swift prayers of the wise; the golden one, the offspring of the sun, flows around; as a swift horse he comes to the vessel."

"Stream good fortune to us, good fortune to the cattle, good fortune to man and the horse, good fortune, O king! to the plants."

Our description of the divinities invoked in the Sâma would be greatly deficient were we to pass by one who inspired the most truly poetic strains of the Vedic bards. We refer to Ushas, the dawn. It is at the dawn that the poet is relieved of the terrors of the night; the demons and beasts of prey slink off to their lairs, and the rest of the animate creation. awakes to new activity. By a beautiful conception the dawn is regarded as a "virgin" in glittering robes, who chases away the darkness, or to whom her sister night willingly yields her domain; who prepares a path for the sun; is the signal for the sacrifice; rouses all beings from slumber; gives sight to the darkened; power of motion to the prostrate and helpless. The following are invocations addressed to her:

"The joy-giving maiden dawning around her sister (night), the daughter of heaven appears."

"The dawn, like a beautiful mare, ruddy, the mother of the cows (rays of light), provided with offerings, is the friend of the Azvins."

"Thou art the friend of the Azvins, the mother of the cows; thou rulest over riches, O Dawn!"

"O Dawn, rich in offerings! bring hither that beautiful thing to us by which we may have offspring and family."

"The Dawn, having a flaming child (the sun), hath approached; the dark one hath vacated her seats; the two kindred immortals, day and night, go, succeeding one another, exchanging color."

"The path of the sisters is uniform; one after another they go over it, instructed by the gods; they interfere not, nor stand still, the beneficent ones, Night and Dawn, like-minded, diverse-colored."

The Azvins, mentioned in these verses, constantly appear in connection with the dawn. The word is always used in the

dual, and, according to its usual etymology, means the "pair of horsemen." They have been identified with the Dioscuri of the Greeks. Probably they represent some stage of the morning or evening twilight.

Several other gods, or classes of gods, are invoked in this Veda, of whom the Maruts or storm-winds are prominent. They are constant attendants upon Indra, and render him effectual aid in slaying the demons.

"All the gods, who were friends, fleeing before the threatening of Vritra, deserted thee (Indra). Let there be a friendship to thee with the Maruts; then thou mayest conquer all

armies."

The god Varuna is an important personage in the Vedic pantheon. His name, which is kindred with the Greek oopavós, "heaven," is derived from a root, "to cover." He was conceived of as the all-surrounding, enveloping one, and then as the arranger and moral governor of the universe. It is said of him:

"The butter-possessing benefactor of beings; the wide, broad, honey-dropping, beautiful-colored heaven and earth, never growing old, many-seeds-having, were fixed by Varuna's power.

Constantly surrounded by spies, who watch the deeds of men, he is strict to reward virtue and punish vice. The prayers which are raised to him crave forgiveness of sin more than riches or offspring.

The Hindu triad of gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, was unknown to the Vedic poets. Brahma and Siva are not named at all, Vishnu but seldom. In the Vedas, Vishnu probably represents the sun. His great exploit was to stride through heaven in three steps, which refers to the sun at his rising, zenith, and setting.

"Vishnu hath stepped through this (sky); three times did he set his foot down; it is enveloped in his dust."

Though we have by no means exhausted the list of divinities, this will perhaps suffice to give a glimpse of the theology of the old Aryans, and at the same time of the contents of the

Sâma-Veda. More abundant and more interesting illustrations might have been drawn from the Rig-Veda, where whole hymns are found in their original form. Though the Sâma is the most uninteresting of the four Vedas, yet it has considerable importance from the fact that where the same verse occurs both in the Rik and in the Sâma, the latter has often a slightly different and older reading. This would indicate that the Sâma collection was made earlier than the Rik.

Much has already been done toward elucidating the Vedas, and the fruit has abundantly rewarded the labor, by the light which it has thrown upon ethnology, the science of language, and the origin and development of religious belief. Still, much more remains to be done before we can say that we fully understand these most ancient of human records.

ARTICLE VI.

