h with which we saw the proof-sheets of "Voices of the
Night" brought in by the printer's devil and laid at his elbow. We felt
that we also had lived in literary society, little dreaming, in our
youthful innocence, how large a part of such society would prove far
below the standard of courtesy that prevailed in Professor Longfellow's
recitation room.

Yet the work of this room was, in those days of dawning changes, but a
small part of the function of a professor. Longfellow was, both by
inclination and circumstances, committed to the reform initiated by his
predecessor, George Ticknor. He had inherited from this predecessor a
sort of pioneership in position relative to the elective system just on
trial as an experiment in college. There exists an impression in some
quarters that this system came in for the first time under President
Walker about 1853; but it had been, as a matter of fact, tried much
earlier,--twenty years, at least,--in the Modern Language Department
under Ticknor, and had been extended much more widely in 1839 under
President Quincy. The facts are well known to me, as I was in college at
that period and enjoyed the beneficent effects of the change, since it
placed the whole college, in some degree, for a time at least, on a
university basis. The change took the form, first, of a discontinuance
of mathematics as a required study after the first year, and then the
wider application of the elective system in history, natural history,
and the classics, this greater liberty being enjoyed, though with some
reaction, under President Everett, and practically abolished about 1849
under President Sparks, when what may be called the High School system
was temporarily restored. An illustration of this reactionary tendency
may be found in a letter addressed by Longfellow to the President and
Fellows, placing him distinctly on the side of freedom of choice. The
circumstances are these: Students had for some time been permitted to
take more than one modern language among the electives, and I myself,
before receiving my degree of A. B. in 1841, had studied two such
languages simultaneously for three years of college course. It appears,
however, from the following letter, that this privilege had already been
reduced to one such language, and that Longfellow was at once found
remonstrating against it, though at first ineffectually.

CAMBRIDGE, June 24, 1845.

GENTLE