There is a handsome library attached to the college which the young men can use, but it is not as extensive as I had expected.  The university is not well off for funds by which to increase it.  The new museum in the college is also a handsome building.  The edifices used for the undergraduates’ chambers and for the lecture-rooms are by no means handsome.  They are very ugly, red brick houses, standing here and there without order.  There are seven such; and they are called Brattle House, College House, Divinity Hall, Hollis Hall, Holsworthy Hall, Massachusetts Hall, and Stoughton Hall.  It is almost astonishing that buildings so ugly should have been erected for such a purpose.  These, together with the library, the museum, and the chapel, stand on a large green, which might be made pretty enough if it were kept well mown, like the gardens of our Cambridge colleges; but it is much neglected.  Here, again, the want of funds—­the augusta res domi—­must be pleaded as an excuse.  On the same green, but at some little distance from any other building, stands the president’s pleasant house.

The immediate direction of the college is of course mainly in the hands of the president, who is supreme.  But for the general management of the institution there is a corporation, of which he is one.  It is stated in the laws of the university that the Corporation of the University and its Overseers constitute the Government of the University.  The Corporation consists of the President, five Fellows so called, and a Treasurer.  These Fellows are chosen, as vacancies occur, by themselves, subject to the concurrence of the Overseers.  But these Fellows are in nowise like to the Fellows of our colleges, having no salaries attached to their offices.  The Board of Overseers consists of the State Governor, other State officers, the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, and thirty other persons, men of note, chosen by vote.  The Faculty of the College, in which is vested the immediate care and government of the undergraduates, is composed of the President and the Professors.  The Professors answer to the tutors of our colleges, and upon them the education of the place depends.  I cannot complete this short notice of Harvard College without saying that it is happy in the possession of that distinguished natural philosopher Professor Agassiz.  M. Agassiz has collected at Cambridge a museum of such things as natural philosophers delight to show, which I am told is all but invaluable.  As my ignorance on all such matters is of a depth which the professor can hardly imagine, and which it would have shocked him to behold, I did not visit the museum.  Taking the University of Harvard College as a whole, I should say that it is most remarkable in this—­that it does really give to its pupils that education which it professes to give.  Of our own universities other good things may be said, but that one special good thing cannot always be said.