When the mists, that for centuries shrouded Greece and the neighboring isles, are dispersed, and we recognize the certain dawn of the _historic_ period, though the descendants of those mighty heroes and kings that were deified as sons of the gods, shrink to the proportions of men, they are still found to be mighty men, whose noble deeds and achievements have been an inspiration to millions in the generations since. Excepting only such as have the true light, and are blest with Christian civilization, we adopt the statement “No other race ever did so many things well as the Greeks.” Let the book be closely studied. If the cursory, objectless reader lacks interest, and tires in the work, the student feels more than compensated for his toil. A COLLEGE REFORM. The present agitation touching college courses of study is one from which good is likely to come. There is danger, however, that we swing to the other extreme. That undue prominence in the ordinary college curriculum has hitherto been given to classical studies, and too little room made for the modern languages, natural science, and English literature is coming to be widely felt. But the true reform is not utterly to eliminate the classics; it is not the part of wisdom to decry as folly the study of the dead tongues. The oration of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., last summer at Harvard, published under the title of “A College Fetich,” was quite as unexpected and sensational as that of Wendell Phillips on another similar occasion. Mr. Phillips arraigned his _alma mater_ that her sons were no more active in social reforms, while Mr. Adams charged upon her that, in retaining the dead languages as a required part of the course of study, she was guilty of worshiping a fetich. This grandson and great-grandson of a President, whose illustrious ancestors one after another were inmates of Harvard’s halls, makes against the venerable institution, the most serious charge that her graduates, upon leaving her, are not fitted as they should be for practical life. She sends them forth, he affirms, with a smattering of the dead languages, which is quite without advantage, instead of with a thorough knowledge of what can be turned to practical account and will qualify them for the duties of active life. He would have a drill in the classics no longer required of the college student; but would allow him to win his A. B. by pursuing other and more useful branches of study. Mr. Adams’s bold claim against Harvard, if sustained, would of course hold against other colleges, and against some others would hold in a higher degree.