i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



thaumaturgical aids. It is beginning to hear God in the still small 

 voice ; not in the tempest, or in the earthquake, or the fire ; not in 

 the marvelous, the extraordinary, the irrational, but in the quiet and 

 familiar facts of Nature and of life. The vulgar mind asks for a sign, 

 a wonder ; but science has no sign, no wonder to show. It points to 

 the simplest fact. Its relation toward the old theology is like that 

 of Elisha toward Naarnan. When Naaman came to the prophet to be 

 cured of his leprosy, he expected Elisha to do some wonderful thing, 

 some miracle. "Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and 

 stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand 

 over the place, and recover the leper." Instead of which the prophet 

 simply told him to go and wash seven times in the Jordan and be 

 clean. " My father," said his servant to the indignant Naaman, " if 

 the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have 

 done it ? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be 

 clean ? " 



The leprosy of the miraculous which taints men's minds is to be 

 got rid of in the same way : wash and be clean in the current of the 

 sweet-flowing Nature that is always near at hand, and that is always 

 and everywhere the same. 







TEESENT STATUS OF THE GREEK QUESTION. 



Br EDMUND J. JAMES, 



PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



THE recent action of the Harvard College authorities, in striking 

 Greek from the list of studies required for the degree of A. B. 

 marks an era in the history of college education in this country. The 

 long struggle, which has been carried on at times w r ith much bitterness 

 between the classical and modern party, has been distinctly advanced 

 one stage toward a final settlement. The adherents of the classical 

 course have strenuously claimed for it a marked superiority over all 

 others, and have uniformly resisted any attempt to change or supplant 

 it. The friends of the new studies have as vigorously contended that 

 it is perfectly possible to construct a curriculum which, w T hile omitting 

 some of the specific subjects before included and substituting others for 

 them, should still as fully deserve the name liberal as the old course. 



The struggle has assumed different forms at different times. At 

 one period it was simply an attempt on the part of those who thought 

 modern subjects worthy of recognition beside the antiquities to secure 

 for them some place in the college curriculum. This demand, modest 

 as it was, was resisted with the same obstinacy as that which has char- 

 acterized the opposition to later and far more sweeping demands. It 

 was a great day for American education when modern subjects, such 

 as the natural and physical sciences, history, English and other modern 



