Nor was there any embarrassment in the next class that we entered, where an interrogatory on geography was in progress. The method was so new to me that I think I must describe it, just adding that the directress expressed great regret that we could not hear a geography lesson given, because the lady who taught that subject was a specially able person. Well, she had a note-book containing sketches of the lessons given during the last term, and from these she had written headings on a number of slips of paper. Each pupil drew one of these slips by lot and had to be ready to treat the subject marked upon it. Thus one pupil had drawn “the Rhine," and was required to sketch the course of the Rhine on the blackboard, marking the principal tributaries, and naming the most important towns. Another had "the Vineyards of France," and upon a blank map that hung against the wall, she rapidly pointed out the vinegrowing districts. A third had "Lace and paper," which was treated in the same way. The carte muette is in constant use in French schools, and I think there was always a blank map of France, and another of the world, in every class-room that I entered. The outlines are indicated by the use of different shades of black and grey, and the staring white outlines which make no difference between land and sea

The Ecole Sophie Germain — like the Lycées the higher grade school has a special name of its own — was installed in quarters as spacious and suitable as any London high school, though externally there was nothing at all remarkable about them, except that the directress's private room was larger and handsomer than we had seen before. It contained what, at first, looked to me like a great many bookshelves, but I soon observed that upon these shelves were ranged, not books, but a monotonous array of brown-backed portfolios, each representing a record of some pupil's work, specimens, papers, etc. The directress received us with great kindness and cordiality and was anxious to let us see and hear as much as possible, but expressed much regret that we could not hear any lessons given for it was a "day of interrogatories.' "We do something of the kind about once a month," she explained. But to be present at these interrogatories was in itself something new, and we were soon seated in a class-room where a simple vivâ voce examination on physiology was going on, physiology, be it observed, of the simplest and most practical kind, One of the pupils was called up to the blackboard and very readily drew a simple diagram with red and blue chalk showing the circulation of the blood. It was clear that the child quite understood what she was about; she even suc-are avoided. ceeded in bringing out a clear answer to a At the top of the building was a very question intended to elicit the connection large studio lighted from the roof, in which between fresh air and a healthful circula- a drawing-lesson was going forward. In tion; and then she completely lost her another part of the same room I noticed head, she colored, the tears came into her several rows of light oblong tables. These eyes, she made random shots; and a sec-I was told were for lessons in cutting out, ond pupil whom the teacher called up was equally confused, though she too showed knowledge. "And they are two of my best," murmured the teacher in a voice of disappointment. "But it is very easy to see that they are frightened," I could not help saying and frightened they certainly were. I believe it was the presence of that awful personage the inspecteur générale, or else it was his presence and that of the foreign lady combined. He seemed one of the kindest of men, and I do not think he was their own particular inspector; but certainly both children and teachers were nervous on that occasion, though as a rule I used to wonder at the presence of mind with which quite long replies would be given. For instance, I have seen a child work a sum on the blackboard, explaining every step of the process as she went on without the slightest embarrassment.

as the elements of plain dressmaking form part of the school course. Just as we were taking our leave I noticed quite a company of little girls rubbing away at a glazed partition, which, I was told, belonged to the préau. "Oh no!" was the reply to my inquiries, "we don't depend upon the pupils for the care of the building. What you see is a lesson in domestic economy; they are learning to clean windows."

Pupils come from far and near to the Ecole Sophie Germain. It is an excellent school, and full to overflowing, and I have no doubt that ere long Paris will possess other schools of the same kind, but never very many, never so many as if the écoles professionelles, or technical schools for girls, had not been devised. Of these there are now six in Paris, and the one that I visited contained two hundred and fifty pupils. There will always be a large

number of parents who desire for their | and millinery from models specially comgirls exactly what the école primaire su- posed by some of the elder pupils. There périeure offers a better general educa- were at least a dozen miniature busts tion than can possibly be attained by those mounted on stands about two feet high, who have to leave school at thirteen; each of which supported a fashionable but there is a far larger class for whom costume designed and made up in the better professional training in technical right materials, and in the most exact and work is an all-important advantage. In- complete manner. On other stands were deed, there is nothing to prevent higher knots of ribbon, bonnets, and other specigrade pupils from going on to an école mens of millinery. The beginners made professionelle, and they often do, though their drawings in pencil, but as they imgenerally speaking the pupils of the école proved they were promoted to the use of professionelle come straight from the pri- color. mary schools; it is, however, a condition of admission that pupils must either bring with them their brevet d'études primaires or must pass an entrance examination of equivalent difficulty.

The full title of the school is l'école professionelle ménagère, and a certain course of fundamental training in the elements of domestic usefulness is required from all. Afterwards the pupils specialize, each devoting herself entirely to some chosen profession, either laundry work, dressmaking, embroidery, millinery, or cookery. Skill in embroidery is a special aptitude in many French women, and the cultivation and improvement of national or local gifts for any particular kind of work is a distinct aim of the training given in the écoles professionelles.

The first thing I noticed in the waitingroom into which we were shown was a very elegant black cashmere dress, beautifully embroidered in black silk and beads. The pattern had been designed, and the work executed, in the school. And of course this dress was an "order," for the école professionelle executes many orders, but only for ladies who do not mind waiting two or three months for a dress and will allow the ceremony of "trying on to be treated as a lesson either given or received. The elements of the art are, however, taught on busts mounted on stands.

