It is a curious indication of the backward condition of educational discussion in Great Britain, that, just at the time that we in this country are becoming convinced of the harmfulness of prizes and medals in our schools, these commissioners advise the introduction of the system of prizes into the schools in question.

The detailed account of the ten great endowed schools (numbering; besides those already mentioned, St. Paul's, Merchant-Tailors', Shrewsbury, and Christ's Hospital), the principal features of which we have described above, occupies much the largest part of the book. But Mr. Staunton has wisely added an appendix, containing a brief account of the principal Proprietary Schools, in which we may see the results of the more liberal tendencies of English education. Of Marlborough and Cheltenham, we in this country know at least the names from Matthew Arnold's "French Eton." Their peculiarity consists in the fact, that they have a Modern School, especially designed to fit for the army and navy, which teaches history, mathematics, science, Latin, &c. (Greek only optional, if at all), by the side of the Classical Department, which is modelled upon the great public schools. Of all these, "Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich," founded in the reign of James I., and recently re-organized; and the school at Rossal, for clergymen's sons and others, are the most liberal, and nearest to the American ideal of a good school. They are, for instance, so far as we have observed, the only ones of the fifteen schools treated of in this volume which make the English language and literature a distinct and prominent object. The "Modern School" at Rossall is divided into the Military, Naval, Civil-Service, Civil-Engineering, and Mercantile Classes, in each of which special subjects are taught in addition to the general course. W. F. A.

THOSE, and we believe they are many, who, without being acquainted with the Oriental languages, which are essential to a complete understanding of comparative philology, wish yet to learn the latest results of the investigations in this field, especially as regards the relation between the two classic tongues which are accustomed to form the groundwork of a liberal education, will find in Leo Meyer's ""* Comparative Grammar of the Greek and Latin Languages pre

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* Vergleichende Grammatik der Griechischen und Lateinischen Sprache. Von LEO MEYER. Zweiter Band. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1865. 12mo. pp. 628.

cisely the help that they want. His task he declares to be "to ascertain the condition of the language, and especially to determine the forms of the language, at the time when the Greek [which, it must be understood, is a younger language than Latin] was developed as from a common fundamental form (Grundform), which itself may have been very far removed from the condition of the oldest original language" (vol. i. p. 21). We find, therefore, comparatively little of the Sanscrit and other Oriental tongues in these pages, but also, with the exception of the introduction, very little reading. It is close, hard study of dry details, such as any one must work through, in order to rise to the perception of great principles, in any department of science.

We have at last a French grammar formed upon a sensible plan, such as is now adopted almost universally in regard to the ancient languages, a systematic arrangement, with progressive exercises from the very start.* That such progressive exercises were imperatively demanded, is proved by the popularity of the Ollendorff system, of which this is the single good feature. The confused and purely empirical arrangement of all books prepared upon this system has produced disastrous results in the community, in a superficial and slipshod knowledge of all languages usually studied. To acquire idioms and phrases, when one already knows the groundwork of the language, it may, to be sure, be used with very great advantage; but by itself, used by average teachers and with average pupils, we hold that it cannot produce either sound scholarship or accurate habits of mind. It has already been discarded as worthless in the ancient languages, but has held its ground until now in the modern languages, especially French, whose simplicity of structure and resemblance to English enable it to be studied by this method with less disadvantage. We hope, however, that this excellent book of Mr. Magill's will do something to redeem the study of French likewise.

A SERIOUS student is apt to be impatient at the presenting of any grave and large topic under the form of lectures for popular delivery: the set artificial divisions, the demands of an audience, the constraints

* A French Grammar. By EDWARD H. MAGILL, A.M., Sub-Master in the Boston Latin School. Boston: Crosby & Ainsworth, 1866. 12mo. pp. 287.

of time, the temptation to by-play, are so many violations of that natural order so essential to the right understanding of it. But this form has not only its convenience or its necessity to plead for it, but also its positive advantage. For every topic has its salient points, which rhetorical treatment may bring into the needed relief; and every extended history, in particular, is capable of a certain special handling, symmetrical and half imaginative, which makes the best form possible of presenting it to those who are not serious students, and may even be of service to those who are. And the readers of Grote or Thirlwall or Finlay of Mure or Gladstone or Professor Blackie - will not be indifferent to the publication of the two handsome volumes of the late President Felton,* which, for the general public, make the best available introduction into the wide field with which they deal.

President Felton's qualifications for this task were as rare as they were generally recognized. A scholar, a teacher by profession and long practice, a traveller with special enthusiasm for the scene of his story; a man of infinite bonhomie and of considerable native humor; of wide acquaintance with general literature and considerable experience in affairs; of warm personal feelings and active interest in living politics, he seems to meet the public mind at every point, as a fit interpreter of the history, the literature, and the public life which he had made it the chief occupation of his mind to study, and the chief labor of his life to illustrate. We have not space to anticipate now the sketch of his labors which we hope to give hereafter; and can only direct our readers to his volumes, with the assurance that they will find in them that best satisfaction, results presented in an attractive form, with the indorsement of earnest, genuine, faithful scholarship. The volumes consist of four courses of a dozen lectures each: first, on the Greek Language and Poetry, including a preliminary sketch of recent philological studies; second, the Life of Greece, social, domestic, political, and religious; third, Constitutions and Orators of Greece, giving, by the way, such notices of the history as are essential to a right understanding of them; and, fourth, Modern Greece, commencing with the Macedonian ascendency, and ending with the revolution of forty years ago, and a picturesque account of the land and people in these latter days.

