Mr. Brearley begins his criticism addressed to the New York Harvard Club thus: "We premise that every one accepts the elective principle. Some system based on that principle must be established. No one wants the old required systems back, or any new required system." Professor Howison says: "An elective system, in its proper place, and under its due conditions, is demonstrably sound." Professor Ladd does not express himself very fully on this point in the Andover Review, but his opinions may be learned from the New Englander for January, 1885. When, in 1884, Yale College reformed its curriculum and introduced elective studies, it became desirable to instruct the graduates about the reasons for a step which had been long resisted. After a brief trial of the new system, Professor Ladd published his impressions of it. I strongly commend his candid paper to the attention of those who still believe the old methods the safer. He asserts that "a perfect and final course of college study is, if not an unattainable ideal, at present an impossible achievement." The considerations which were "the definite and almost compulsory reasons for instituting a comprehensive change" he groups under the following heads: (1) the need of modern languages; (2) the crowding of studies in the senior year; (3) the heterogeneous and planless character of the total course; (4) the need of making allowance for the tastes, the contemplated pursuits, and the aptitudes of the individual student. Substantially, these are the evils of prescription which I pointed out; only, in my view, they are evils not confined to a single year. Stating his observation of the results of election, Professor Ladd says: "Increased willingness in study, and even a new and marked enthusiasm on the part of a considerable number of students, is another effect of the new course already realized. The entire body of students in the upper classes is more attentive, regular, interested, and even eager, than ever before." "More intimate and effective relations are secured in many cases between teachers and pupils."