218
PRESIDENT ELIOT'S REPORT.
Three Years for the B.A.—The Ad-
mission Requirements.
The report of President Eliot of Har-
vard for the year 1898-99 has just been
issued, and is, like all its predecessors,
most interesting and suggestive.
The changes in the requirements for
admission to Harvard College are set
forth in considerable detail, and the
range of election is summarized by the
President in describing the candidate for
admission, as follows:
“Nearly three-quarters of his prepara-
tion may be just such. as it was one
hundred years or fifty years ago,—
namely in Latin, Greek, Elementary
Mathematics, and Ancient History; or,
on the other hand, these traditional
subjects may be represented by less than
one-third of his secondary school
studies,—namely, by Latin, Algebra and
Geometry. Again, nearly half of his
preparatory studies may be English and
the Modern Languages; or the Natural
Sciences, which thirty years ago were
not accepted at all for admission to
college, may constitute a little more than
one-third of his preparatory studies.
Further, at the small additional cost: of
offering three advanced subjects instead
of two, the candidate may present him-
self in Modern Languages and History
for sixteen out of the twenty-six points
required; whereas thirty years ago the
modern languages were not accepted at
all, and history was represented only
by a fragmentary and fleeting acquaint-
ance with Greek and Roman History,
such as a boy might easily acquire in a
day or two from any small primer of
ancient history. ;
“All the subjects permitted for admis-
sion to Harvard College may also be
counted for admission to the Lawrence
Scientific School, but the Scientific
School wil also count towards admis-
sion, shopwork and drawing, botany
and zoology.”
THREE YEARS FOR THE B.A.
President Eliot holds persistently to
his belief in the desirability of a three
years’ course for the B.A. degree, and
his report on this line is one of satisfac-
tion, not to say of triumph; for he
finds that the three years course is
practically an accomplished thing now,
through the succession of changes
brought about in no case by this idea,
but all uniting in this direction. He
recalls that in March, 1889, the Faculty
of Harvard College sent to the Presi-
dent and Fellows certain modifications
of regulations, the most important being
the reduction of the number of courses
required for the degree of B.A., from
eighteen and four-tenths to sixteen.
These proposals the Presidents and Fel-
lows accepted, but the Board of Over-
seers rejected them. “It now appears,”
says President Eliot, “that the number
of courses required for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts has been progressively
diminished of late years as a result of
several votes adopted by the Faculty for
various reasons which have no immedi-
ate bearing on the policy of giving the
degree of B.A. in three years instead of
four.”
He then notes the abolition of one or
two courses, partly because the work
has been put back into the prepara-
tory schools, and says: “After the cur-
rent year, the requirement for the de-
gree of A.B. will be seventeen courses
for all students who have been well
enough trained in the elements of Eng-
lish to attain grade C or a higher grade
in the prescribed English of the Fresh-
man year; and a large majority of all
College students will attain grade A, B,
or C in the course. For students who
anticipate English A the number of
courses required for the degree will be
either sixteen or sixteen and a_ half,
according to the grade which they obtain
at the examination.” . . .
“The common attainment of the de-
gree of Bachelor of Arts in three years
is certainly approaching. No specific
legislation will be needed to accomplish
this important change; for any young
man of fair abilities can now procure
the degree in three years without
hurry or overwork, if he wishes to do
so, or if his parents wish to have him.
That this wish is felt by an increasing
number of students and parents is
demonstrated... 6s
AT eo ALUMS
“The strength of the movement is dis-
guised, as was pointed out in the last
report, by the desire which many men
feel to be recorded in the Quinquennial
Catalogue with most of the friends and
contemporaries with whom they entered
college;. but within a time compara-
tively short the majority of those who
enter the Freshman class will come to
College with the purpose of completing
the requirement for the degree in three
years. A large number of the present
Freshman class have already avowed
that intention, and made their choice of
studies accordingly. The movement
will be promoted by the opposition of
the Law Faculty to the admission to
that School of College Seniors who
have not absolutely completed their
studies for the A.B. degree. It is of
course desirable that the requirements
for the A.B. degree should have been
fully met before the student enters a
graduate department of the University.”
RETIRING ALLOWANCES.
The President describes the system
of retiring allowances which has finally
been adopted at Harvard and calls it
“the first careful and comprehensive
University system to be put in force in
the country.” :
e
DINING HALLS.
The opportunities for getting board at
reasonable rates at Memorial Hall-and
the new Randall Hall are taken advan-
tage of, according to the report, by
nearly two thousand students. The
average price of Memorial Hall is $4.00
a week. At Randall Hall there is an
entrance fee of $3.00 and then the stu-
dent takes as many meals as he wants
to and pays according to the restaurant
system. At the end of the year any
surplus is divided and the dividend or-
dinarily exceeds the entrance fee.
