It is not a little strange the illiberal spirit manifested by some of the leading institutions of this country, instance the narrow and partial conditions of the “Harvard Annex” and the opposition by the trustees and part of the faculty of Columbia College. In the latter case there is just now a tidal wave of public sentiment in New York City sweeping against the opposition, which, it is to be hoped, will overcome all resistance. The leaven is working. It is a reform, and reforms go forward in this nineteenth century. Geologists tell us that six thousand years ago the age of man was ushered in. Let the future geologists record this as the age of man and woman, too. Thurlow Weed. Among noteworthy recent events is the death of Thurlow Weed, the veteran journalist and politician. Mr. Weed had nearly reached his eighty-fifth birthday with faculties well preserved, and for more than half a century he was a very prominent figure in our national political life. The son of a poor cartman who never prospered, he had his own way to make in the world, and from a striker in a blacksmith shop, a cabin-boy upon river boats, and a chore-boy of a printing office, he worked his way up to be the trusted adviser of senators and presidents, and the man by whom officials, high and low, were made and unmade. He was twice a member of the State Assembly of New York,—in 1824 and 1829,—but never held any other office. He refused official position for himself, but no man has been more influential in securing it for others. Mr. Weed’s work as a journalist was for the most part in connection with the Albany _Evening Journal_, though before assuming control of this paper he had edited a number of others, by one of which, the _Anti-Masonic Enquirer_, he had gained wide celebrity. During the thirty-two years of his management of the _Journal_ he made it with his trenchant pen one of the mightiest of the auxiliaries of the Whig and Republican parties, and he was himself a political leader second in influence to none. Retiring from this paper in 1862, he afterward edited for a time the New York _Commercial Advertiser_, but failing health soon obliged him to drop finally the editorial pen. He continued, however, to write for the press until a short time before his death, and the occasional articles he sent to different journals always commanded an eager reading. In 1866 letters which he wrote to the Albany _Evening Journal_ from Europe and the West Indies, when different visits were made to these countries, were collected and published in a handsome volume, without his consent.