and translation into French. The first
division joins the best kind of practice in the
use of the language with instruction in its
history.

English is studied in a single large class.
This year the language is being taught by
the tracing, in a weekly lecture, of its literature
through all the period of change between
the earliest times and the invention of printing.
At the same time suggestions upon
composition are being given in a concurrent
course of weekly lectures on the History of
English Criticism; the aim of the two courses
being not only to give each student as lively
a notion as may be of the spirit of our
literature, and of the place each of the great
authors has in it; but at the same time to
make everything directly helpful to his efforts
for the education of his taste and increase of
his power of expression.

The class for History and Geography has
been smaller than it ought to be, but is now
growing rapidly. Its members are this
winter engaged upon a weekly study of the
advance of England to the days of our
complete achievement of the Reformation, and
attend a concurrent course of the geography
connected with the same period, the geography,
physical and social, of our land itself,
the battle-fields of the civil wars, the development
of towns, the voyages of Cabot,
Willoughby, Frobisher, Drake, Raleigh, and
others.

The mathematical class, in several divisions,
is a large and strong one. Its teachings
range from the elements of algebra to the
differential and integral calculus, and the
theory of annuities and life assurance. This
may, perhaps, be considered the most popular
of all the studies for which fees are paid.
The French classes rival it in numbers, but
there is a fact here very worthy of remark.
When some students of these evening classes
talked last winter about summer lectures, it
was left to each individual to say what
courses he would attend; and, if any one
course was desired by a sufficient number,
that course was to be given in the summer
session. That there should be seventeen or
eighteen entries to a summer class of English
was not a remarkable occurrence; for even in
days of laziness, young men may be supposed
capable of feeling active interest in the books
they read, in the great world of thought and
fancy for which they acquired new eyes when
they passed out of boyhood, and of which
they are in all the enthusiasm of a first
enjoyment. That was almost matter of course,
but the remarkable fact is, that the only other
class for which a sufficient number of entries
was obtained directly, was the mathematical;
and, if for English there were seventeen or
eighteen, for mathematics there were
nineteen or twenty applicants. A greater
number of the mathematicians, too, held steadily
to their work throughout the hot weather.

To this enumeration we have only to add
that arithmetic, book-keeping, and mensuration
are among the winter evening courses at
King's College; that there is a capital course
of lectures upon chemistry, to the use of which
few students seem to be alive, and a practical
course on the laws affecting commercial
contracts,—that is to say, on commercial, banking,
and insurance law,—from which merchants
and directors of joint stock companies, were
they to attend, might get as much profit as
their clerks. Finally, there is a course of
economical science in which are taught the
theories of customs and mercantile law,
banking, capital, labour and wages, price
and value, profit, and so forth. And it is
further promised, that, if any recognised
branch of study not included in this list, be
sought by any number of pupils not less than
ten, arrangements shall be made to meet
their wishes.

These are the dry details of an effort made
by men accustomed to be helpful fellow-
labourers with young heads and young hearts,
to light up something better than the gas
within the College walls during the winter
evenings, before and after Christmas. Studies
that look in a prospectus dull and difficult,
it is the teacher's duty to endue with life, and
place within the reach of those who gather
round about him. These are young men who
come, not because others have sent them, but
because they have chosen for themselves the
nobler path. They come with bits of their
own earnings in their hands, abandoning, of
their free will, the plea that they have
already spent six hours or more in daily
labour at the desk, and earned a fair right
to be idle; abandoning the trivial pleasures
that the same money would purchase; and
they ask for help, one to French, one to
mathematics, one to Latin, and another to
his share of the wealth bequeathed to him
by the great writers of his country and to
a skilful use of his own language. Many
enter to two courses or more; others entering
to four courses; and, studying thus
in successive years, put themselves in the
few hours that are their own, through a
complete course of college training. Some
going farther yet—through the connection of
those classes with the University of
London—are enabled to present themselves for
university degrees, and to win a step in life
that will be serviceable to their fortunes. They
are the best men who seek gain after this
fashion, and among those who know that
such an opportunity is offered, they are the
quickest among the best who are the first
to use it. Nevertheless, the result of the
experiment has, in this respect, exceeded
expectation. Nobody foresaw distinctly what
we may call the intentness of the men upon
their object. There has been no trace—in
four years not a trace—of the heedlessness
of youth, who come in all moods, willing,
passive, and rebellious, to have the designs
of their guardians fulfilled upon them. The