The recent dinner of the Yale alumni in Boston was significant from many of the ideas expressed by President Porter relative to the present position of Yale in religion, and in the controversy between the "old learning" and the new. The remarks were evidently made with great care, and acknowledge as strongly as the friends of the new learning could desire that the old is not after all exclusively the "true." Care was taken to recall the old position of Harvard in the question of classics, and to draw the conclusion so natural to a man of Yale that, because Harvard no longer occupies her old position she is per se in a wrong position. The claim was again advanced that Yale is the national college, and as such stands foremost among all the colleges in this land. Dr. Porter spoke at some length on the religious influence of Yale, and declared that everywhere the public demand is "that our young men shall have the side of faith and reverence strengthened rather than weakened. And the educated man asks that he shall be guided aright." We must argue from the words of the speaker that the course of Harvard is truly a course of progress, and as such is slowly forcing itself on the minds of the faculty and of the president of Yale. Dr. Porter said that he felt as if he were pronouncing his own funeral oration. Was he not rather in reality pronouncing the funeral oration of the old style of education? Cannot we be justified in thinking that the course of events has already demonstrated the position assumed by Harvard as advanced and progressive? Increase in the number of students, increase in the interest manifested by the students, elevation in the character of the scholarship evolved, an enlarged scope of intelligent work, do not these prove the strength of the new movement and its value as an element in the reform of study? Would we be wise to look wistfully back upon the happy days of delusion if we can prove that it was delusion which possessed us. The work of Harvard has distinctly marked a great era of reform, and as such should be forwarded, despite the animadversions of those who oppose it.