Hamilton, courses in musical interpretation have been developed
in connection with the courses in practical music. The first-year
class, meeting once a week, listens to an anonymous musical
selection played by one of its members, and must decide by internal
evidence--such as simple cadences, harmonic figuration as applied
to the accompaniment and other characteristics--upon the school
of the composer, and biographical data. The analysis of the
musical selection and the reasons for her decision are set down
in her notebook by the listening student. The second-year class
concerns itself with "the thematic and polyphonic melody, the
larger forms, harmony in its aesthetic bearings, the aesthetic
effects of the more complicated rhythms, comparative criticism
and the various schools of composition."

These valuable contributions to method and scope in the study of
the History of Art and the History of Music are original with
Wellesley, and are distinctly a part of her history.

Among the departments which carry prestige outside the college
walls are those of Philosophy and Psychology, English Literature,
and German. Wellesley's Department of English Literature is
unusually fortunate in having as interpreters of the great literature
of England a group of women of letters of established reputation.
What Longfellow, Lowell, Norton, were to the Harvard of their day,
Katharine Lee Bates, Vida D. Scudder, Sophie Jewett, and Margaret
Sherwood are to the Wellesley of their day and ours. Working
together, with unfailing enthusiasm for their subjects, and keen
insight into the cultural needs of American girls, they have built
up their department on a sure foundation of accurate scholarship
and tested pedagogic method. At a time when the study of literature