction as to the number of modern languages that may be studied at once should be removed, have attended to the subject, & ask leave to report, that they have, in common with the other members of the Corporation already considered the general subject of the arrangement of the studies of the undergraduates, with especial reference to the recommendations of the board of overseers; & that they were convinced by the examination of the details they made at that time that the business of ordering the times & the amount of study & recitation for the young men at Cambridge is not only a very complicated & difficult affair, but one which is in the hands of those best qualified, & considering all their relations, most truly interested to lead the students to give as much labor as is safe for them to the studies suitable to College years, & to distribute it in such manner as shall be most just & effective. The committee would not feel themselves authorized to change one part of a system, all the parts of which are intricately dependent upon each other, without they felt a confidence they do not possess that they could recommend one which should work better as a whole. They therefore must decline, so far as depends upon them, adopting a measure the ulterior effects of which they may not foresee with accuracy, & they express the belief that it will be well to allow the present arrangement to continue for a time, even at the risk, apprehended by Prof'r. Longfellow, of its producing an injurious effect upon his department. They cannot but hope, however, that the evils he fears may be avoided, or if not, that they may be compensated by equivalent advantages.