A petition to the faculty asking for the establishment of a course or half-course in elocution has been started by the members of Mr. Hayes's voluntary courses. The petition asks for the signatures of all students who would like to see credit given for the work in this study. The burden of the petition seems to be a statement that the elocution as taught here to-day is a very different thing from the old school style of declamation which had its uses some years ago, but which now has lost all hold upon sensible man. What is aimed at in the elocution sections is temperate, exact and adequate presentation, and these are things which it behooves every man to know. How often is the reading of a newspaper article or some paragraph from a book completely unintelligible owing to the wretched presentation of the reader, who has no conception of the proper means of making the matter understood! We hear more slovenly enunciation and villainous pronunciation than we hear careful and correct, for the main reason that men have not had their attention drawn to their mistakes and they continue in blunders which a little study would prevent. This is what is given in the elocution sections and those who have taken this work testify to its value in their petition. We feel certain that the members of the faculty who would take the pains to investigate the teaching here and its results would be only too ready to grant the petition and so place the study of elocution on a par with the other branches of the English department.