404 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



Harvard. For while by accomplishment Mr. Shaler was no 

 classicist he had to the core the humanistic spirit. Moreover, he 

 was thoroughly familiar with Greek history. As a boy he had 

 studied Grote from beginning to end, had made notes and ab- 

 stracts of the " History," so that every inch of the land and the 

 deeds that had been enacted thereon were known to him. His 

 Xenophon he knew almost by heart and the great tragedians 

 he had read in translations. 



While at Athens he spent a part of every day at the Parthenon. 

 The weather was fine so that he could sit indefinitely, taking in 

 from every point of view the beauty of its surroundings. The 

 study of the Parthenon was not wholly an artistic exercise. 

 The fallen pillars that strewed the ground suggested a practical 

 engineering feat for Harvard men. German archaeologists had 

 seen to the lifting and putting in place, with considerable ex- 

 penditure of time and money, it was said, of several of these col- 

 umns. From his examinations and from all that he could learn 

 of the difficulties of the task, he was convinced that it was not 

 beyond the power of Scientific School students of an Archi- 

 medes of the West to reinstate quickly and economically, by 

 the use of labor-saving devices, these dismembered parts of the 

 great temple. Firmly persuaded of their capacity for this work, 

 he resolved upon his return to America to put the case before 

 some rich man in the hope that he might make the gracious deed 

 possible. So many other matters, however, pressed upon him 

 when he returned, that it is doubtful whether he ever made any 

 effort in this direction. 



In modern fatally modern Athens, where the small 

 present dwindles beneath the weight of a great past, it was often 

 difficult to lead the dual life that its historic associations called 

 for. Mr. Shaler would sometimes stop abruptly and say: 

 "Perhaps it was at this very corner that old Socrates stood and 

 asked his vexing questions. Bless his ugly mug!" Or, "Per- 

 haps it was here that the so-called 'vain and chattering Aris- 

 totle' looked about him with the piercing eye of inquiry." It 



