Men who would gladly avail themselves of any real advantages for education brought within their reach, and within their means, yet unwilling to make the pecuniary outlay which the effort might involve, until convinced that the correspondence system offers real advantages, hesitate, and say: “We are favorably impressed with the idea as given in your announcements, but are not sure that it can be put into practical operation; before attempting the work it may demand, we are compelled to ask, how is the work to be done? how can teaching by correspondence be made practically successful? Show us the method, that we may understand.” Still others, men of advanced education, of approved excellence of judgment, men engaged in professional life, have said, “We concede that education by the means you propose is possible under certain favorable conditions, but we doubt the practicability of attempting by such a means to cover the wide field of general education.” Straightway they fall to instancing particular subjects as illustrations of the truth of their statement. Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating; and if this paper succeed in furnishing tastes of this particular pudding which shall be palatable and shall create a favorable opinion as to the worth of the whole, the service rendered to the cause will be valuable. I propose, therefore, without invading the province of any of the gifted teachers who act as Directors of the different Departments and Schools in the Chautauqua School of Liberal Arts, as we shall hereafter call what has been known as the University, to show, if possible, how a person of good natural endowment, at the maximum of his mental strength, and with earnest devotion to his work can acquire a knowledge of a language, literature, or science by correspondence alone. I will make three preliminary remarks. First, the student must bring to this work the same earnestness that he gives to that pursuit of his daily life upon which he has been or may be dependent for his livelihood. Second, in the study of language by correspondence, the path marked out by the experience of the ages is the path in which the correspondence student must go. The gateway of that path is the grammar of the language; and no student can pass through it till he possess the key which shall unlock its bars. To own a grammar is therefore a necessity. I am ready to believe that in oral teaching of a language, actual study of grammar, as grammar, may be put over into the final years of the course, giving the early years to the undisputed control of synthetic methods; but for the correspondence student, a grammar is an essential. Third, the student must be willing to follow the most minute directions of his teacher, without question, no matter how simple or how difficult a matter their performances may seem to be. To obey is the first essential to success.