It needs but a perusal of the President's report to assure us that Harvard is in a very prosperous condition. Not only have the numbers of students in the different departments increased, but extensive additions have been made to the University accommodations. The Agassiz and Peabody Museums have been enlarged, a new dormitory built, and the Chemical Laboratory to some extent remodeled. A university such as ours, however, is constantly in need of improvements, and the most important of these have been touched upon in the report just published. Nearly all college endowments are encumbered with stipulations, and it is for this reason that the improvements above mentioned have not already been made. The long-felt need of a lighted reading room would have been satisfied before this, had the money been forthcoming. If this improvement be now made, therefore, it must be made as President Eliot has suggested, by some sort of subscription. It is sincerely to be hoped that the recent efforts of the CRIMSON to agitate this subject will speedily be productive of good results.

A short time ago, at the close of his course of lectures, Professor Cooke explained very clearly to the freshman class the present great need of a lecture room sufficient to accommodate the increased number of students in his course. This need is yearly increasing and should be satisfied at once. Here, however, as in the other case, the college is delayed by lack of available funds, and so we are forced to wait for a necessary improvement.

Despite these real difficulties, however, there yet remains abundant cause for self-congratulation. The policy of the faculty in regard to athletics, as mentioned in the report, has become wiser and more lenient, and has thus added another incentive to the spirit of co-operation which already binds to a considerable degree faculty and student. It is this sort of policy, and this only, which will allow our University to exert its fullest influence.