To Mrs. Lesley.

Cambridge, Jan. 1, 1870.

... I must tell you of the New Year’s present I had this morning,—-a proposition from President Eliot, of the University, that I should give next year a course of lectures on Psychology in the new University post-graduate courses. The experiment this year is thought to be sufficiently successful to warrant a considerable extension of it for next year. I was rash enough to accept the proposition, being in the spirit of hopeful resolution appropriate to the day. Let us hope that I shall acquire by next September that sense of superiority to a learned audience which will be needed to make the task a pleasant one. My little experience in this line makes me remember most distinctly what a trial to the nerves such work is. It is, I imagine, almost as bad as preaching, which you should not let Mr. Lesley do too often.