A correspondent in Thursday's Transcript gave a very clear account of the composition and functions of the several governing bodies of Harvard College. The communication is headed, "Overseers without Powers." The writer says that he makes no attack upon the overseers, "for a bare statement is attack enough." Following is the substance of the article:

"The president, the treasurer and thirty other persons constitute the board of overseers. These thirty other persons are elected by the alumni. This should be our House of Commons, but as a matter of fact the overseerspartly for reasons to be stated further on, and partly in consequence of a peculiar provision of our character-play an insignificant part in the government of the college. The charter, or rather the appendix to the charter, provides that whatever the corporation does shall have full force without dependence upon the consent of the overseers, * * * provided always that the acts of the corporation shall be alterable by the overseers, according to their discretion. No limit of time is set within which the overseers must exercise their right of revision, or else forfeit it. No one concluding a contract with the corporation would dream of making the overseers a party to the contract. Their powers have been somewhat extended in practice, but their main function at present is to give their consent a matter of form-to the nominations of instructors, and to hold long and interesting debates on questions proposed by the president; for are they not, as one of their members has proudly called them, the foremost debating society in the land?"

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"In case of appointment, the assent of the corporation and overseers is required. The assent of the overseers has been sometimes delayed, and in at least one case refused. In case of removal from office, which does not take place except at the end of the period of one, three or five years for which the appointment runs, no such assent is necessary. The name of the appointee is simply dropped; the corporation and overseers need know nothing about it, unless they happen to miss his name from the next year's catalogue."

"The faculty, with the president and treasurer, are the only persons in the governing boards who are connected professionally with the college. The overseers-and the corporation too-devote to its interests only such time as they can spare from other pursuits. Of course they necessarily receive all their information at second hand. These two things constitute-as they themselves frankly admit-their weakness. This weakness should be removed, unless the college is to be ruled in the future as its charter causes it to be ruled at present, namely by a single man, the president, acting through a body of office holders of his own appointment, and a cabinet-not experts either-of his own suggestion. By a curious anomaly, the office-holders are the Parliament."

These are the remedies which are proposed by the writer:

"I. To change the way in which the faculty are appointed and removed. We have instances of other modes of appointment at Yale and at universities on the continent.

II. To give delegates from the various faculties seats in the corporation and board of overseers.

III. To give the alumni something to say about the way the college shall be carried on. The overseers are their only representatives, and at present the overseers have only power to talk."