LITERARY SOCIETIES.

There are, at present, three literary societies connected with Heidelberg College for the improvement of the Students in the graces of Composition, Oratory and Debate. The names and statistics of these societies are as follows:

are its annual catalogue, occasional circulars, and the "College Times," a monthly periodical devoted to the interests of the College, and edited by students.

In behalf of the Faculty, by

O. A. S. HURSH, Professor of Latin and Greek.

Present No.

Total No. from beginning.

HILLSBORO FEMALE COLLEGE.

Hillsboro Female College is successor to Oakland Female Seminary, which was organized the first Monday in May, 1839, by J. McD. Mathews, whose private enterprise it was, and who was Principal during a prosperous career of eighteen years. In 1857, the school was transferred to the College, of which he became President.

In 1860 he resigned the Presidency, and Rev. W. G. W. Lewis was appointed President.

In 1863 Rev. Henry Turner was appointed President.

In 1864 Rev. Allen T. Thompson was appointed President.

In 1865 Rev. David Copeland was appointed President.

In 1872 Jos. McD. Mathews was reappointed President, and he still has charge in 1876.

The College is a large, handsome brick building, ninety feet long by one hundred and twenty deep, three stories high. It is one of the best educational buildings in Ohio. Parlors, halls, chapel, bedrooms and recitation rooms are all spacious and comfortable. There is a library of seven or eight hundred volumes, most of which was transferred from the Oakland Seminary. It is called Oakland Library. Misses Etta Fultz and Sallie E. Mathews are Librarians.

There is a good telescope, six feet long, five inches aperture, mounted on the roof of the College, which makes a good observatory.

There are many specimens of shells and minerals, chemical and philosophical apparatus, electrifying machine, air pump, galvanic batteries, pneumatic cistern, &c., &c., kept in the library room, which answers for a laboratory.

Hon. Jos. J. McDowell was President of the Board of Trustees of the Oakland Seminary, and S. E. Hibben, Esq., Secretary.

J. H. Thompson, Esq., was President of the Board of Trustees of the College when first organized, and Jacob Sayler, Esq., Secretary and Treasurer.

At present, 1876, Hon. John A. Smith is President of the Board of College Trustees, and James Reese, Esq., Secretary and Treasurer.

The Sigourney Literary Society was organized more than thirty years ago in Oakland Seminary, and transferred to the College in 1857. Miss Minnie Nettleton is President.

Both Seminary and College have aimed to establish a high standard of female education, and to have the scholarship of their graduates equal to the best. They have educated many excellent teachers, and many estimable ladies now presiding over their own families.

JOS. McD. MATHEWS,
President H. F. C.

HIRAM COLLEGE.

BY B. A. HINSDALE, PRESIDENT.

Hiram College is located at Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, three and one half miles from Garrettsville, on the A. & G. W. Railway. The following sketch of its history will be divided into appropriate heads.

1.-FOUNDING OF THE ECLECTIC INSTITUTE.

This Institute, like so many other educational foundations, had its origin in a religious movement. Between 1820 and 1830 the body of Christians called THE DISCIPLES, sometimes simply CHRISTIANS, had its rise. As the body did not originate in any striking historical event, as a secession or an excision, but in general religious conditions, it is impossible to assign a def inite date. From the first, this movement took a strong hold of Northern Ohio, and especially of the Western Reserve, where its following soon became large. At first the Disciples had no school of any sort, Bethany College, Bethany, W. Va., founded in 1841, being their oldest institution. As early as 1844-5, some of the Disciples of the Reserve began to feel that they needed an institution of learning under their immediate control; which feeling rapidly became general and grew into a confessed want. Nothing, however, was done to supply the want until the year 1849. In the intervening years there had been a thorough discussion of the project, and a substantial unanimity had been reached; as is shown by the rapid