If we change our order this month and begin the gossip from our letters with the “University Circle,” of =San José, Cal.=, it is only because we wish to call particular attention to the thrifty growth of our work on the Pacific coast. Mrs. Fields, the competent secretary of that branch, sends us this pleasant report of the San José work: “Colleges and universities are no longer confined to the east. They spring up like Jonah’s gourd with the westward moving star of empire, and are only checked by the setting of that star in the great western ocean. California boasts of its grand State University at Berkeley, which she thinks rivals Harvard and Ann Arbor, and we of San José point to our university with its commodious buildings, its noble president, Dr. C. C. Stratton (widely known also as president of our Pacific Coast C. L. S. C.), its excellent faculty, and hundreds of earnest students, and feel that it is an institution of which any city or state might well be proud. In the shadow of this university there very naturally has arisen a Chautauqua circle. There are no unfriendly comparisons and inhospitable exclusiveness, no neighborhood jealousies or rivalries between ‘the University of the Pacific’ and that little branch of the great ‘People’s University,’ known as the ‘University Circle.’ Two of the oldest and most honored professors in the former institution, together with all the ladies of the faculty, are members of the circle. They freely give their time and genial presence to the semi-monthly meetings of the C. L. S. C. whenever it is possible for them to do so, and by their wide range of knowledge add greatly to the interest and profit of these occasions. The rest of the members of the University Circle are neighbors and friends who are greatly interested in the reading, and who believe in the value of association and mutual helpfulness. They are mostly middle aged people, though there is a sprinkling of gray hairs on some brows, and here and there is a bright young face. They count twenty when all told, and usually have a good representation present. The meetings are held in the different homes, so that to each falls his allotment of these hospitable pleasures. One evening there was ‘a chiel amang ’em takin’ notes,’ who felt sure that this University Circle ought to let its light shine for the benefit of the whole Chautauqua family, and these notes are herewith presented: ‘Eighteen Chautauquans present in the cheerful double parlors of Mrs. G. A gentle-faced member of the Society of Friends presided, and illumined the circle with her beaming smile and her bright, suggestive leadership. The members recited from slips of paper, each naming a theme numbered in the order of their occurrence in the lesson, and distributed previously among the class. Each person, while studying the whole lesson carefully, had made special preparation on his or her own topic. This brought a great deal of careful research and fresh