Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1873-1874 [PAGE 41]

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College of Literature and Science.

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original researches, essays, criticism, proof reading, and other work intended to illustrate the studies pursued, and exercise the student's own powers. It is designed to give to all students voice culture and a training in elocutionary practice. A prominent aim in this, as in all the departments of the University, will be to teach the right use of books, and thus prepare the student for self-directed investigation and study which shall extend beyond the curriculum of his school and the period of his graduation. With this view, constant use of the already ample and continually enlarging stores of the Library will be required and encouraged. As a farther aid in this direction the members of the advanced English classes are expected to act as assistant librarians. In this service they are able to obtain much valuable knowledge of the various departments of English Literature, of prominent authors, and the extent and scope of their writings. Of special value as an incentive to, and means of practice in, English Composition, should be mentioned THE ILLINI, a monthly paper edited and published by the students of the several colleges, each of which is appropriately represented in its columns. A printing office has been provided for in the new Mechanical Building, and a press with the requisite supply of type will be procured at an early day. In the School of Ancient Languages and Literature, the methods of instruction, without swerving from their proper aim, to impart a sufficiently full and critical knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and writings, will make the study of these tongues subservient in a more than usual degree to a critical and correct use of the English. With this view written translations, carefully prepared, with due attention to differences, equivalences and substitution of idioms, and the comparison and discrimination of synonyms, will form part of the entire course. In the School of English and Modern Languages, the instruction in Modern Languages will, for the present, be confined to German and French, and will extend through two years of the course. In the first the student passes over a complete grammar and a reader, acquiring a knowledge of the technicalities of the idiom, and a sufficient vocabulary for the use of the books of reference within his course. The second year is devoted to a critical study of the languages and philological analysis, and a course of select classic reading, composition and conversation will enter largely into the year's work. A third year, in either language, if called for, will consist of a course of Rhetoric, Composition and History of Literature, with recitations in the language studied.THE LIBRARY is well supplied with works illustrating the several periods of English and American Literature. It contains at present nearly ten thousand well selected volumes, and it is constantly growing by purchase at home and abroad. Valuable American and Foreign periodicals are regularly in the Reading Room, a list of which is given in the " Miscellany " following, page 48. The courses of study recommended in this College are to be found on page 58.

SPECIAL EXERCISES.

Three Vacation Journals, with notices of readings, narratives of public events, and observations on the current literature and the progress of public affairs will be required.