Increasing course offerings in English grow to include Anglo-Saxon, Comparative Philology, and a class devoted to The Study of Words.  This series of published lectures by famed philologist and Dean of Westminster Abbey Richard Chenevix Trench becomes a standard textbook on speaking and writing English at Lafayette.  Assignments involve theme writing and students are required to read their essays aloud and receive criticism in the classroom.  It is during this time that Stephen Crane, one of the greatest American writers of the late 19^th c., attends Lafayette for a semester and receives a 0 in theme writing.  Outside of the classroom, Lafayette students launch The Touchstone, the College’s first literary magazine, and the sophomore class establishes the tradition of writing and performing an elaborate play to celebrate the cremation of Calculus.