Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City. "A General History of Europe." By Oliver J. Thatcher, Ph. D., and Ferdinand Schwill, Ph. D., both of the University of Chicago. A valuable text-book with numerous and accurate maps, and chronological and genealogical tables. Price $1.50 net. "Elementary Physical Geography." By Jacques W. Redway. The book is an admirable one de signed for use in the junior grades of the High School and in Normal Schools. It embodies all the principles recommended by the Committee of Fifteen, and many valuable suggestions from the author. In the preface, the author acknowledges his indebtedness to Miss Stella Wilson, Instructor in Physical Geography in the Central High School, Columbus, O. Price $1.25 net. "A History of Education." By Thomas Davidson. It has been the author's endeavor to present education as the last and highest form of evolution, and to show what it is that evolves, and why it evolves. Price $1.00 net. "Comenius and The Beginning of Educational Reform." By Will S. Monroe, A. B., of the State Normal School at Westfield, Mass. The volume traces the reform movement in education from Vives, Bacon, and Ratke to Comenius, and from him to the later reformers. It is one of the "Great Educator Series" edited by Nicholas Murray Butler. Price $1.00 net. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass. "Sesame and Lillies," by John Ruskin. 1 Of Kings' Treasures. 2 Of Queens' Gardens. With an introduction and notes. "Plutarch's Alexander the Great" done into English by Sir Thomas North, with an introduction and notes. The Midsummer Holiday "Century" is chiefly notable, perhaps, as introducing a writer hitherto unknown, of whose power to interest those who "never read serial stories" the editors feel confident. The new comer, Miss Bertha Runkle, is a young woman still in her early twenties; and the scene she has chosen for her first effort in fiction is Paris at the time of the accession of Henry IV. The story, which will run for several months, is called "The Helmet of Navarre." It is announced as a dramatic romance of love and adventure, characterized by great inventiveness and by rapid and absorbing action. -The August Atlantic contains several articles that will attract criticism and discussion: President Hadley's practical and much-needed paper on "Political Education"; Talcott Williams's "The Price of Order, how to rule colonies"; Mark B. Dunnell's "Our Rights in China," most timely and appropriate in the present crisis; and Sylvester Baxter's "Submarine Signalling." -a new and little-known method of saving life on the sea. The number is peculiarly rich in fiction: Miss Jewett's "The Foreigner"; Alice Brown's "A Sea Change"; Caroline Brown's "Angels and Men"; Fanny Johnson's "The Pathway Round"; Foster's "The Dungarven Whooper"; and Wetherbee's "The Circle of Death"; with the conclusion of Howells's brilliant tale, comprise a remarkable gathering of remarkable stories. The Small College - Its Work in the Past. By WILLIAM OXLEY THOMPSON 483 By C. B. GALBREATH.... The Paris Exposition. By W. W. BOYD Geography and History of Ohio. By F. B. PEARSON. O. T. R. C. DEPARTMENT. More Notes, Introductory. By J. J. BURNS..... Something About History in the Course for 1900-01. By J. J. BURNS...... On Oman's England in the Nineteenth Century. 490 495 500 503 504 506 508 509 0. T. CURSON, Publisher, 57 East Main St., COLUMBUS, O. Entered as second-class matter at the Postoffice, Columbus, O. Cloth, 12 mo. 168 pages, illustrated. Price, 35 cents. Harvey's New English Grammar for Schools Cloth, 12 mo. 277 pages. Price, 60 cents. The many teachers who have used Harvey's Language Course with such great success and satisfaction will be delighted with these new books. They combine all the elements which gave the original editions their simplicity and strength, with the best features in the modern methods of teaching English. In their présent form these favorite text-books will unquestionably maintain their old-time place in the best schools throughout the country. The Publishers Cordially Invite Correspondence. AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY, CINCINNATI. CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY THE SMALL COLLEGE-ITS WORK IN THE PAST. [An address delivered at the Charleston Meeting of the N. E. A., July 10, 1900.] BY WILLIAM OXLEY THOMPSON, President Ohio State University, Columbus. There is no disguising the fact that there is a wide spread feeling. that the small college has seen its best days. Within twenty-five years there has grown up a sentiment that the place to educate a boy is in a large crowd. It looks very much as if in the popular mind mere bigness was a virtue and littleness a vice. It will help us to understand this remarkable state of mind when we remember that a generation ago there was nothing but the small college in America. The development of the large college has come since 1870. The fact that the development is so recent may explain why we who have seen. the genesis of the large college should regard it as precisely the thing. Otherwise we should not be loyal to the progress the world is making. Let me remind you that in 1850 Yale had four hundred and thirtytwo students and Harvard two hundred and ninety-six. These were the largest colleges in the country. In 1860 Yale had five hundred and twenty-one and Harvard four hundred and fiftyone. In 1870 Yale had five hundred and twenty-two and Harvard had six hundred and sixteen. As late as 1870 no other college in the country so far as I can learn had four hundred students. In 1850 the whole number of students in American colleges was a little less than nine thousand. In 1860 a little over thirteen thousand. In 1870 a little over sixteen thousand and now not far from forty thousand. There has been a remarkable growth in the attendance at colleges during the lifetime ot Yale shows a considerable increase about the beginning of the century. In 1800 she graduated thirty-six as against forty-seven from Harvard. The first ten years of the century Yale averaged fiftytwo in a class as against fortyfour from Harvard. To get an average of some of the best colleges in the country for the period from 1850 to 1860 I have taken the best New England colleges with this result, viz: Bowdoin averaged for the ten years thirtytwo. Amherst, forty-four. Williams, forty-eight. Dartmouth, fifty-six. Harvard, eighty-two. Yale, ninety-five. It is interesting to note that Yale up to 1859 had graduated six thousand eight hundred and ten men, while in 1898 she had graduated twelve thousand four hundred and sixty-eight. That is to say from 1859 to 1898 she graduated five thousand six hundred and fiftyeight as against six thousand eight hundred and ten from 1702 to 1859. Or to put it another way, Yale graduated almost as many in the last forty years as in one hundred and fifty-seven years previous to that time. The average size of a class from Yale from 1702 to 1898 is sixty-four. From 1702 to 1859 it is forty-three. From 1859 to 1898 it is one hundred and fortyfive. This shows very clearly where Yale's great growth has been. At Harvard the story is much the same. In 1870 Yale's catalogue was a pamphlet of seventy pages. The library had fifty thousand volumes, -the collection of one hundred and sixty-nine years. It shows that the college proper had nineteen professors including the president. The students numbered five hundred and twenty-two. The terms of admission were not beyond what would be standard in a good small college to-day. It was specified that a freshman must be fourteen years of age. In those days college students were still boys. They are men now so far as I see in the newspapers. A bond was then required in the amount of two hundred dollars from all students. The work was nearly all prescribed. Certain concessions were made to German in the junior year but there was nothing that a modern student would call the privilege of electives. The average class of Bowdoin for one hundred and fifteen years up to 1890 numbered nineteen. The average class at Amherst from 1821 to 1885 numbered forty-three. The class at Williams from 1795 to 1890 averaged thirty-seven. At Dart |