botany, after remaining unfruitful for nearly two hundred years, were now to become the first parents of an elective system; but it soon became clear, from an original plan published in President Eliot's report (page 13), that these "historical" electives were only fruits of a general system introduced in 1841, "by far the broadest plan which had been enacted up to that time." It also became clear that, whatever his professional course, "President Sparks was a decided opponent of the elective system. He came into office in February, 1849, and within a year attacked the system energetically through both the corporation and the faculty" (President Eliot's report, 1883-'84, page 17).

FIRST REQUIREMENTS IN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.

To Professor Sparks' régime belongs the institution of historical requirements for admission to the Freshman class. In the year 1846 occurs the first mention of a matriculation examination by the historical department. The subjects required were Worcester's "Elements of Ancient History" and Worcester's "Ancient Geography." Hitherto for many years Worcester's "Ancient and Modern Geography" had been part of the requirements of the mathematical department, but, in 1846, the subject of geography was intrusted to the historical department, in which keeping it has since remained. It is interesting to observe that after 1846 historical atlases are frequently required in connection with Freshman and Sophomore historical courses. Butler's "Ancient Atlas" was the standard for Freshmen in their classical history; while the Sophomores employed Worcester's "Historical Atlas" in connection with their Sismondi, Guizot, or Robertson's "Introduction" to his "Life of Charles V," which were the favorite text-books for that class, as Smyth's "Lectures on Modern History" was the approved manual for Juniors during the Sparks régime. Since his time the study of geography has been more and more emphasized in connection with the historical courses at Harvard. Looking over the printed examination papers for admission to the college, and at the conclusion of class courses in history, the observer will not fail to notice the evident stress laid upon map-drawing, physical and political, and the ingenious questions for determining and combining historical and geographical knowledge. Since the year 1846, ancient history and geography have continued to be the chief requirements of the historical department for admission to the college. Within the last twenty-five years these classical requirements have occasionally been increased by chapters from Freeman's "General Sketch of European History "; but, in general, the subjects prescribed by the historical department for the entrance examination have remained as they were originally proposed, ancient history and geography, although more advanced text-books are now recommended. In 1886 the history of England and of the United States was proposed as a possible substitute for Greek and Roman history.

INTRODUCTION OF AMERICAN HISTORY BY PROFESSOR SPARKS.

The first appearance of American history in the curriculum of Harvard College, and the first indication that this subject was recognized as a specialty by any American institution of learning, was in the year 1842, when Jared Sparks, already three years installed in his professorial chair, began to lecture to Seniors on American history. Into this special field of instruction he put henceforth his best energies. Having taken good care to strengthen existing foundations by the proper tutoring of Freshmen in Heeren's "Politics of Ancient Greece" and Keightley's "Rome"; of Sophomores, in Sismondi and Guizot; of Juniors, in Smyth and Hallam, authors who lay chief stress on English history, Professor Sparks now proceeded to teach his own American specialty, chosen while yet a Unitarian clergyman in Baltimore and a chaplain of Congress some twenty years before. The influence of his then proximity to the city of Washington, and of acquaintance with public men like Chief Justice Marshall, Justice Story, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Judge Bushrod Washington (owner of the Mt. Vernon Papers), in determining the life-work of Jared Sparks, is sufficiently well known; but the application of this impulse towards American history to Senior classes at Harvard college has not received the recognition it deserves. His work was the very first beginning of academic instruction in the history of this country. It was the dawn of independent historical scholarship in an institution where text-books and Old-World authorities had hitherto reigned supreme. It was another Declaration of American Independence, of which there have been and will be many assertionsecclesiastical, political, economical, intellectual, and social. That the impulse towards American history, first derived from the head-center of American politics, should have been administered to Harvard by one of her own theological sons and former scholastic tutors, is an evidence of intellectual evolution no less natural than fitting.

PROFESSOR SPARKS' LECTURES.

Professor Sparks' lectures on American History at Harvard College passed through an evolutionary process, the original germs of which are no longer to be discovered. But among his private manuscripts, preserved by his family in Cambridge, there is a collection of lectures upon the above subject, elaborated for the Lowell Institute in Boston, and for other popular audiences, as indicated by the dates of delivery. In all probability these public lectures are but the popularization of academic materials first used for lectures to the Senior classes of Harvard College. The manuscripts, clearly written and neatly arranged, cover a wide range of topics, relating chiefly to the American Revolution. Although not elaborated to such a degree as to satisfy Mr. Sparks that they were fit for publication, they afford excellent evidence as to the solid character and original nature of the professor's academic

work. Quite independent of the chapters relating to the American Revolution in Sparks' "Life of Washington," these manuscript materials are to be viewed not only as the fittest survival of his academic lectures, but as the embryo of a proposed work on the American Revolution, which Jared Sparks had hoped to develop in his later years.

The idea of "A New History of America" was conceived by Jared Sparks about the time he closed his Baltimore pastorate in 1823. In 1824 he thought of a "History of Republican Institution in North America." The notion of a great work, to which the "Life of Washington" and numerous contributions to American biography were to be only tributary, took different shapes at different periods of his life, but it gradually centered upon the period of American Independence, and more especially upon the "History of the Diplomatic Relations of the United States during the War of the Revolution." To some such end were directed the chief energies of Mr. Sparks' later life, and particularly that period of it which followed his connection with Harvard College, where he remained professor of history until 1849 and continued as president, still lecturing on history to Seniors, until compelled by ill health to resign in 1853. From that time until the day of his death, in 1866, he never ceased to cherish his early dream. His vast collection of historical manuscripts, the property of the library of Harvard College, is at once a perpetual suggestion of his original idea, and an eloquent tribute to the college which first recognized the independent worth of American history. The unfinished lectures by Jared Sparks, the outgrowth of his college work, will perhaps some day be secured and placed in the college library in connection with the historical manuscripts. The idea contained in the lectures was designed to leaven the whole lump of manuscript materials. If Jared Sparks had not been disabled by an acident in 1851, which made note-taking almost impossible, the world would have probably heard more of this Harvard leaven, called "Lectures on American History."

