Letters have never lacked their fascination when they have been embodied in the thought and personalities of great teachers. Albert Harkness, with his face aglow with literary enthusiasm, reading “Prometheus Bound,” in his lecture-room in the old University Hall at Providence, is one of the unfading memories of my undergraduate days. When Tennyson said, “I am sending my son not to Marlborough, but to Bradley, the great teacher,” it was not a _subject_ he had in mind, but a _personality_. In one institution which I visit, virtually the entire undergraduate body elects botany. A student said to me one day, “We do not care especially for botany, but we would elect anything to be under Dr. ----.” Not long ago, attending a college dinner at the University of Minnesota, I heard a professor at my side lamenting the tendency to irreverence on the part of American college men. While we were speaking, ex-President Northrop came into the room, and the entire crowd of students were on their feet in an instant, cheering their beloved president. One of the undergraduates closed his remarks by saying that the deepest impression of his college days had occurred in the chapel when their honored president prayed; and he quoted the following verse: When Prexy prays Our heads all bow, A sense of peace Smooths every brow, Our hearts, deep stirred, No whisper raise At chapel time When Prexy prays. THE PROFESSOR IN THE LECTURE-ROOM The classroom presentation of the college professor is also highly important. Many a subject is spoiled for a student because of the pedantic, priggish, or solemn manner of the teacher. Many a teacher is devoted to his subject and painstaking, but his lack of knowledge as to the use of incident, epigram, and enticing speech in presenting his subject, prevents his popularity and power as a teacher. Woodrow Wilson says that he had been teaching for twenty years before he discovered that the students forgot his facts, but remembered his stories. We realize that tables of population, weights, and measures, temperatures, birth-rates, and dimensions, are at times necessary, but these should be used in the classroom with moderation. Too often a teacher takes for granted that he has an uninteresting subject, and therefore gives up the task of making it attractive. A professor of mathematics, endeavoring to evade the obligation for good teaching, gave to a professor of chemistry, whose lecture-room was always crowded with interested students, the following reason for the unpopularity of his subject: “The trouble with mathematics is that nothing ever happens. If, when an equation is solved, it would blow up or give off a bad odor, I should get as many students as you.” The real reason, however, was deeper than the nature of his subject. It lay in the nature of the man. He did not have the power to bring his subject into vital contact with reality and with the life of his students.