Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1878 [PAGE 161]

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161 making choice from a prescribed list. Frequent exercises in writing abstracts or original compositions on themes assigned are also required. T h e study of rhetoric occupies the third term. During the second year some four or five of the great masters are studied, their work analyzed, the shaping forces of their times, and their influences upon succeeding times are investigated. Lectures are given from time to time on poetry, epic, lyric, dramatic, etc. W r i t i n g and reading required as in first year. In the senior year attention is given to old English; to the AngloSaxon, for which the way has been prepared by the study of both English and German; to philology; to the philosophy of English literature, and to aesthetics. Essays, forensics, and orations are required. French and German.—The modern languages taught in this school are confined to one year of French and two years of German, but the student may, at his option, substitute a second year of French for one of German. Abundant practical exercises are given both in composition and translation, and the diligent student gains the power to read with ease, scientific and other works in these languages, and may, with a little practice, write and speak them with correctness. A constant attention is also given to the etymologies common to these languages and the English, and thereby a large advantage is gained by the student in linguistic culture. " H e who knows only one language," said Goethe, "knows not even that one properly." In the first year, the student passes over a complete grammar and reader, acquiring a knowledge of the technicalities of the idiom, and a sufficient vocabulary for the use of books of reference within the course. T h e second year is devoted to a critical study of the languages and philological analysis, and to a course of select classic reading, composition and conversation. Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy.—For these studies, see school of mechanical engineering. Natural Sciences.—See school of chemistry and natural history.

HISTORY AND SOCIAL S C I E N C E .

The historical studies are designed to afford a general view of the history, social organization and progress of the race. They embrace also the history of the arts and sciences, and of civilization, the principles of civil polity and law, the philosophy of history, and the principles of political economy and constitutional law. T h e instruction is given chiefly by lectures, with readings of specified authors, and the study of historical geography and chronology. T h e course occupies six terms in the third and fourth years of the University courses.

THIRD YEAR.

Ancient history of Greece and Rome, with notices of other nations; ancient geography; mediasval history; modern history; general European history; European geography. 11