A COURSE ON RECENT WRITERS.

The new half-course on English and American literature since 1890, which is announced by the English Department, will interest a great many students, both within and within the department. The complaint is often heard that college courses deal too much with the past and too little with the present, and some reformers-- as the genial "Uncle Dudley" did a year ago,-- nonchalantly propose the abolition of many or all such courses. They class all thought of the past as useless learning; and forget that a large amount of intellectual capital which it would be prodigal to waste has been saved up in periods not radically unlike our own.

Neverthless, more attention to the literature and thought of the present is desirable. Scholars usually shrink from this field, probably because critical judgments are hard to make and no-true perspective is possible, But the effort is especially important now, owing to the great changes which are going on in society. It will be a difficult task to bring order out of the seeming chaos of ideas and emotions which fills modern literature, but one worth ambition. Dr. Bernbaum's studies in the literature of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. When the problems of the present were in process of birth, together with his well-known interest in these problems and the literary expression of them, especially fit him to undertake the work. The course is a new departure on the part of the department of English which is sure to be well received.