President Barnard of Columbia, in his last annual report, has recommended the abolition of the undergraduate department of the college. His intention is to turn Columbia into a university composed of different schools, in which graduates of other colleges may pursue special lines of study. It is certainly true that the undergraduate department of Columbia has not progressed in proportion to the School of Mines and the School of Law, nor proportionately to the advances made by the undergraduate departments at Harvard and Yale. One reason given for this is that at Columbia the essence of college life, such a vital factor of undergraduate existence elsewhere, is entirely lacking. But this can hardly explain the almost stationary position which the college department of Columbia has now held for the past ten years. With such a city as New York to draw from, the number of students in the college should have increased rapidly were it not for a cause which is apparently slighted. The same narrow, pettifoging spirit still exists that was prevalent in every college a decade ago. The liberal principle of optional studies which has made such headway in all the leading colleges is to all practical purposes dead at Columbia. This conservative policy brings the college curriculum down to the same levelas the hum-drum routine of high school. It must be admitted on all sides that the undergraduate department of Columbia is far behind the age. The other schools are managed so as to keep abreast of the times, and this system has made them highly successful. A few radical changes would raise a department which is now of little account into greater usefulness, otherwise it can never lift itself above its present state.