At the meeting of the Board of Overseers on Thursday, it was voted to concur with the vote of the president and fellows abolishing the chair of Ancient, Byzantine and Modern Greek. This was the professorship held by the late Prof. Sophocles, and was created for him in 1860. We doubt if there was ever any great demand for instruction in Prof. Sophocle's peculiar subjects, and in late years the courses were virtually abandoned. The main monuments of the professorship are the works of its only holder-the Greek Grammar and the dictionary.

In view of the little demand for such instruction in this country, and of the difficulty of finding a worthy successor to the chair, we suppose that its abandonment can not but be considered wise. Still we cannot but cherish the hope that this abandonment is but a temporary one. A university which claims to hold the highest place among the educational institutions of the country as does Harvard, is the one university to which students in special branches must look for instruction. At present the demand for this instruction is but slight, but that it is increasing is shown by the growth of our departments of Sanskrit and Semitic languages. A university should maintain a number of chairs, which bring no direct returns, for the sake of its reputation. We feel sure that the experiment of offering instruction in Chinese, for instance, will in the end result to Harvard's advantage. It is for the sake of this indirect advantage, but seldom a pecuniary one, however, that we urge the continuance of much of the special instruction for which there is as yet but little demand in this country. Of course, in the present state of the university exchequer, the maintenance of such professorships can hardly be expected, but we hope this trouble will be but a temporary one, and that in the future it will have but little weight.