Greek grammar; and that the professor should not occupy the time allotted to the business of the class, as above described, in teaching the elements of grammar to any such persons." A similar regulation with regard to the first mathematical class ordains, ‘that all students proposing to attend it in any university, should previously have acquired a competent knowledge of the first four books of Euclid, and of algebra, as far as simple equations, inclusive.' The quantum of algebraic learning here demanded certainly could not well have been put lower; but the innovation, so far as it goes, is in a right direction, and may give rise in due time to further improvements.

Other valuable regulations are, that the session should, in all cases, be extended to the full length of six months; that attendance during the whole of that period should be necessary to entitle to certificates; that examinations, exercises, and prizes should be introduced in all the classes; that the catalogue should be regularly called at every meeting; and that every professor should publish and put into the hands of his students a syllabus of his course within three years after his appointment. Provision is also to be made for admitting the students to read in the library—a privilege which they have not hitherto enjoyed at any of the universities, and the importance of which can scarcely be overrated. According to the regular curriculum of study, it is ordered, that the classes to be attended the first year should be the first Latin and the first Greek; the second year, the second Latin, second Greek, and first mathematics; the third year, the second mathematics and the logic; and the last year, the natural philosophy and the moral philosophy. It is an objection to this scheme that two subjects of such importance should be crowded into the concluding session; but the commissioners found it impossible to devise any other arrangement which they deemed better upon the whole. They recommend, however, that when it can be conveniently done, the student should continue his academic attendance for a fifth session, and thus divide the usual work of the fourth. All the classes here named are to be taught for two hours a day on five days of the week, except the mathematical classes, which are to meet only one hour each day. In those cases in which there are two meetings, the one is to be devoted to lecturing, and the other to examination. For reasons to which we formerly adverted, we are disposed to consider the time here allotted to the business of lecturing rather too ample; and we also think it indispensable that, instead of a mere syllabus of his lectures, every professor should be bound to employ, or, if necessary, to prepare, a text-book, containing a correct exposition of the subject which he has to teach.

The certificates of attendance and proficiency are directed to be in future drawn up according to a printed form, blanks being left for certain phrases, the variations of which to be used in the different cases are also strictly limited; and this likewise we look upon as a useful improvement. As the matter is at present managed, these certificates are sometimes granted merely as a matter of course, and testify, in fact, nothing more than that the professor has been paid his fee, or, where they really express his conscientiously formed opinion, and the results of his observation, they are still liable to be affected in their style and general bearing by all the differences of taste and manner that distinguish one writer from another. The established forms will make these documents what they ought to be clear and unexaggerated statements of the facts of each case.

It remains that we notice very briefly the system which the commissioners propose to establish in regard to degrees in arts. We have already considered their plan of taking the examination of candidates for graduation out of the hands of the professors. But this is far from being the only innovation which they contemplate in reference to this matter. In the first place, they propose to revive the degree of B. A., and to bestow it only on students who have completed the regular four years' curriculum. The degree of M. A. is not to be conferred till after the lapse of at least one year from the completion of the regular curriculum. Both distinctions are only to be obtained after a strict examination, according to regulations which are set down, and provision is made for taking the degree of B. A. with honours, the successful candidates being arranged into a higher and lower class. We cannot here detail the specialties of the proposed rules of examination; but they may be fairly described as requiring a most respectable degree of proficiency.

We have now gone over the principal provisions of the proposed reform of these universities; and we have, we think, stated enough to show, that it is of no delusive or superficial character, but a liberal and comprehensive scheme, which goes to the root of the evils to be cured, and aims at effecting a real and extensive improvement of the existing system. We have been obliged to omit all notice of many of the propositions of the commissioners, and of some which are of considerable importance, though not bearing upon points belonging to the great divisions of the subject to which our observations have been chiefly confined. For these we must refer our readers to the Report itself, which we should be glad to see laid before the public in a more accessible form. The OCT., 1832-JAN., 1833.

H

evidence also, and the various documents to which such constant reference is made, ought to be printed, with as much regard to economy as possible. Without them the Report is throughout unsatisfactory, and in some parts unintelligible. On the whole, we have little doubt that the public generally will agree with us in hailing most of the innovations suggested by the commissioners, as calculated to operate with the most important effect in extending the usefulness of these seminaries, and in thereby benefiting, in some of its highest interests, the country to which they belong.