President Eliot says that at this hall
the frugal student can board for $2.50
a week. There is also a system of com-
bination meals at 14 cents for breakfast,
14 cents for lunch and 16 cents for
dinner, which is reported as much used.
It allows the student to board, if he
takes them all, at $3.08 a week.
Those who don’t board at these halls
pay, according to President Eliot, gener-
ally from $5.00 to $8.00 a week outside,
from which he figures that these two
halls save Harvard students at least
$150,000 a year on food.
WAITERS.
In view of the discussion about Com-
mons, what he says concerning waiters
is of interest:
“One noticeable difference between
Memorial Hall and Randall Hall is that
at Randall Hall all the waiters are stu-
dents. There is an active demand for
these places, and the method seems
equally satisfactory to those who wait
and to those who are waited on. The
waiters: are selected and directed alto-
gether by the student officers of the
Association; they are paid weekly at
the rate of 25 cents an hour, and as a
rule do not work more than sixteen
hours a week. The method is economi-
cal, because the number of waiters can
be kept proportionate to the resort,—
that is, fewer waiters are employed at
the less frequented meals, or at the
less frequented part of the period of a
single meal.”
ATHLETICS,
The President thinks that intercol-
legiate sport is better than it used to
be, but not what it ought to be. The
.incentive for violation of rules in foot-
ball seems to him unusually strong, and
he notes with regret the feeling among
“some players and colleges,” that they
have something to gain from victory in
sports which would compensate them
for violating the rules or taking unfair
advantage. He says that “the squalid
banks of seats” on Soldiers’ Field deface
that property, and regrets that students
have to pay large entrance ‘fees to see
interesting games; also that the players
“think that all their wants as to unij-
forms and personal services should be
liberally supplied from the abundant
gate money.”
AN INTERESTING ENDOWMENT,
An anonymous giver has contributed
$156,000 for the establishment at Har-
vard of a professorship of Hygiene for
the benefit of the students of the college,
WEBKLY
the object being to provide them with
a medical friend “competent to give
them the best advice, winning in his
nature, and devoting himself chiefly to
the physical and moral welfare of the
undergraduates.” The giver of the fund
wishes it to accumulate until it is large
enough to provide an income capable
of attracting to the position a man of
high quality. President Eliot considers
the gift a most valuable one.
The total amount of gifts to Harvard
for the year is $1,544,829.67. Of this,
the sum of $1,383,460.77 was given to
form new funds or increase old ones.
——_ +$0o—___
LITERARY LECTURES.
Professor
Palmer on the Ger-
man Lyric.
The fourth lecture in the series on
lyric poetry was given Wednesday even-
ing, February 14, by Professor A. H.
Palmer, on the subject of The German
Lyric. A brief summary of the lecture
follows: :
The lyric poetry of Germany exhibits
the greatest possible variety of external
form—a variety more abundant and pro-
duced with higher average success than
has been given us by any other language
of modern times. To this result has
largely contributed the reproductive and
imitative quality which has ever been a
prominent attribute of the German spirit
and literature. No other language
affords such full, free and varied oppor-
tunity for self-expression as the German.
No other nation can vie with the Ger-
mans in lyric folksong. The artless,
spontaneous simplicity of the Volkslied
contributes in a large measure distinctive
worth and charm to the lyric poetry of
Germany and has quickened the inspira-
tion and production of nearly all the
great German lyrists, especially of
Goethe and of Walther von der Vogel-
weide.
Walther stands for that first, so called
classical period of German literature.
He sang of nature, love, politics, and in
many of his lines reaches the absolute
perfection of such writing, not to be
surpassed in simplicity and purity. He
excelled in what has been a- character-
istic feature of the lyric poetry of Ger-
many—the song of patriotism.
Another characteristic lyric type is
the religious poem. It was Luther who
first began to satisfy the longing of
religious fervor for a spiritual folksong
in the mother tongue. Not merely did
he originate the German church hymn
but he brought it at once in some of its
forms near to perfection. In the poems
of Gerhardt, who stands next to Luther
as a creator of sacred song, we find an
optimistic and peaceful nature, and many
of his lyrics have become folksongs of
the religious life.
Goethe is the preéminent German
lyric poet. His poems have that pure
simplicity, that refreshing clearness, that
artless movement,’ that sweeping spon-
taneity which mark the Volkslied. His
universal nature is in lyric productivity
like the creative power of great nature
herself. Goethe has for every mood,
every shading of feeling, a distinct ex-
pression, and endlessly manifold as the
feelings of the human heart are the lyric
notes and their combination at his dis-
posal. With Goethe every lyric is sung
to the vibrations of a definite life—ex-
perience or condition; therefore is there
in the manifoldness of these poems a
variety of shadings and colors of feeling
as numberless as are the points and
modes of contact of the heart with ex-
ternal life.
