THE suggestion of the Visiting Committee that themes should be required of Seniors and Freshmen as well as of Sophomores and Juniors is one which we sincerely hope will not be acted on. In order to eradicate the more obvious faults such as it is possible to attend to in exercises on which the instructor can bestow as little time as on college themes, the amount of work now required is sufficient. If the instructor could consider each theme carefully, and afterwards criticise it in connection with the writer, the case would be different, since then the field for correction would be practically unlimited. As it is, twelve themes can accomplish the purpose as well as twenty. If, however, some of the work now required of the Juniors could be transferred to the Freshmen, the change would be a good one. To find time, amid all the work of the Junior year, to write four forensics and to write and rewrite six themes, is by no means easy, especially when the subjects assigned are of the abstruse nature now coming into fashion. The writing of a few themes in the Freshman year would give instruction which there is little reason for postponingtill the Sophomore year. The Freshmen, it is true, have at present as much work required of them as they can perform; but if another suggestion of the Committee, proposing to lessen the amount of mathematics, be adopted, room could easily be made for the themes.