EDITORS DAILY CRIMSON. - I have just had my attention called to F. W. K.'s reply to my letter in number IV of the Advocate; it does not meet my charges fairly and squarely in any particular, and, when considered carefully, is hardly worth a reply; but I will say this much to it. In my letter I deplored the fact that English literature was but taught in a fragmentary fashion here, although the fragments might be very highly polished; and F. W. K. will surely remember my words concerning Prof. Child. The stimulus towards reading, (and extensive reading), gained from connection with English 7 and 8, I have never before been aware of; but I am quite sure that even the theses which are read in the class, (and which consume a vast amount of time uselessly,) are not perfect guide books to the "literary path," and the "finest bits of scenery" along it. I would like F. W. K. to answer, - without previously consulting an English literature, - what he knows about the authors I mentioned in my letter, and whether he gained his knowledge of them from independent research or the English Department? His reference to the composition courses is equally flimsy as that to English 7 and 8. How serious is F. W. K. when he says that to "fulfill their purpose" (40 per cent., old regulations, D, new regulations,) "a man must gain no small knowledge in the whole range of our writers." F. W. K. forbids me to apply the word "preposterous" to the English Department, but any one who has graduated here during the past five years would apply it at once to his claims for English A, B, 5 and 12.

I do not deny that with all the resources of a magnificent library at his command any earnest man may make himself a master of our literature up to a certain point; but the English Department offers him little incentive, while the French Department offers much.

The English Department pleads poverty, thus tacitly admitting the charges against it; the college at large says - "lack of an energetic head." I do not attempt myself to formulate the cause; I merely state things as I find them. If F. W. K. is satisfied that he can get all desires out of the English courses of Harvard College, I wish him success and happiness; but who else agrees with him?

JOHN DONNE.