OUR READING-ROOM.

As the first year of the existence of this great blessing to the undergraduates is now drawing near its close, it may perhaps be a fitting occasion for offering a few remarks upon its management and general condition. In the first place, the amount of gas-light shed upon the Boston newspapers at the end of the room is sadly deficient. It is probably the belief of the managers that this class of reading loses its interest long before there is need of artificial light upon it; but the majority of those who visit the reading-room in the earlier part of the day can afford to spend but a few moments before attending to their morning recitations; so that, if what they wish to read happens to be in the possession of some one else, they will prefer to wait till evening when there will be every probability of their being able to secure it, rather than to take the chances of its being given up within a reasonable time. We therefore propose for consideration the expediency of placing a single jet, at least, in a position which shall throw a sufficient amount of light upon these papers to allow of their being read comfortably.

But to come to our principal object, how much larger and more beneficial would the effects of the institution be made if the smokers were not entirely excluded! The wish must have constantly recurred to the minds of nearly every member of that class, that he could enjoy his after-dinner cigar over some light reading, not in his own possession, but yet so near at hand. Yet if one of the two privileges, smoking or reading, must be given up, the latter, it is much to be regretted, is the one which is usually dispensed with. It is now too late to lament the result of the vote upon this subject, for we are forced to acknowledge that it is what we ought to have expected from our own negligence, when we consider how far those who actually use the weed, and those to whom the presence of its smoke is not offensive, exceed in number the remaining classes. It is even to be doubted if, on careful consideration, we should have wished the vote to be otherwise: it would certainly have been unpleasant for us to give visitors, if any had happened in, the impression in regard to our habits which would have naturally followed from finding us buried in clouds of tobacco-smoke. But why could there not be some room connected with the main reading-room in which the smoker could indulge his propensities, - a room which no one need enter unless so disposed, and in which, therefore, no one could complain of the habits of others? For instance, would it be entirely impracticable to convert the small room on the southeast corner of Massachusetts into such a refuge?