As to Heine, there can be no doubt
of the greatness of his lyric gift. In
form and melodiousness he has all the
charm of the Volkslied at its best, but
that utter sincerity and genuineness of
feeling are too rarely found in his poems.
In comparing the German with the
English lyric, it may be said that the
characteristic difference between them is
that the German lyric is more spon-
taneous, more simply expressive of
emotion, more musical; that if the Eng-
lish lyric excels in finish, the German
excels in feeling or, in short, that what
we can broadly call the Volkslied quality
is the typical characteristic of the Ger-
man lyric.
PROFESSOR BEERS’ LECTURE.
The concluding lecture in the series
was given Wednesday, February 21, by
Professor Henry A. Beers, entitled The
English Lyric.
lecture follows:
It is generally agreed that the formal
lyric, as distinguished from poetry
which is merely lyrical in spirit, is prop-
erly the expression of a single emotion.
It is also agreed that it should have a
certain brevity—the intenser the emotion
the shorter the poem. We can no
longer define the lyric as that which is
to be sung. Songs are sung, but they
are no longer literature. Our truly
lyrical period was the Elizabethan age,
the age of the song-lyric, when “music
and sweet poetry agreed,” when every-
one fingered the lute as a matter of
course, when everyone was expected to
cafry a part in a song. England had
then a national school of music and the
work of poets was set to notes by com-
posers known and valued abroad. Some-
times poet and musician were one. Dr.
Thomas Campion, who printed four
books of airs, was one of the best com-
posers and also one of the sweetest song
writers of his day.
A. song which means to be sung should
voice universal human emotions. It
should not be subtle or learned. It
should use images and figures of speech
sparingly and avoid decoration. During
the Civil War the Union soldiers had
got hold of a noble marching chorus
“John Brown’s body lies a mouldering
in the grave, his soul is marching on.”
Nothing could be better than this, but
the chorus was all there was of it. Mrs.
Howe’s attempt to supply the want with
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
proved in many ways an impressive
poem, but it was not singable. The
words did not fit the chorus and the
spirit of marching men.
Elizabethan England was full of old
songs, and Shakspere has caught their
perfect aura and reproduced them in all
their simple variety. The stage is still
in possession of the traditional airs to
which some of these were sung in the
seventeenth century and possibly in
Shakspere’s own theatre. This is the
essence of the song lyric, that, when we
read it, we want to sing it. There is
a lilt in the language that calls for
musical rendering or accompaniment.
The songs of Burns are actually sung.
Nearly all of Scott’s simpler ballads
suggest a tune. In the Elizabethan
lyrics one is struck with the originality
and variety of simple stanza poems, but
with the monotony of theme. A ma-
jority are love songs. The reader is
soon surfeited. The charm of these
A brief summary of the
lyrics lies in their freshness, ease and
grace, and sudden felicities of phrase.
The Renaissance joy of life and pas-
_sion for beauty prolongs itself in Robert
Herrick, who is now recognized as one
of the most exquisite of English lyrists.
Herrick apart, thé lyrical poetry of the
Stuart period, while gaining in art loses
something in nature. New strings are
added to the lyre, but they had not the
sweetness, the first, fine careless rapture
of the old. The masters of this school
were Jonson and. Donne. There is al-
ways some classic lurking behind Jon-
son’s verse, and Donne, an original ar-
tist in his own strange and subtle way,
disdained smoothness.
With the publication of the Lyrical
Ballads in 1798 begins the second and
the greatest period of English lyrical
poetry and it is to be observed that
not only does our nineteenth century
poetry deal with a wider range of emo-
tions and deal with them more intel-
lectually, but the evolution of technic
has been carried much further. There
is nothing in the comparatively simple
Elizabethan measures to compare with
such effects as are wrought by language
and verse in Coleridge, Scott, Poe,
Tennyson and Swinburne. But these
things are not sung. At its highest
point of technical accomplishment. our
lyric poetry is least lyrical. Poetry and
music have developed their own re-
sources independently to a point where
unison becomes difficult. The music
grows so rich and complex that it over-
whelms the words which it ought to
interpret. Shelley is the most lyrical
of all our poets, yet his verse is seldom
set to music. Our modern lyric touches
its high water mark, not in the song
lyric, but in the lyric of art.
The first meeting of the German Club
for the present year was held Friday
evening, Feb. 9. Professor John C.
Schwab spoke on “Materialistic Element
in German Culture.” L. C. Kingman,
R. I. Dudley and George N. Whittlesey,
from 1900, were elected to the club.
