Changes in Life and Thought at Harvard.

At the annual meeting of the Harvard Club of Chicago, October 19th, Rev. Phillips Brooks was present, and as an Overseer of the college, was invited to address the meeting. The substance of his remarks was as follows:

"The coming anniversary celebration will mark an epoch in the history of the college. The celebration of fifty years ago marked the beginning of great changes in the constitution of Harvard, which only with this year have reached their full development. Now at last the college has been transformed. And I hope it is not with idle pride that we now believe it to be the most liberal in its advantages, the most complete, the best American university. And yet the change is not so great as is often thought. In my day even we already had the elective system. The senior and part of the junior year studies, if I remember, were wholly optional. To day the average age at entrance is what ours was at graduation. The 'boy' who elects his freshman year studies now is no more of a 'boy' than the senior who chose his senior courses then.

Referring to a department of the college in which I am more closely interested - you all doubtless know that compulsory morning prayers have been abolished during the past year, as compulsory church-attendance had been some time before. I do not see how we could have disregarded the movement which was set on foot - a practically unanimous movement; since 900 names were attached to the petition requesting the change, - and not a movement begun in haste and dictated by the whim of the moment; for the agitation upon the subject among the young men in college has been going on for some years and has been steadily increasing in earnestness. And now we look to see a period of freedom and good sense and sincerity and earnest belief in religious matters in the college. We still have a Plummer Professor, and his work still makes itself felt.

In every respect the Harvard of today is better than was the Harvard of the past. And therefore we feel that its prosperity is merited. We regret only that the proportion of students in attendance from the West is not larger than it is, although of course it is a tribute to the college that the nearer people are to it and the better they know it, the more strongly do they believe in it and trust it. The President the other day called our attention to the fact that in the present freshman class there are only three from Chicago, while in the class preceding there were eight. Never before was the college so good a place for a young man to go to as it is to-day. We ask you and all of the Harvard Clubs throughout the country to aid us in extending its influence."