FIFTEEN MINUTES' TALK ABOUT COLLEGES.

We have just passed the annual harvests in the fields of agriculture and in the fields of literature. By an old arrangement, now nearly obsolete, the College Cominencements were held after the hay and grain were gathered, so that the farmers' sons and daughters, and the community in general, might be at leisure to attend the literary festivities. But in the vicinity of the old New England colleges we fear there are few farmers' sons and daughters left that care to go. There are changes in the relations of the colleges and the community, as great as in the two factors themselves, whereof the issue is not yet clear. After all the discussions and changes, neither Young America nor Old seems fully to have mastered the situation. There is a helpless groping and experimenting going on among our higher institutions of learning, that sadly indicates the lack of some master mind or minds to clear away the fog and find the path. Something is to be done, but no one knows what. We

do not propose to attempt the solution; but we offer some hints.

The worst of the case, as it seems to us, is the confusion of ideas in the minds of men of culture themselves. They have suffered themselves to be overpowered by a mere popular and unreasoning clamor. It is certainly indispensable that they should consider the vast modern expansion in the realms of learning, and that an education should be adjusted towards it, and gauged, as it were, with reference to it; but not overwhelmed and inundated by it. Yet the essential character of liberal education is, was, and will be, the same. It is that which makes a man master of his faculties, and so fits him to master his surroundings. The discipline and unfolding of himself symmetrically is therefore the fundamental thing. We can not do for him the impossible work of making him know all knowledge, but we can prepare him so that in any circumstances he will be able to know whatever he needs to know whether as lawyer, clergyman, statesman, financier, civil engineer, or what not. In giving this training, it is proper and indispensable that even in the process it be adjusted to the present rather than the past. Such a preliminary training can really go but little way in the details of any of the sciences; it can only lay a right foundation for their further prosecution. That foundation it should lay, and so far should deal with things as they are, and not as they were. But this rule will not exclude everything not born in this century. The science of mathematics, that can never be displaced, is, much of it, two thousand years old. The lessons of history become fully instructive only as we recede from the excitements of contemporaries. Even the shifting theories of science require sifting. It may also be found, after all the outcry, that the study of the classic tongues, so rich in philological, literary and historic suggestiveness, so inwoven with all modern speech and thought, and especially, when rightly pursued, so various and vigorous a drill and stimulant of all the intellectual faculties, can not find a substitute. The difficulty in this matter has been twofold. (1.) They have been defended

in a very inadequate manner, on far too low and superficial grounds. (2.) They have been taught in too narrow a way. Classical teachers have not waked up to the progress of the last fifty years even in their own department. They do not comprehend the broad and fertile field thrown open by modern linguistic study, and they continue to teach in the old hum-drum way-sometimes with a most industrious and heedless pedantry. With all our profound respect for classical study, it does seem to us that in the wonderful opening of modern knowledge, it is a dreary waste of time to drill young men, as in the Boston Latin School, in making Latin and Greek Hexameters. We would as soon go back to the Trivium and the Quadrivium.

Meanwhile many of our educators have been misled by the popular hue and cry into the idea that a liberal education is to a mastery of science or of art, or some kind of professional, or technical, or business training, or a qualification for making money.

In this state of confusion, where no one knows what is the trouble, every one comes with his remedy. It is elective studies; or more German and French; or science and art; or more rhetoric and oratory; or more æsthetics; or abundant prizes; or the abolition of college distinctions; or picture galleries and fine buildings, and great libraries, and great endowments; or post-graduate courses; or the government by the Alumni; or the admission of young women; and we know not what else.

Perhaps the notion of physically great institutions has been made prominent enough, and too much so. Men who should know better, so far give in to false notions as to argue as though the relative greatness of Yale and Harvard depended on their respective number of students. Let the public be disabused. This subject has more than one side. Much can, indeed, be said in favor of condensing all the colleges of New England into one or two, as the great manufactories swallow the little It accumulates larger libraries and apparatus, and perhaps more distinguished instructors, and greater variety of

ones.