Wednesday, February 19.-Philosophy of Religion (University Lecture)-Professor Ladd. 194 Old Chapel, 4 P. M. The Book of Psalms (University Bible Club Lecture)-Professor Harper. Lecture Room A1, Osborn Hall, 5 P. M. Class Prayer Meetings-Dwight Hall, 6.40 P. M. Semitic Club-Paper by Mr. William Griffiths, on Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Gabriel, in the Quran. Room E1, Osborn Hall, 7.15 P. M. University Chamber Concert-The Kneisel Quartette of Boston. North Sheffield Hall, 8.10 P. M.

Thursday, February 20. Lecture on Preaching (Lyman Beecher Course in the Divinity School)-Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D. Marquand Chapel, 3 P. M. Hebrew Readings-The Book of Judges. Mr. F. K. Sanders. Room E 1, Osborn Hall, 4 P. M. German Readings: Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris-Mr. Goodrich. 195 Old Chapel, 5 P. M. French Readings: the development of the Bourgeois, and readings in Le gendre de M. Poirier, by Emile Augier-M. Bergeron. (Open to all students.) 197 Old Chapel, 7 P. M. Greek Readings: Second Book of Homer's Odyssey-Professor Seymour. 195 Old Chapel, 7 to 7.45 P. M. Friday, February 21.—Lecture on Preaching (Lyman Beecher Course) -Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D. Marquand Chapel, 3 P. M. The Grammar of Art (Lecture in the Art School)-Professor Weir, Art School, 3 P. M. Berkeley Association (Evening Prayer)-Room 89, Dwight Hall, 6.45 P. M. The Mystery of Egypt (Lecture in the Sheffield Scientific School Course) - Professor Totten. North Sheffield Hall, 8 P. M. University Chamber Concerts. The Fourth Concert will be given by the Kneisel Quartette of Boston, in North Sheffield Hall, on Wednesday, February 19, beginning at 8.10 P. M. The program is as follows:

I. Beethoven,-Quartet Op. 18, No. 4, in C Minor: 1. Allegro ma non tanto; 2. Scherzo, Andante Schercoso quasi allegretto; 3. Menuetto (Allegretto); 4. Allegro. II. (a) Grieg,-Quartet in G Minor (Second Movement); (b) Mendelssohn,-Quartet in E Flat Major (Canzonetta). III. Schubert,-Quartet in D Minor (Opus posth): 1. Allegro; 2. Andante con moto, con variazioni; 3. Scherzo, Allegro molto; 4. Presto (D Minor).

Sophomore Compositions (Yale College). The next Sophomore compositions will be due on Friday, March 15, at No. 2 Treasury Building. Any desiring to write upon subjects not in the following list must submit them to Mr. McLaughlin before March 1. A number of reference books will be reserved in the main Library.

1. The agricultural future of New England. 2. Italian character in the sixteenth century (see especially the memoirs of Cellini). 3. Fanny Kemble's girlhood. 4. Charles Lamb in his letters. 5. Ought the expenses of the Junior Promenade to be restricted? 6. Grover Cleveland's public appearances during the last year. 7. The philosophy of Clough's Dipsychus. 8. John Woolman. 9. Lewis Carroll's books for children. 10. An ideal college-room. 11. The religious element in Emerson's poems. 12. Characteristics essential to great explorers. 13. Charles Reade's study of Peg Woffington (from either the historical or the artistic point of view). 14. The utility of clubs for literary study. 15. Michel Angelo at the tomb of Vittoria Colonna—an imaginary sketch. 16. Should the emancipated negro have received unconditional citizenship? 17. The death of Chatterton. 18. The Australian ballot system.

ARTICLE I.-THE UNITED STATES AS A LAND
PURCHASER.

THE United States of America has been a purchaser of land on the most stupendous scale ever known, and is now in the enjoyment of that odious advantage, an "unearned increment" to an extent which is beyond all measurement. It began its existence one hundred years ago with a landed estate nearly half as large as that of the Roman Empire in the time of Cæsar, with a population which, if distributed over its soil, would have furnished but three persons to a square mile.

But before it was fifteen years old it felt "cabined, cribbed, confined," between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, and was seized with a land hunger, which, though from time to time appeased by huge repasts, is perhaps not yet satiated.

Established as a government in 1789, it was soon impelled to drive bargains with its royal neighbors, and in 1803, as its first venture, it bought an adjoining tract lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific containing about 750 millions of acres at the price of about two cents an acre.

Sixteen years afterwards, with its territory bounded east and west by the two oceans and on the north by the great chain of lakes and rivers, but barred from the Gulf of Mexico, it bargained with another poverty stricken monarch, who owned on its southern border, for all his lands to the Gulf, and bought them, containing about forty millions of acres, at the greatly enhanced price of thirteen cents an acre.

