These winter days, when darkness so often settles over academic Cambridge, recourse must often be had to artificial light for the class-room. The objections to the lighting system of Sever, where perhaps more classes meet than in any other building, and that in use in Harvard 5, are perennial but urgent. The illumination is at best poor, and the gas given off by the burning jets is so oppressive that the tendency is to labor entirely in the gloom rather than endure the odor. Injury to eyes or to lungs,--these are the alternatives. Recently a professor was obliged to dismiss his class, so bad had the air become on account of these antiquated gas-jets.

The lights in Sanders Theatre are, if possible, even worse. The stage has garish gas-lamps, which blind the eyes of those who wish to see as well as hear. Around the balcony are no less blinding electric bulbs, which produce an effect like many darting tongues of, flame; and higher up are dangerous open gas-jets. Either one's devotion to music or his eyesight must be strong to bring him to Sanders at present for this ocular punishment. Indeed, it is doubtful whether a system combining in a worse way worse methods of lighting could be devised.

While we are erecting new buildings and putting in new equipment we should not entirely forget to conserve the eyes and lungs of students.