It is not many years since that two courses in American History, a subject which has always interested an unusually large number of students, were offered by the college. At present we have only one, although that course is esteemed one of the most popular and useful in the college. Why so little attention outside of this one course, is paid to a subject of interest to all both in a practical and a scholarly sense, it is difficult to say. Harvard through its graduates and instructors at various times has always taken a leading place in the development of the study of the history of this country. The mere mention of such names as Bancroft or Sparks, and in recent years of Higginson, and Lodge, and Morse, and Henry Adams, are sufficient evidence of this fact. Why, therefore a subject of such growing importance should be now left to be taught in one brief and merely introductory course it is difficult to see. The general instruction given in history at Harvard is perhaps the most successful and most valuable of any of the departments of the college proper. This department certainly has at least that reputation. It seems therefore a disproportionate expenditure of enterprise that while numerous courses and ample opportunities exist for the study of Arabic and Semetic languages a study of fully as great scholarly interest should be so much more restricted. The intelligent and well directed study of all periods of our history in detail can best beget a reasonable patriotism, and help to promote among educated men wise political counsels and disinterested citizenship. And in no subject is the direction of scholarly teachers through well-planed courses so much needed as in the tentative and as yet almost unwritten subject of American history. It is therefore greatly to be hoped that next year the college may offer an additional course, supplementary to History 13, under a competent instructor. If it were a thesis or a seminar course it would be so much the better adapted to the character of the subject.