Still not content, and finding an inconvenient jog in its southern boundary and seeing that it was in the hands of some insubordinate and rebellious tenants of its claimant, the King of Spain, it tried to buy, but finally annexed by agreement with the seceders without formal purchase, this tract containing about two hundred and forty millions of acres, and then, made more voracious by this supply, abandoned bargaining and pursued the old familiar plan of conquest, and within three years had acquired by the sword about 350 millions of acres more, making in all nearly six hundred millions of acres, on its southwestern border, for which, upon the adjustments of peace, it paid to Mexico and Texas about five cents an acre.

But it was not yet satisfied. It wanted a small gore on the southern line of Arizona, to straighten lines, and perhaps to take in some valuable mines, and in five years afterwards, resorting to its old method of bargain, it bought a small tract of about thirty millions of acres at the large price of about 34

cents an acre.

It seemed then to be gorged, if not satisfied. And, with the exception of abortive attempts to buy the outlying island of Cuba, it effected no purchase for fourteen years, when, in 1867, the old hunger seized it again, and it bought from another monarch a huge tract, not within hundreds of miles of its own borders, and stretching away to the Arctic Ocean, containing about 370 millions of acres, at the old price paid for the first purchase, about two cents an acre.

And here its land purchasing ceased, and for more than twenty years it has been content to cultivate and develop its original and acquired possessions, embracing about twenty-five hundred millions of acres, of which about 1750 millions of acres have been directly or indirectly purchased at the total sum of $69,200,000, or an average of about four cents an acre.

And with these acquisitions it has rested satisfied for nearly a quarter of a century. It may well be content for the present, for its possessions are now bounded on the east by the Atlantic, on the West by the Pacific, on the south in part by the Gulf, and on the north in part by the Arctic Ocean. The humorist scarcely indulged in hyperbole when he said that our domain is bounded on the west by the setting sun and on the north by the Aurora Borealis.

The above summary is not at all an exaggerated statement of the operations of the United States as a land purchaser. It is only a grouping of facts, the details of which are familiar to us as a part of the history of our first century, and most of them within the memory of living men.

Familiar as they are, it may be interesting to take a rapid view of the circumstances of these several real estate transactions in their order. And for the purpose of a clearer view it is desirable to state them at the outset in a summary way as a bookkeeper of the land dealer might enter them in a ledger.

But first it will be well to consider for a moment the situation of the United States at the formation of its government with respect to its territorial possessions, and to the owners of the lands adjoining it on three sides. Great Britain was its only neighbor on the north, and the line had been defined by treaty, although it became the subject of frequent disputes, only settled conclusively at last on the arbitration of the Emperor of Germany in 1872. Spain owned the whole region on the Gulf of Mexico and the mouth of the Mississippi up to the

Red River and the 31st parallel, and the whole of the vast region west of the Mississippi and northward to the British possessions and to the Pacific Ocean. We had no free outlet to the Gulf. Before 1763 the vast province of Louisiana had belonged to France, but it was then ceded to Spain in compensation for losses in the war ended in that year. In October, 1800, it had been retroceded by Spain to France by the secret treaty of St. Ildefonso, so that at the opening of Jefferson's term in 1801 we were bounded on the south and west by the possessions of two European powers, one then controlled by Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul, and the other by Charles IV. of Spain. And the latter, on the peace of Amiens in 1802, formally and publicly ceded Louisiana to France. And rumors of the secret treaty were rife before that time. So that early in Jefferson's administration we had three great European powers, which had just concluded a peace, as our neighbors on three sides, with the Atlantic Ocean on the fourth.

But there seemed to be "ample room and verge enough' for the new Republic, even in its most ambitious dreams of progress. The settled area was then about 300,000 square miles, with a population of 17.4 to a square mile—the term settled area, in this estimate, embracing all territory having two or more inhabitants to a square mile. More than half our lands were then wholly unsettled even in this sense.

Yet far seeing statesmen perceived that we must have more room. It was felt then, as it was during our civil war, that the "Father of Waters must go unvexed to the sea." Jefferson wrote to Livingston, our minister to France in 1802, "There is one spot on the globe the possessor of which is our natural enemy. That spot is New Orleans. France placing herself at that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance."

In 1800 Daniel Webster at college, giving presage of the grandeur of his national views, wrote an exercise which is preserved, on the importance of extending the national territory. But there were many discordant voices, and it was justly claimed that no power to acquire new territory was conferred by the Constitution, and all attempts in that direction were bitterly opposed. Fisher Ames, with his usual fiery eloquence, denounced them in these exaggerated terms: "Now by adding