Note. We find that, in our notice of the junior Latin class at St. Andrew's (see Journal, Vol. IV. p. 28), we were led into some mistakes, partly by the slovenly manner in which the account of that university in the Report of the Royal Commission is drawn up, and partly from not being aware that the statements of the Report were intended to refer to the year 1826, while the class in question was still taught by Dr. Hunter, who has since retired. No date indeed is given; but we inferred that the writer was describing the manner of conducting the class since Dr. Hunter's retirement, because we knew that his account was not applicable to the mode followed by that venerable teacher. The present professor, Dr. Gillespie, who has taught the class since 1827, reads, in the course of the session, a play of Plautus, or of Terence, a book of Livy, and generally some of the Odes of Horace. For the first month or two he translates the passage to be read, the day before, but afterwards he discontinues this practice. Half an hour is devoted every day for five days of the week to the translating of English into Latin, from Mair's Introduction, and the explanation of the rationale of the rules of Syntax-an exercise which we erroneously stated had been discontinued. Two-thirds of the students voluntarily take notes of the professor's remarks on the principles of Syntax, which they give in as part of their regular work at the end of the session. On Saturday, instead of drilling the students, as formerly, in the declension of nouns and the conjugation of verbs, Dr. Gillespie employs the hour in lecturing on the principles of general grammar, reducing all the parts of speech to the noun and the verb. Prizes are given for general proficiency, and for knowledge of Adam's Roman Antiquities. În his senior class, Dr. Gillespie reads the extracts from Plautus, Juvenal, Livy, Catullus, Propertius, &c., given in Pillans's Excerpta, and lectures from Adam's Antiquities, examining from the book, not from the lecture, except in so far as the general principles laid down in the latter are exemplified in the former. It is in the second class, in particular, that private readings are recommended, and found to succeed so well. Dr. Gillespie has abolished the use of fines in the management of his classes, and succeeds in perfectly preserving order by merely applying, or rather threatening, certain stigmas for misconduct. He gives few prizes, but has a long list of bene meriti, which is found to operate as a powerful stimulus.

REVIEW S.

ON HEBREW INSTRUCTION IN ENGLAND.

WE shall, in the present article, give a concise account of the means which are at present offered in England for the study of the Hebrew language, under the following heads :I. Teachers.

II. Institutions.

III. Books.

All these means have been multiplied and improved in England, especially since the year 1825, when the attention of both Christians and Jews was called, by sermons and meetings, to the study of the unfulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament.

Some hasty and arbitrary interpretations, advanced in a dictatorial manner, although finally refuted by historical events, called forth the energy of many investigators of the Holy Scriptures, who endeavoured to understand fully before they either embraced or rejected the new explanations offered to the Christian community. The labourers in the vineyard digged deeply after hidden treasures which they did not find, but they were amply repaid for their diligence by the unexpected harvest which they reaped at the time of vintage. A greater diffusion of Hebrew knowledge has been. one of the happy results of the late investigations into unfulfilled prophecies.

As Paracelsus, Glauber, and other alchemists were led, by their researches after the philosophers' stone, the elixir of life, the transmutation of metals, and the art of making gold, to the discovery of muriatic acid, vinegar distilled from wood, and many important facts of chemistry, so our modern interpreters of unfulfilled prophecy, although lately refuted by the death of the Duke of Reichstadt *, who had to act, as

* After a few years it will appear almost incredible that such false predictions were not only preached in England, but were also circulated by missionaries abroad. The following passage is the echo of some English publications :Prima però che si giunga alla scadenza dell' anno 1847, strepitosi avenimenti sucederanno. Scosse di terremuoti faranno oscillare la terra; il sistema politico andrà d' esso pure soggetto a forti combustioni ed inauditi cambiamenti. Quel colosso gigantesco di Roma, quel che nomasi Santo Padre, quel preteso vicario di Christo cadrà sepolto nello polvere, e per opera di chi? del figlio di quell' insigne Guerriero che tanto empi il mondo di se stesso. Quest' unico avanzo di si grand' uomo verrà proclamato Re di Roma; fomenterà non solo, ma cercherà di stabilire con ferme radici nel cuore di tutti l' incredulità e l' eresia. Si nomerà Antichristo il Salvatore del popolo d'Israello; in somma mille

Antichrist, the most prominent part in the greatest revolutions of churches and states, have nevertheless obtained the merit of diffusing biblical knowledge, and especially of exciting, in the community, a great desire to know the Hebrew language. This general interest has led, in England, to the multiplication and improvement of those means which we intend to describe under the heads above mentioned.

I. Concerning the teachers of Hebrew, the writer of this essay having but little personal acquaintance with individuals calling themselves professors of the sacred tongue, must necessarily confine himself to a few general remarks. The Christians habitually impart only a knowledge of and about Hebrew, without teaching the language itself; and many of the Jews mechanically teach their pupils, like parrots, to utter Hebrew sounds without leading them to a full understanding of their meaning, though this habit is fast losing ground. A teacher should endeavour to combine the grammatical penetration of the Christians with that fluent readiness wherein Jews excel; for theory without practice is as useless as practice without theory is blind.

Teachers of the Hebrew language should follow the advice of Lord Bacon to a traveller on his return home: Let him be rather advised in his answers than forward to tell stories.' A teacher should be always ready to give an explicit answer to any question proposed to him by his pupil which he is able to satisfy, and honestly to confess his inability when the question asked goes beyond his experience. This uprightness requires great self-denial, but it will finally increase the pupil's regard for the good faith of his master. As the nourishment of the body does not so much depend upon the portion of food taken, as upon the manner in which it is digested, so the improvement of the mind does not so much depend upon the quantity of information bestowed by the teacher as upon the manner in which it is received by the pupil.

The mind of the pupil will be best prepared to receive instruction after he has met with difficulties which he finds can only be surmounted by grammatical rules; therefore it would seem preposterous to burden the memory and perplex the mind by compelling the pupil to learn a grammar by heart before he has found out the necessity of its rules. This method has lately produced a re-action in the so-called saranno gli agguati per indurvi alla falsa credenza.' This passage occurs in a little pamphlet translated from the English into Italian, under the direction of its author, in the summer of 1830, under the title 'Prove che il Nostro Signore verrà al mondo nell' anno 1847. Sometimes il figliolo di Napoleone' was mentioned still more unequivocally.