i.. members of the class. Before the topic in hand was left the results were all summarized and placed on the blackboard in tabular form. Each student kept a note-book, into which she entered these tabulated summaries, for the contents of which each student was responsible on examination. During the freshman year these summaries were mostly made.for the students; but as time went on they were required not only to work out their own results, but more and more to generalize and I average them.. "In the senior year we left this general course and method and entered upon a careful, thorough, and detailed study of the British Constitution, using Stubbs as our guide. Every collateral authority within our reach was read and discussed. The work was done by periods, and topics and our results summarized at the close of each part of our study. Our forty hours being necessarily abridged by the interruptions of the senior year, we were far from completing our task. We had, however, accomplished what we had resolved upon, namely, a thorough and scholarly treatment of the subject so far as we pursued it. "Throughout the course the work in history aimed to do two things: First, to give the students information enough to give them a clear intellectual appreciation of the general development and characteristics of European history; second, to train them to think and feel historically, to deal thoughtfully and sympathetically with historic fact. Whether the first aim was accomplished I cannot say; that the second was abundantly and satisfactorily attained may, perhaps, be believed. I cannot, however, forbear to add that experience has taught me how to fulfil both far more completely.", The foregoing account by Mrs. Mary Sheldon Barnes is well supple mented by the following report from Miss Coman, who is now in charge of the historical department at Wellesley: 66 College work in history was begun in the fall of 1876 under the direction of Professor Mary D. Sheldon, B. A. (University of Michigan), 1874. At that time the study of history was required throughout the college course under the weekly' system-i e., one recitation per week. The courses offered were as follows: Freshman year, History of Greece; sophomore year, History of Rome; junior year, study of medieval institutions; senior year, development of modern ideas of social and political life. "Miss Sheldon's methods are very well illustrated by her 'Studies in General History. The work was done as far as possible from original materials. "The students were furnished with suggestive outlines of political history and methods of government, with extracts from literature, laws, charters, &c., with illustrations of typical art and architecture. They were taught to observe, to draw conclusions, to recognize the significance of events... "Miss Alice E. Freeman, B. A. (University of Michigan), 1876, was called to the chair of history in 1879, and retained that position until the autumn of 1885. Miss Freeman secured a radical change in the arrangement of the required work in history and offered several elective courses. "The required work was as follows: "Freshman year: One recitation per week; lectures in Grecian and Roman History. 6. ·Junior year: Two to three recitations per week; lectures and library work in the history of civilization. "The elective work comprised five courses of a semester each, three hours per week. "I. Political History of England. "II. Political History of France. "III. Political History of Modern Europe. "IV. Constitutional History of England. "V. Constitutional History of the United States. Tabular "Much attention is still given to original materials, but larger requirements are made from students in the way of library work. views still fulfil the office of text-books, and a detailed list of references for each topic is placed in the hands of the students. The usual arrangement of a tri-weekly course is a lecture and two recitations each week, the young ladies being expected to present in recitation the results of their study. We secure original and independent work by assigning topics for special investigation to individual students. We secure a solid foundation of facts and a valuable basis for future work by requiring that a concise and systematic record of work be kept in note-book form. "I have been in charge of the department since the fall of 1885. My assistants are Miss M. B. F. Roberts, B. A., M. A. (Cornell University), 1880 and 1884, and Miss M. A. Knox, of Elmira College. The impor tant changes made during my administration are as follows: "I. Grecian and Roman History have been placed among the requirements for entrance examination and the lectures of the freshman year discontinued. "II. A course in the Principles of Political Economy has been undertaken by the department. "III. The work in Constitutional History has been considerably advanced. "(a) The course in the History of Civilization or some equivalent is a prerequisite. "(b) Students are trained to independent work. Tabular views are furnished the students, but no preliminary lectures are given. "The authorities are Stubbs, Hallam, and May for English, and Bancroft, Hildreth, Von Holst, &c., for United States History. Original sources: Select charters, Congressional debates, speeches, &c. "(c) These are presented, involving detailed investigation and synthetic thought. "(d) Illustrations of Methods of Parliamentary Procedure have been arranged with good success. "Last year we debated the home-rule question in Parliamentary form. A hall was fitted up in imitation of the House of Commons; the speaker and sergeant-at-arms appeared in costume. The three parties, with their leading members, were spiritedly represented. The bill was read, debated, and put to vote. A division was taken on it with a result that would have been gratifying to Mr. Gladstone. The right of nullification was also debated according to Senatorial procedure. "The number of students at present (1886-'87) in this department: Constitutional History Modern History.... History of Civilization. English Political History.. Resident graduate students Non-resident graduate students. 