In the upper fastnesses of Minnesota, amid a stubby growth of pine and spruce there lies Itasca Lake. Here rises the Mississippi. In the early spring of 1541 canoes floated down the sluggish current of this river that drains the mountain ranges of the United States, and a Spaniard discovered the Father of the Waters. But fever hangs in the mists of the low country and on one black night DeSoto's body was lowered away into the quiet water.

Since that time, so long ago, a welter of story and folk lore has sprung up around the winding river. Along its banks a unique civilization has worked out its development and on its current has floated "the finest calling in the world." That civilization and that calling have been passed on unimpaired to generations that would otherwise have forgotten them in the turbulence of their own existence--passed on chiefly by one writer. His name he gained from the river itself, for once he had found his living there. He had heard the man at the lead call out his soundings "By the mark twain" as the sleepy shore slid by.

Mark Twain has written of the Missisippi life, its richness and its poverty, its tarnish and its glitter, its fighting and its tranquility as no man before or after has ever been able to. Mississippi was caught in the eddies of his humour and the slow current of his intellect. American literature has come to think of the Missippi Valley as the work of Mark Twain, as the Mississippi Valley is sure that Mark Twain is American Literature.

Today at 10 o'clock in Sever 11 Professor Murdock will speak on this writer.

TODAY

9 o'clock

"The Restoration and the Revolutions of 1830 and 1843," Professor Webster, New Lecture Hall.

"Arnold," Professor Rollins, Emerson F.

10 o'clock

"Valerius Fiacous, Argonautica," Professor E. K. Rand, Sever 13.

"Bismarck and the Socialists," Professor Fay, Harvard 1.

"Bosch and Memling," Dr. Kuhn, Fogg Museum.

"Mark Twain," Professor Murdock, Sever 11.

11 o'clock

"Italian Renaissance Sculpture," Professor Edgell, Fogg Museum.

12 o'clock

"The Percy Felio MS.," Professor Maynadier, Sever 5.