INTRODUCTION 



in the long list of President Eliot's Reports. 

 " Twelve students besides College officers and 

 the Senior Class in the Divinity School," as the 

 president informs us, attended the two graduate 

 courses (in Philosophy and in Literature). Four 

 graduates of the College were examined on the 

 course in Philosophy, and of these two obtained 

 honourable mention. The result of that year's 

 experience, while it did not lead to a repetition 

 of the " systematic course," induced the corpora- 

 tion to offer a list of thirty-three distinct courses 

 of " University Lectures" in 1870-71. The 

 scheme of " University Lectures " constituted 

 in general a stage on the way towards the organ- 

 ization of higher graduate work at Harvard.^ 



^ The general plan of** University Lectures " had been in- 

 stituted in 1863, under President Hill. Its fortunes are dis- 

 cussed at length by President Eliot in his Report for 1871-72. 

 The ** University Lectures," as he tells us, because they could 

 not be by themselves sufficiently organized, ** distinctly failed 

 as a scheme for giving advanced instruction in philosophy, his- 

 tory, and the humanities," and that despite the fact that they 

 had in other respects good results in bringing together people 

 interested in the development of higher study at Harvard. 

 **In short," says the president (loc. cit. p. 16), ** new 

 blood and a new vitality were brought in by the University 

 Lecture system," although the **real, steady development of 

 the University " demanded the later formation of other plans. 

 The place of Fiske's course of lectures as a part of this transi- 

 tional stage of Harvard's higher instruction deserves mention 

 Viere. 



xxxi 



