No one branch of the industries of the United States, or indeed of the civilized world, is of more importance economically or politically than that of railroad building and management. In Prussia, we know, their management is considered a matter of state administration, and they are at present, we believe, as a property also, vested exclusively in the State. In this country a different system prevails. Although it may be considered an open question why the State, in matter of railway communication and the telegraph, as well as in the post-office, should not assume the complete management of these channels of internal communication.

The anti-monopoly agitation of the present day, which is as yet perhaps merely incipient as a national issue, though in some localities, particularly on the Pacific coast, a question of the most lively agitation, is chiefly directed against the power and the privileges of the railroad. In another respect also the railroads are the source of profound public interest. Few matters of legislative action, either in Congress, or in the State assemblies, excite more difficulties or attract more attention than that of the regulation of railroads and the immeasurable matters connected with the railroads. So far is this the case that a very profitable branch of the profession of the law has already been organized devoted to the specialty of railroad law.

The materials for study of the vast interests involved to political and economic science in the railroads even of the United States alone, are by no means few and inaccessible. It is a subject, we contend, which in the degree of its importance ranks only after the tariff and the financial history of the United States subjects covered by the courses in Political Economy numbered 6 and 8,- and the extent of popular ignorance of it is far greater than of at least the forms of these subjects. The department of Political Economy at Harvard has always been very fertile and progressive in suggesting and presenting courses for the study of the more important economic questions of the day, and we are aware that the subject we mention comes to some extent within the scope of one or more of the courses already given by this department; still in some of its more important phases, such as that concerned with the monopoly agitation, and railroad legislation, as well perhaps as the cognate question of the general relations of the railroads and the State, particularly in this country, the instruction as yet given is undeveloped and inadequate. That is to say we would urge the need of a special course modeled after the plan of Political Economy 6 or 8 for the discussion of this subject, not merely in its economic but also in its political or constitutional bearings. In default of this the University, or perhaps the Finance Club might secure some publicist or specialist to give a course of public lectures during this winter or next winter upon this general topic. Such a course upon such a subject would insure an attentive audience.