WE are tending now in our curriculum to in crease more and more the number of specializing courses in many departments, a very natural outcome of our elective system and the growth of the University Such, for instance, are many of the courses in the English department dealing with Anglo-Saxon poetry as distinct from the rest of ancient English literature, the courses on the poets of the various centuries as distinct from those on the prose writers of the same, the relation of English literature to German, and other courses of a like nature, all of which tend to make a specialty of some branch of a study.

Now, with all our courses in English we have none which treat of English orators and statesmen, - of Pitt, Burke, Bright and Fox in England; Webster, Phillips, Clay and Calhoun in America. Such a course seems to us to be one well worth considering, for it would be interesting to many students in English literature and, moreover, there are doubtless students to whom it would be an advantageous and necessary training. A half course would answer the purpose, its aim being the study of the speeches of English and American orators and statesmen, their construction and effectiveness; a comparison of the methods of each - a practical study, in other words, of the theory of oratory. There will be students for such a course as there are students now for the courses in poetry and prose and English grammar; students who would like the study for its own sake as well as students who, intending to become debaters or preachers, would take it for its practical treatment of important orations. We have already a course in Elocution and if this half course were added given perhaps by the instructor in Elocution - it seems to us that it would be both desirable and advantageous.