Lake Waban. The town is only 15 miles from Boston and upon the main thoroughfare of Massachusetts, the Boston and Albany Railroad. Apparently retired from the world, it is well connected with all the helpful influences which make for the highest education.

Wellesley College combines the best features of centralization and local government in its system of student life. There is one main building, of the Vassar type, "475 feet long, 150 feet wide at the wings, and five stories high." This central building is not only a dormitory for stu dents and teachers, but it also contains a chapel, libraries, lecturerooms, laboratories, studio, offices, and dining-hall "capable of seating three hundred and seventy-five persons." Besides this spacious central building there are various cottages, where students who prefer a more quiet and domestic order of life can find it. There is a special building for graduates and special students taking advanced electives. Here, also, is greater seclusion than in the central building; here, too, are small dining-rooms for groups of students.

The library of Wellesley College is described as "a light, spacious, alcoved room, two stories in height, handsomely finished in black walnut, and containing thirty thousand carefully-selected volumes. This collection was begun by the presentation of Mr. Durant's own private library of ten thousand volumes, and has since been increased by valuable gifts from various friends." Chief among the recent benefactors of the Wellesley College library is Prof. Eben Norton Horsford, of Cambridge, Mass., who has established a fund for the supply of books and has made special contributions to the resources of the historical department. Professor Horsford has also generously provided for professorial vacations, to be enjoyed after a given period of service; and he has placed Wellesley in advance of every other college in the country by providing pensions for retired teachers who have served a given number of years.

One remarkable and very progressive feature of library administration at Wellesley College is the distribution of a certain class of books in the class-rooms and laboratories for instant reference. This method has been found highly advantageous both at Wellesley and at the Johus Hopkins University. Where the method conflicts with the interests of the general library or other departments duplicate collections should be purchased, presented, or secured by class-philanthropy.

An interesting feature of student-organization at Wellesley is a debating society conducted after the model of the English House of Commons. This experiment was first essayed by undergraduates in the Johns Hopkins University, but, judging from published reports,1 the young women of Wellesley have developed the idea in a highly dramatic and realistic form. They impersonate well-known characters in English politics, and evidently find as much amusement in parliamentary pro1 See The Courant, Wellesley, Mass., February 18, 1887, Parliamentary Summary (à la The Times).

cedure as do Harvard students in private theatricals. Aside from the charm of novelty and entertainment, this kind of debating society at Wellesley tends to acquaint girls not only with parliamentary forms and institutions, but with the actual significance of such great problems as the Irish question. In Baltimore the boys stick to American political questions, but employ the English procedure of the House of Commons because it is convenient for purposes of debate and affords great sport for the opposition as well as for the ministry and party in power. It is, of course easy to ridicule this sort of political play, but it is quite as legitimate as moot-courts; it is an object-lesson in politics, almost as instructive and entertaining as a night-scene in Congress or in the House of Commons.

The following account by Mrs. Mary Sheldon Barnes' describes the early development of historical work at Wellesley College:

"Some history was taught at Wellesley before I went there in 1877; but the department was not organized until the fall of that same year. The only conditions imposed were that the study should extend throughout the course, that the professor or instructor should meet the classes once a week, and that not more than two hours a week of individual work should be required. This gave approximately forty hours of classroom work for each student each year, or one hundred and twenty hours of attention. No part of the course was to be elective. All this was determined by Mr. Durant.

"Very few students entered well read in this subject. It was therefore thought best to give our attention during the first three years to a general course, devoting the freshman year to Greek, the sophomore to Roman, the junior to Medieval and Modern History. This left the senior year free for special studies, and the special study chosen for the first and only senior class under my care was the development of the British Constitution.

"The classes when large were divided into sections, so that the num ber of each class or section should not exceed twenty. The excellent library, full sets of illustrative maps, and photographs were freely accessible to the students.

"From the beginning no set text-book was employed. During the first three years every week a number of pages of material, prepared from original sources, were copied by the electric pen, and a copy was placed in the hands of every student. Accompanying this material a dozen or more problems were set requiring independent and original thought on the part of the individual, and as much additional reading was sug gested and encouraged as possible, especially from contemporary literature. During these first three years the class-room hour was largely devoted to conversation and discussion. Every student was encouraged to express fully and freely the results of her own private work. These were criticised and compared with the results reached by the other

Author of Sheldon's General History.