J. H. A.

* Greece, Ancient and Modern: Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute. By C. C. FELTON, LL.D., late President of Harvard University. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 8vo, 2 vols.

NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

The French Manual: a New, Simple, Concise, and Easy Method of acquiring a Conversational Knowledge of the French Language; including a Dictionary of over Ten Thousand Words. By M. Alfred Havet. 12mo. pp. 300.

Joseph II. and his Court: An Historical Novel. By L. Mühlbach. Translated from the German by Adelaide De V. Chaudron. Illustrated. 8vo. pp. 343. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Lectures and Annual Reports on Education. By Horace Mann. 8vo. pp. 571. Cambridge: Printed for the Editor.

Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann. Boston: H. B. Fuller & Co. 16mo. pp. 240. (Compact and handsome, skilfully exhibiting much of what is most characteristic in the thought and style of the writer.)

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. By Charles Dickens. With original Illustrations by S. Eytinge, jr. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 464. (Diamond edition.)

The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke. Revised edition. Boston: Little & Brown. Vol. XI. pp. 445. (Containing Report and Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings.)

The American Conflict: a History of the Great Rebellion of the United States of America, 1860-65. By Horace Greeley. Hartford: O. D. Case & Co. Vol. II. 8vo. pp. 872.

Whom do you Worship? A Popular Treatise on Reasonable Religion. By Henry A. Abraham. 12mo. pp. 44. New York: James Miller.

The Claverings. A Novel. By Anthony Trollope. Illustrated. pp. 211. Two Marriages. By the Author of John Halifax, Gentleman." 12mo. pp. 301.

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Bernthal; or, The Son's Revenge. From the German of L. Mühlbach. 8vo. pp. 96.

American Leaves. Familiar Notes of Thought and Life. By Samuel Osgood. 12mo. pp. 380.

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood.

By George MacDonald, M.A.

Author of "David Elginbrod." 12mo. pp. 381.

Kissing the Rod. By Edward Yates.

Rachel's Secret. By the Author of "The Master of Marton."

Lizzie Norton of Greyrigg. By E. Lynn Linton.

Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. By Richard Doddridge Blackmore. 8vo. pp. 218. New York: Harper & Brothers.

The Women of The Gospels. The Three Wakings, and other Poems. By the Author of The Schönberg-Cotta Family." 12mo. pp. 275.

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The Brownings: A Tale of the Great Rebellion. 16mo. pp. 310.

The Brewer's Family. By Mrs. Ellis. Author of “ Women of England," &c. New York: M. W. Dodd. 16mo. pp. 325.

The Constitutional Convention; its History, Powers, and Modes of Proceeding. By John Alexander Jameson, Judge of the Superior Court of Chicago, and Professor of Constitutional Law, &c., in the Law Department of the Chicago University. New York: C. Scribner & Co. 8vo. pp. 561. The Service of Sorrow. By Lucretia P. Hale. Boston: American Unitarian Association.

Laboulaye's Fairy Book. Fairy Tales of all Nations. By Edouard Laboulaye. Translated by Mary L. Booth. With engravings. 16mo. pp. 363.

Beginning French. Ahn's & Belezi's Systems. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 16mo. pp. 124.

Principia Latina. Part II. A First Latin Reading Book. Containing an Epitome of Cæsar's Gallic Wars, and L. Homond's Lives of Distinguished Romans, &c., &c. By William Smith, LL.D; and Henry Drisler, LL.D., Professor of Latin in Columbia College, New York. New York: Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 375.

The Great Rebellion; its Secret History, Rise, Progress, and Disastrous Failure. By John Minor Botts, of Virginia. The Political Life of the Author vindicated. New York: Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 402.

Greece, Ancient and Modern. Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute. By C. C. Felton, LL.D., Late President of Harvard University. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 2 vols. pp. 511, 549.

Remarks on Classical and Utilitarian Studies, read before the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Dec. 20, 1865. By Jacob Bigelow, M.D. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. pp. 57.

The Tent on the Beach, and other Poems. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

The Life of Jesus, according to the Original Biographers. With Notes. By Edmund Kirke. Boston: Lee & Shepard. pp. 297. (Slightly but skilfully modernized in phrase, and arranged according to Robinson's "Harmony." The notes illustrative, not critical.)

Joubert: Some of the Thoughts of Joseph Joubert, translated by George H. Calvert. Preceded by a Notice of Joubert, by the Translator. Boston: William V. Spencer. pp. 163. (A book of rare refinement and insight of the moral sense, tastefully and agreeably presented.)

A Child's Book of Religion, for Sunday-schools and Homes. Compiled by O. B. Frothingham. Boston: James P. Walker. (The most varied, suggestive, and agreeable hand-book of religious instruction yet compiled.)