EDITOR'S TABLE. 



267 



university do not look like it. Let iis 

 test your claim by reference to that re- 

 ligious doctrine which is here regarded 

 as of leading importance. The lowest 

 and most rudimentary form of intel- 

 ligence undoubtedly relates to num- 

 bers. No human beings have ever been 

 found so incapable that they could not 

 count a little, if no more than three or 

 four fingers. At the very dawn of in- 

 telligence there must arise a perception 

 of the diiference between one object 

 and two or three objects. Knowledge 

 may be said to begin here, and, as it 

 agrees with all experience, it is beyond 

 all other knowledge exact, fundamental, 

 and sure. Now, when you undertake 

 to rise above nature and experience, and 

 pass into the realm beyond, what suc- 

 cess have you in the application of your 

 primary numerical ideas ? Is the infinite 

 object of worship one, two, three, or 

 twenty ? Our students are divided over 

 the question ; and the fiuctuations that 

 are observed in regard to it do not 

 favor the notion that it rests on real 

 knowledge. The mass of our students 

 are not agnostics. They say they know. 

 But, while 214 of them declare that the 

 Divine Being is a unit, 589 of the rest 

 deny this simple proposition, and say 

 that the Divine Being is three or some- 

 thing like it. Since the third century 

 the Church has been quarreling over 

 the application of the most elementary 

 arithmetic to the object of divine wor- 

 ship, and the swaying of opinion now 

 indicated in Harvard University shows 

 that the question is just as unsettled as 

 ever. But if men can not agree in ap- 

 plying the very first and simplest steps 

 of numeration in the transcendental 

 sphere, can they be said to have any 

 real 'knowledge' of it, and how can 

 they succeed better in the application of 

 higher ideas? " 



But our Harvard agnostic pushes the 

 case still further. He can say: "We 

 have among us 275 Episcopalians, who, 

 with the other orthodox students, make 

 up 589 professed Trinitarians. They are 



not agnostics, because they 'know' 

 about this matter ; and they are not Uni- 

 tarians, because they are certain that 

 hypothesis implies a false application 

 of primary arithmetic in the premises. 

 They reject the idea of unity applied 

 to the Deity as false, and condemn it 

 as wicked, and maintain that the true 

 hypothesis is that of tri-personality, or 

 of three Divine persons in the Godhead. 

 But when any one of the '589' is 

 pushed a little to explain himself, and 

 make his alleged 'knowledge' clear, 

 he says, ' Forbear ! it is a great mystery, 

 above poor human reason,' and that we 

 are not required to understand it. But 

 that is rank agnosticism ! A mystery is 

 simply that which can not be known. 

 So our Trinitarians, who begin by de- 

 claring their 'knowledge' of the Di- 

 vine nature, when cross-questioned, 

 take a ready refuge in the unknow- 

 able." 



ANOTHER STEP lY EDUCATIONAL 

 PROGRESS. 



The great movement of the century 

 to modernize education, and make it 

 conform to the progress of knowledge, is 

 most conspicuously illustrated in Eng- 

 land. An old, vigorous, advancing na- 

 tion, leading in the multifarious work 

 of civilization, and at the same time 

 dominated by conservative habits, and 

 maintaining two ancient, rich, and pow- 

 erful universities, rooted in the most 

 venerable traditions, England has been 

 well situated for the display of those im- 

 portant changes in which educational 

 progress consists. The tendency of the 

 old universities was to check the growth 

 of thought by a slavish devotion to the 

 learning of antiquity. The spirit of the 

 modern study of nature penetrated them 

 but slowly. Bacon protested against 

 scholastic verbalism, and called men 

 back from the study of words to the 

 study of things. The progress was out- 

 side of England's great seats of learn- 

 ing; and, when it had become palpable 

 that they were behind the age and 



