was commenced. As soon as it became evident that a certain branch was unnecessary, that branch was discontinued, and by this process the institution was steadily reduced in proportions, until it reached a position where it could be conducted satisfactorily and permanently.

With the experience and wisdom of eleven years to aid us, we can readily perceive that the conditions in 1870 would not justify such an undertaking; it was more than the conditions to-day, with the steady and rapid progress that has been made, would justify. But the University therefore the reputation of the state was to an extent affected by its condition. The circular had been issued for 1873, and it was not until November that the University was re-opened, instead of which, it should have commenced in August, four months earlier. The model school was discontinued as an adjunct of the University; the college plan was abandoned as impracticable, as in advance of the requirements then existing, and the institution lowered to a much humbler position, but to which every person and everything must come, before a reasonable hope of permanent success can be entertained. When re-opened, it was on such a basis as, while it filled the demands that did exist, by furnishing an institution to which persons could look for competent teachers, and in which young men and women, ambitious to acquire more advanced educational attainments,could gratify their laudable desires, did not offer any superfluous inducements or assume a condition of things, and a want that had no existence. Its object was to fill every need, and no more, until circumstances in the natural progress of events required more. It was, in

was a state institution and

51

other words, re-constructed on what might be termed the sliding basis. If the advancement of the Territory, educationally, did not justify a certain class of studies, or if the students had not, as a whole, been educated up to the standard prescribed by the faculty of the University, the standard was lowered until the student could just reach it. This point, once attained, the standard was gradually and consistently raised, always keeping within the reach of the scholars, and yet sufficiently beyond as to require some exertion on their part to attain to it. By this means the University has kept the standard of education in Utah, on the ascendancy, but so near the masses that it is within their grasp if they desire to reach it; it has supplied every exigency while increasing the depth and breadth of that exigency; it has been at once the tangible end, and the aspiring hope-the end to which all can attain; and the hope to which all could reasonably aspire. Figuratively speaking, the standard has been, and still is the educational Will-o'-the-Wisp. No sooner have the educational interests of the Territory advanced to a point where they can almost place their hands upon it, than it flits ahead, and the chase must be begun anew, and yet it is always so close that itself is the incentive which urges to the chase again.

That the University has now attained a foothold, which can only be shaken by the most unnatural and unlooked for circumstances, will be shown in another number.

R. W. Sloan.

Run if you like, but try to keep your breath; Work like a man, but don't be worked to death. Holmes.

II. NEHOR.

WILL our readers kindly take a leap with us adown the stream of time, of somewhat over four hundred years, or

from the days of Sherem to those of Nehor. During these four hundred years the well favored branch of the house of Israel planted on this western continent had taken root, blossomed and

a mere handful, had grown to be a numerous, a wealthy and a happy people. They were governed by just and liberal laws, righteously administered; the noble, talented, and God-zealous Alma being their first Chief Judge.

Though possessing such numerous blessings, some of the Nephites were not wholly at ease. They desired a license to do what was right in their own eyes in a way, which neither the purity of the Gospel nor the rigid requirements of the law of Moses would permit. It was not enough that they were free from the attacks of foreign foes-as none were strong enough to overcome them; that they were effectually guarded in their personal liberties, had a voice in the affairs of the commonwealth, and were ruled by men inspired of God. The restless, the weak minded, the depraved, and their ilk, wanted something new, something different to the established order, by which they could please the world, gratify the flesh, and pacify the devil, and at the same time soothe their consciences with the idea that their course was the one that would bring them out right at last. To such the appearance and teaching of Nehor assumed the guise of a welcome, much needed revelation; it was exactly what they wanted, just what suited their morals

and their fears.

Could our readers take a glimpse at the fair capital of the Nephites, at that time (B. C. 91) already rich in the awards of human industry, combined with the lavish productions of nature in that much favored land, they might have noticed in the principal street a portly, handsome man, manifesting in his carriage the evidences of great bodily strength, combined with vanity, self-sufficiency and subtlety. They might observe that his raiment is made of the finest fabrics that the looms of Zarahemla could produce, lavishly embroidered and ornamented with the labors of the cunning workman in silk, in feathers and the precious metals, whilst at his side hangs a richly decorated sword. This man is no king, no governor, no general of the armies of

ful religious charlatan of the hour, to whom the unstable listen and the weakminded flock.

Nehor's teachings had at any rate the interest of novelty to the Nephites, yet some of his theories were older than Idumea. They had been rejected in the counsels of heaven before Lucifer, the son of the morning, fell. He would save all men in their sins and with their sins; he abolished hell, established a paid order of priests, and taught doctrines so liberal that every man could be a member of his church and yet continue to gratify every vice, every passion his nature inclined to. For this liberality of doctrine, Nehor expected in return liberality of support for himself and assistants, in which expectation, unfortunately, he was not disappointed. Many adopted his heresies; his success fired his zeal, and developed his vaingloriousness. He was so used to the sycophancy of his converts that he was restive under contradiction, and when one day an aged patriot and teacher in the true church, named Gideon, met him in the streets of Zarahemla, and upbraided him for his wicked course, neither respecting his great age nor his many virtues, Nehor drew his sword and smote him till he died. For this wilful and unprovoked crime, the murderer was tried, convicted, and afterwards executed. His execution took place on the hill Manti, and from the way in which his death is spoken of, we imagine he was hung.

