Perhaps we ought for the present to look upon the marking system as a necessary evil. Nevertheless we do not come to college to be marked; and it may be laid down as a truism that any course of instruction in which the element of marks preponderates over that of instruction, in which the energies of the instructor are expended in estimating the work rather than in criticising it, and in which the practical result and outcome of the student is a mark and not the means by which to do better,-that any such course of study is a failure, a waste of precious time, and must be either improved or given up. Now we assert that what has been said is exactly the state of the present instruction in forensics; and whatever the faculty may think on the subject, we are confident that all thinking men in the senior class-who have had a year's experience in the matter-will agree with us. Not but that some of us have derived great benefit from our forensic writing; this, however, is in spite of, not owing to the so-called instruction in the subject. But we do not come to college to be benefited by our own unaided exertions, but come here to get that help in our work which only a university can give; and in so far as our time here is given to work in which our instruction is not of the greatest assistance-the time and money spent in coming to college is wasted. Let instruction in forensics be given up, then, or else let there be a thorough overhauling.