e publications
which the college library contains, files which are reasonably
complete. In such a mass of material, some ninety volumes, it will be
astounding indeed if some creditable work has not been passed
inadvertently over. If such a mistake has occurred it is at least
pardonable. The editors fear only the presence of some unworthy matter
in this volume, a sin of commission and hence vastly more heinous.

In going over the works of their academic ancestors the editors have
been struck by several very interesting facts. The literary quality of
the poetry, as all will recognize, has made a steady advance, until
the last six years of the _Lit_. have seen the magazine second to
none, for verse at least, in the intercollegiate press. Dutton,
Westermann, Gibson, Holley, all of the same collegiate generation--they
are names which are widely known and which have brought the college
renown of a nature which, ordinarily, she is apt to obtain rather by
athletic than by intellectual means. It is striking, too, to notice
how the college poetry has changed during the seventy years of its
existence, as the present compilers have known it. There are specimens
of the "poetry" of the early days included herein, which find a place,
as is intimated elsewhere, not so much for their intrinsic merit as
for the interest attaching to them in other directions; and as for the
prose of the _Quarterly_ and the _Vidette_, it was, indeed, like the
essays of the college press to-day, carefully written and with a
degree of that indescribable something called "style"; but so
philosophical, heavy, and devoid of any human interest that we cannot
imagine the average student going through the magazine at a sitting as
(despite all reports to the contrary) is done with the college papers
to-day.

An interesting light on the alteration in undergraduate problems that
has gradually come about is furnished by a reading of Mr. Mabie's
essay included herein. At the time of its production Mr. Mabie saw the
need of a greater degree of organization among the students, in order
that the college might thereby become more of a community. How
directly opposed the present-day cry is! Student organization has
to-day so spread and so wound itself about the very life of the
college, that it threatens to hide the intellectual aims for which the
college exists. The editors venture to express the opinion that, had
Mr. Mabie written when they are writing, his essay would