Though Nehor's shameful life was thus prematurely ended, unfortunately his heresy did not die with him. It was too grateful to those who desired to gain heaven by a life of sin or pleasure, and consequently spread through the teachings of those who had made the dissemination of his doctrines the business of their lives. In later years the traitorous Amlicites, the apostate Amalekites, the bloodthirsty Amulonites and Ammonihahites, were all controlled by the priestcraft after the order of Nehor and were believers in his soul-destroying doctrines. The blood shed, the misery produced, the treasure expended through the wick

THERE are few characters more interesting to the classical student, than the merry fellow whose name adorns the head of this paper. Other names more distinguished are often encountered in his researches, as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, those mighty intellects of the ancient world; but there is a charm, a freshness, a fascination in the sound of Anacreon's name, which calls up pleasant visions of roses, and gardens, and glad-| some spirits, which none of the others have power to do. The reason for this is to be found as much in his choice of subjects-the praise of fruits and wines and beauty-as in the flow of buoyant and careless spirits he always exhibits in his writings. In this particular he was never surpassed by any of his countrymen, and Horace, five hundred years later, could not equal him in gaiety, though he excelled him in philosophy.

The accounts of Anacreon are meagre and confused to an extent highly provoking; chasms of twenty or thirty years of the poet's life are to be bridged by the imagination as best they may, and even then it is doubtful whether our surmisings have real foundation. The following are the main incidents with which we are acquainted.

Anacreon was born in the small city of Teos, in Ionia, about 583 B. C. His father's name and social status are matters of uncertainty, as well as the poet's own residence during his youth. This period of his life, however, appears to

have been spent in his native city, from whence he perhaps removed to Abdera, when Teos was taken by Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, B. C. 540. At this same time he seems to have been known to Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, for when the latter had obtained unlimited control over that city, he invited Anacreon to come to Samos and be his friend and instructor. Thus early had the Teran bard acquired fame and popularity.

Anacreon visited the court of Polycrates, according to the latter's desire, and spent many years with him in intercourse of a most familiar nature. He appears to have been just and upright in his business relations, and to have gained the confidence and esteem of all the city. He remained in Samos until the murder of his patron, in 522 B. C., when he was invited by the despot, Hipparchus, to live in Athens. Here he extended his circle of acquaintance, and became known to the poet Simonides, and other writers of distinction. When Hipparchus was assassinated, in 514 B. C., it appears that Anacreon returned to Teos, to spend the remainder of his days. He died at the age of eighty-five years, about 478 B. C., but the time and place of his death are uncertain. It was occasioned, some say, by a dried grape which choked him, but the account has always been regarded as a poetical fiction. Simonides wrote two epitaphs upon him, one of which states that he was buried at Teos. Other writers, however, give it

as a tradition that after his return home, he fled again to Abdera on account of the internal dissensions of his native city. Which report is right will probably never be known.

The character of Anacreon, like that of many celebrated men, has been constantly misapprehended. In consequence of the themes upon which he sung, he has been often regarded as a most consummate voluptuary. The warm pourings of his poetic nature, have been held as the streams of a licentious imagination, and the most delicate and fanciful of his images, as the ever-present thoughts of a profligate debauchee. The best minds of that day, however, considered his residence at the Court of Polycrates as the most distinguished favor that fortune ever bestowed upon that tyrant. Anacreon was the "lion" of the city; "nobles to do him honor took delight:" yet he never used their influence for self-aggrandisement, and even refused the magnificent presents Polycrates would have showered upon him, declaring they were not worth the keeping. True to his early love, the lyric muse, he scorned all offers of bribery or corruption, and contented himself with the fervid thoughts and images, his glowing fancy inspired. "He touched his harp and nations heard entranced;" at least all Greece did, which was all the world to him. Commentators and translators have perverted and misconstrued his meaning; but Anacreon never transgressed the bounds which every cultivated mind allows to poets of a warm and luxuriant imagination. "There have always been persons unable to understand how a poet can sing of a drunken revelry, and yet be a sober man, and how the mere sight of the beautiful can raise enthusiasm. All the writers of the best days of Greece, speak of Anacreon as a man, in the same high terms in which they record his praise as a poet; and a poet whom Plato calls the wise, was assuredly not a lover of licentiousness."

It is forever to be regretted that the works of Anacreon have not come down to us entire. The greater portion has been swept away by the lapse of two

In addition to the fragments we possess, there is a collection of fifty-five odes, which have been sometimes published as the productions of Anacreon. They were first brought to light in Paris, in 1554, by Henry Stephens, who copied them, as he says, from two manuscripts, which no one else had seen. These poems are dainty little love songs, but all the great critics agree, from internal evidence, that they were not written by Anacreon, and that some of them were composed as late as the fourth and fifth centuries. The following reasons are given for not attributing them to Anacreon: First: The genuine poems were full of allusions to circumstances and persons around him, while the odes of Stephens' collection contain nothing that suggests the circumstances of the author's life; they more resemble modern poems, written in the closet, than the ancient Greek lyrics. Second: They contain ideas foreign to the age of Anacreon, as in representing Eros, the god of Love, as a wanton and mischievous boy; while down to the age of Alexander, he was always described as a full-grown youth. Third: The language in some of the odes is barbarous, the versification faulty, and the sentiments trivial. These, and some other considerations, are sufficient to