In Thursday's Nation appeared a second letter from Mr. Page, whose article we published yesterday. A short synopsis of the letter may not be uninteresting to our readers.

Mr. Page says that Harvard has in the first place gained by putting the election of overseers in the hands of the alumni. Formerly it was necessary that certain clergymen and state officers should be in the governing hands. But this state of affairs began to change in 1810, and in 1865 the graduates chose the whole Board of Overseers. But Yale, although some of her governing officers are now elected by the alumni, still has a large number of ex-officio officers.

The second cause of Harvard's superiority, he says, is the extension of the elective system during the last forty-five years. He shows the present conditional of optional study both at Yale and Harvard, by the following table.

HOURS OF ELECTIVE STUDIES (PER WEEK).

Yale. Harvard.

Freshman class, None 9

Sophomore class, None All

Junior class 9 All

Senior class 13 All

According to this showing, Yale is now about where Harvard was in 1841.

Furthermore, the opportunities of choice are far greater at Harvard than at Yale, as is seen from the following set of statistics. The figures are for the number of hours of weekly instruc-given in each subject.

Yale Harvard.

Semitic Languages, 1 17

Indo-Iranian Lan., 4 12

Greek, 13 1-2 39 1-2

Latin, 17 1-2 37 1-2

G'k & Lat. Philol. etc, - 6

English and Rhetoric, 10 24

German, 15 20

French, 18 26

Italian, 6 10 1-2

Spanish, 6 10 1-2

Philosophy & Ethics, 11 25

Political Economy, 4 1-2 14

History, 11 1-2 24

Roman Law, 1 1-2 4 1-2

Fine Arts, - 10 1-2

Music, - 14

Mathematics, 30 1-2 42 1-2

Physics, 4 23 1-2

Chemistry, 2 24

Natural History, 11 49 1-2

Internat'al Law, etc., 1 1-2 -

Linguists, 1 1-2 -

Hygiene, 1 -

- -

170 434 1-2

So the Harvard student has the opportunity to chose from two and one half the instruction offered by Yale.

The thoroughness of teaching in any subject is harder to estimate, but Mr. Page arrives at it by giving a comparison of the work done in the very important subject of Political Economy. Yale has one professor in the department, while Harvard has a professor, an assistant professor and an instructor. The following statistics show the weekly instruction in the several courses.

YALE.

Elementary course, 1 1-2 hrs.

Longer elementary course, 2 hrs.

Discussion and investigation, 1 hrs.

For seniors, 4 1-2 hrs.

HARVARD.

Elementary course, 3 hrs.

History of economic theory, 3 hrs.

Economical history of America and Europe, 3 hrs.

Tariff legislation, 1 hrs.

Financial legislation. 1 hrs.

Discussion and investigation, 3 hrs.

Independent research say. 3 hrs.

For sophomores, juniors, and seniors, 17 hrs.

Accordingly, Harvard "offers greater and better facilities for study, and we can blame only human nature, if parent, guardians and ambitious young men go where they can get the most for their time and money."

Moreover, Harvard's entrance examinations are harder than those at Yale. The cry that if you once get in Harvard it is easy enough to get through, while you are made to study at Yale, is disproved by the fact that seventy four per cent. of Harvard's freshmen graduate, and seventy-five per cent. of Yale's.