Jared Sparks' professorship at Harvard College was epoch-making for American history rather than for historical teaching. It was understood from the outset that his chief energy was to be expended in lectures to the Senior and Junior classes. He himself says of his appointment," Mr. Quincy said it was not proposed that I should have anything to do in the way of teaching by recitation from books. Occasional examinations and lectures were proposed. For anything else I am not to be responsible. Let the tutors drill the boys." And the tutors did it. It may be asserted with considerable confidence that practical historical teaching at Harvard College remained upon its ancient tutorial basis where Professor Sparks found it. He took it for granted that Juniors and Seniors had been fairly well drilled in the facts of general history during the first two years of their college course. His main object was to communicate instruction by lectures, "and not merely to discipline the students in the habit of study, which has been

done sufficiently in the early part of their college life." Every college or university professor of history will sympathize with Mr. Sparks' view, and be glad to see it put into practice. Professor Sparks did his own work thoroughly and conscientiously, but he did not expect much from "the boys." Like them, he thought examinations a good deal of a bore. He was a genial, kindly, and extremely popular man, both as professor and as president. When he came into the latter office, the students felt that he was on their side. While president he continued to lecture more or less on American History. Mr. Sparks' interest in his pupils was social and humane rather than pedagogical. His thought was not so much the historical training of American youth as the writing of history for the American people. His was a large and generous idea, and in all of his published work he has deserved well of his country; but the idea of the practical teaching of history, even of America, was yet to evolve from the tutorial system of Harvard College.

SURVIVAL OF THE TUTORIAL SYSTEM.

The functions of teacher and professor cannot be permanently separated. To be sure, in Germany, the two offices have been differentiated by the gymnasium and the university; but, in the latter, in recent times, there is a manifest return to old-fashioned tutorial methods in the institution of the so-called Seminar, where professor and student are once more brought together as master and pupil. Harvard College has never departed altogether from the scholastic system upon which the institution was founded. In the maintenance of the classis, the lecture-system, tutors, examinations, and recitations, as well as of religious exercises, and of moral restraints, this American university has held fast things that are good. In importing the German Seminar, young Harvard instructors have secured only a secular evolution of that old theological and tutorial system, once the common property of England and Germany, and described for New England, in 1642-43, among the "Rules and Precepts that are observed in the Colledge":

"Every schollar shall be present in his Tutor's chamber at the 7th houre in the morning, immediately after the sound of the bell, at his opening the scripture and prayer, so also at the 5th houre at night, and then give account of his own private reading as aforesaid in particular the third [reading the scriptures twice a day'], and constantly attend lectures in the hall at the houres appointed. But if any (without necessary impediment) shall absent himself from prayer or lectures, he shall be lyable to admonition, if he offend above once a weeke."

Here are theological germs of the modern system of scholastic training. Here are tutors and pupils in the closest class relations. Here are chamber conferences on private readings. Here, also, is the lecture system, with religious exercises, and even licensed "cuts."

The tutorial system has survived at Harvard, and in all American colleges, down to the present day. The system has been variously modi

fied in different institutions. It has given rise to "instructors," "assistants," and "advisers"; but the original and essential pedagogical idea has never departed from the tutorial office. The tutor's business is and ever has been to teach and guide, as did the Grecian IIaidaywyós. At Harvard, as elsewhere, the best practical teachers have evolved from the tutorial system. If one looks backward through Harvard catalogues for a period of thirty-five or forty years, he will discover that the present academic staff is largely of tutorial origin. From Dr. Peabody and President Eliot,' who began their official connection with the college-the first in 1832, and the second in 1854-both as tutors of mathematics, down to the most recent appointments of instructors and assistant professors, this statement will in general hold true. Harvard, founded "to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity" (see New England's First Fruits), has always remained a training school for pastors and teachers. It has always recruited its professors chiefly from tutorial ranks. Its record of academic service affords striking evidence in favor of professorial appointments upon the basis of successful experience as subordinate teachers. While promotions for genius or exceptional merit must always be admitted in any good administration, even at the expense of seniority and faithful service, yet, on the whole, the history of Harvard, and of most American college faculties, is a history of the gradual advancement of tutors by a system of collegiate service, which is to universities what a progressive civil service would be to the State and nation.

As we have already seen, the germs of historical instruction at Harvard were first planted by tutors as early as 1642. The scholastic plant was kept alive by the Freshmen and Sophomore tutors for more than two centuries. It began to flourish with the coming of Professor Sparks, who began his academic career at Harvard as tutor of Mathematics. The tutors continued to do the practical work of teaching History. "Let the tutors drill the boys," said Mr. Sparks. Who were the men who performed, during his régime, this pedagogical work in the historical department? There were various tutors for Freshmen and Sophomores in History during the professorship of Jared Sparks, but there are two names that deserve special mention, for they stand for the chief pioneers in the historico-political work of the present generation of Harvard teachers. The two names are Francis Bowen and Henry W. Torrey.

PROFESSOR FRANCIS BOWEN.

Francis Bowen is now the "Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity." His present title indicates the somewhat mosaic character of his professional work, but it by no means represents the variety of subjects which Professor Bowen has taught since he began his pedagogical career at Harvard College as tutor. 'Mr. Eliot became Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Chemistry in 1858; Assistant Professor of Chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School in 1861.