WE hear that with the advice and encouragement of two prominent members of the Faculty, a paper is being signed by the Juniors, petitioning the Faculty for a reduction in the amount of work required of the Junior class. It is proposed to cut down the work by requiring only twelve hours of electives instead of fourteen. That encouragement should be held out to this plan by any of the Faculty is a matter of congratulation, not only on account of the benefit to the Juniors, but because it shows that there is a prospect of another step from a conservative to a liberal policy. There is no reason for making Juniors take fourteen hours, except that they always have done so. We cannot see why Seniors should take fewer hours than Juniors are obliged to, unless the Faculty confess that the work previous to the Senior year has been too much, and that some opportunity for making up the conditions necessitated by too many requirements is due to the average student. We should be inclined to advise the Sophomores to follow the example set by the Juniors, if Rhetoric were not such a comparatively easy study, and one that all were more or less familiar with. The time wasted now in changing from one of our many studies to another, and in getting under way in that, would be much lessened by reducing the number of hours of required work, as that would almost necessarily diminish the number of subjects, and thus the amount learned would be greater and more thorough, although not quite so diverse as at present. We therefore add our strongest wishes of success to the petitioners and only hope that if they succeed, the instructors opposed to the change will not think it necessary to make their courses more difficult than at present.