27 9 98 53 2. 11 "It is proposed to offer the following additional electives for the coming year: A study of Ancient Civilization; European History since 1789; Practical Problems in Political Economy. "The distinctive features of our work at Wellesley are: "I. The substitution of tabular views and library references for text books. "II. The large amount of library work done by students. "Periodicals.-American Magazine of History; Papers of American Historical Association; Johns Hopkins University Studies; Quarterly Journal of Economics; beside thirty-six general periodicals and twenty. three daily or weekly papers. "The books and papers are as immediately accessible to the students as they would be in a private library. Our "III. The amount of individual attention given to students. large teaching force enables us to divide our classes into small sections. There are never more than thirty students in a section." III. SMITH COLLEGE. Smith College is an excellent institution for the higher education of young women. It was founded in Northampton, Mass., in the year 1875, by the bequest of Miss Sophia Smith, a near kinswoman of the ་ ་ ་ ་ founder of the Smith charities in the same town, which is one of the most remarkable in New England, for its institutions of philanthropy. The college stands upon a charming site, the very acropolis of the city, and is one of the best illustrations that the writer has ever seen of the advantages of a municipal environment in the higher education of women. The same contest of town site versus country seclusion, which was successfully fought out by the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was still earlier settled by the trustees of Smith College in Northampton, Mass. It was a victory more noteworthy, perhaps, than men thought at the time it was won, for it meant the triumph of society over the cloister; it meant the growth of a college for women amid all the advantages of a healthful, well-regulated community, with churches, libraries, book. stores, and all the conveniences and refinements of civilized life. Very significant also of modern educational progress was the substitution of the cottage system1 for the dormitory system, or the home for the cloister. Instead of having one great abbey or convent for guarding the flock, Smith College from the outset distributed its students in cottages and family groups, each in the charge of a cultivated lady, having her own parlors and domestic establishment. The proximity of the college to the home life of Northampton offers further means towards completing the transition from medieval to modern, from artificial to natural, modes of student living. The institution now has well-organized departments in the languages, ancient and modern, mathematics and the sciences, history and political science, philosophy, art, music, &c. The first instruction in history was given by a lady teacher, Miss Humphreys, who taught entirely by text-books. From 1878 to 1881, inclusive, history was taught at Smith College by H. B. Adams, of Johns Hopkins University, who spent the spring term of each year lecturing at Northampton. His recollections of that phase of historical work at Smith College are here reprinted from Dr. G. S. Hall's Pedagogical Library, Vol. I, "Methods of Teaching and Studying History," pp. 115–122: “The study of history was pursued by four classes in regular gradation, somewhat after the college model. The first, corresponding to the 'freshman' class, studied oriental or ante-classic history, embracing the Stone Age, Egypt, Palestine, Phoenicia, the empires of Mesopo tamia and ancient India. This course was pursued in 1879 by dictations and extempore lectures on the part of the teacher, and by independent reading on the part of the pupils. The first thing done by the teacher in the introduction to the history of any of the above-mentioned countries, was to explain the sources from which the history of that country was derived, and then to characterize briefly the principal literary works relating to it, not omitting historical novels, like Ebers' "Egyp 1 1 Upon this point and upon the general characteristics of Smith College, see Miss M. A. Jordan's interesting and illustrated article on "Smith College," in the New England Magazine and Bay State Monthly, January, 1887. ་་་་་་་ tian Princess,' or 'Uarda.' Afterwards the salient features in Egyp tian history, for example, were presented by the instructor, under distinct heads, such as geography, religion, art, literature, and chronology. Map-drawing by and before the class was insisted upon; and, in connection with the foregoing subjects, books or portions of books were recommended for private reading. For instance, on the 'Geog. raphy of Egypt,' fifty pages of Herodotus were assigned in Rawlinson's translation. This and other reading was done in the so-called 'Ref erence Library,' which was provided with all the books that were recommended. An oral account of such reading was sooner or later demanded from each pupil by the instructor, and fresh points of information were thus continually brought out. The amount of positive fact acquired by a class of seventy-five bright young women bringing together into one focus so many individual rays of knowledge, collected from the best authorities, is likely to burn to ashes the dry bones of any text-book and to keep the instructor at a white heat. A "As an illustration of the amount of reading done in one term of ten weeks by this class of beginners in history, the following fair, specimen of the lists handed in at the end of the academic year of 1879 is appended. The reading was, of course, by topics: "In the second, or 'sophomore' class, classic history was pursued by means of the History Primers of Greece and Rome, supplemented by lectures and dictations, as the time would allow. The junior class studied medieval history in much the same way, by text-books (the Epoch Series) and by lectures. Both classes did excellent work of its kind, but it was not the best kind; for little or no stimulus was given |