In the spacious kitchen to which we were afterwards conducted, a substantial midday meal was being prepared consisting of a good plain soup, roast meat, and haricot beans. For this each pupil pays twenty-five centimes, except that there are certain holders of scholarships who pay nothing at all. In a smaller kitchen, or class-room, a little group of eight pupils i were receiving a lesson in more advanced cookery, aud at the moment of our visit were in the act of learning to make a mayonnaise. These pupils learn not only the art of cooking, but the business of marketing. A certain sum is allotted for the week's work, and they themselves buy all the materials they need, and are taught how to lay out the money to the best advantage.

I believe the school we visited was the first of the écoles professionelles started in Paris. The directress told us how it originated in two rooms, attached to one of the elementary schools as a sort of technical department, and how the work prospered and developed itself, and was becoming every day more valued and more appreciated. But no pupil is received who has not already acquired something like a solid foundation of elementary knowledge; technical instruction is to supplement, not to supplant the general training of the intelligence in the primary or higher grade schools. In the higher grade schools, indeed, a little technical training is actually given, but until the certificate of primary studies has been attained, nothing of the kind is attempted, beyond elementary instruction in needlework.

I do not know if we were fortunate or unlucky in chancing upon a day when neither dressmaking nor embroidery was in actual progress, because almost all the pupils were engaged in a drawing-lesson, but it was a drawing-lesson of a kind that I never saw before, where everything This sketch, brief as it is, would be inthat was being done had a strictly prac- complete without a few words upon that tical application. The embroiderers were most important of all subjects, religious either designing patterns, or learning to instruction, which the unhappy operation paint flowers and butterflies with a special of religious and political jealousies exview to the requirements of their art. On cludes from the school programme one table lay a case of butterflies from alas, in France only! "It was desired," which the students selected for themselves.writes M. Martel, "that the schools imA much larger number of the pupils were posed upon children of all religions engaged in drawing and painting costumes should, in the religious point of view, be

not,

13

tury is interesting to all concerned in the and even those of a considerably later investigation of the early history of Chris- period, had an inveterate repugnance to tianity. In drawing attention to the sub-committing to writing any ordinances or ject here, though writing from a Christian | directions except such as were actually standpoint, we shall endeavor to avoid all contained in the recognized sacred writquestions of religious controversy.

Though Hillel belonged to an age somewhat earlier than that of which we are about to treat, it may be well before entering on our special subject to say a few words about that remarkable man. For Hillel, though he died a few years before the Christian era, may in many respects be regarded as the father of that system of Biblical exegesis which was more fully developed by the Jewish scholars who succeeded him.

ings. The teaching of those scholars was strictly oral, and their decisions on the most important points of law, dogma, and interpretation were entrusted only to the memory of their well-trained disciples. It was not until after the dire calamities of later times that this practice was modified, and even then not without opposition.*

the same sentiment, "Make it (the law) not a crown to glory in it, nor an axe to get thy living by." (Aboth, iv. 5.) ‡

According to Bacher, the earliest rules for the interpretation of Holy Scripture may be traced back to Hillel. Few specimens of his interpretations, however, have The anecdotes illustrative of Hillel's been handed down by tradition, unless, as patience and suavity, as contrasted with is probable, some of those ascribed to the irritability and harshness of his dis- his disciples may originally have protinguished contemporary Shammai, are ceeded from their master. Hillel urged well known, and may be found cited with upon his disciples the importance of studysufficient fulness and accuracy in the ap- ing Scripture for its own sake, and not for pendix to Archdeacon Farrar's popular any ulterior benefit which such study "Life of Christ; " they need not, there might bring in its train. This appears to fore, be repeated here. According to one have been the meaning of his aphorism, of those anecdotes, Hillel is said to have" He who desires profit from the crown given utterance to "the golden rule:" (of learning) perishes; "t or, as a later What is hateful to thyself, that do not rabbi expresses to thy fellow." Archdeacon Farrar considers that the occurrence of a similar expression in Tobit * is sufficient to prove that Hillel was not the original author of the saying, as "the probable date of the Book of Tobit is two centuries before Hillel." But the date of the book of Tobit is a matter of great uncertainty, and its composition has been by some scholars assigned to a much later éra. Hence all deductions based on its date must be received with caution; and it may be observed that Bacher considers the sentence in Tobit to have been unquestionably derived from Hillel. The authorship, however, of such an aphorism, especially in face of the fact that many parallel sayings of an earlier date can be adduced, is a matter of too much uncertainty to admit of any.definite conclusion.

It is, however, an interesting fact, and one which has indirectly an important bearing upon vexed questions of authorship, that the great Jewish teachers of the two centuries preceding the Christian era, von Dr. H. Graetz, Professor an der Universität Bres lau. Band iii. und iv.: Gesch. von dem Tode Juda Makkabi's bis zum Abschluss des Talmud. 1863.

Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Iesu Christi, von Dr. Emil Schürer, ordentl. Professor der Theol. zu Giessen. ate Auflage, Zweiter Theil. Die inneren Zustände Palestina's und des jüdischen Volkes. Leipzig: Hinrichs. 1886.

"Do that to no man which thou hatest." iv. 15.

-Tobit

As an interesting instance of Hillel's interpretations of Scripture passages, we may quote the following rules for conduct

* See the excursus on "The Men of the Great Synagogue," p. 484, appended to my work on "The Book of Koheleth, or Ecclesiastes considered in relation to Modern Criticism and to the doctrines of Modern Pessimism," Hodder and Stoughton, 1883. ↑ Aboth I. 13, iv. 5.

The above is the reading in Strack's text; the other reading, adopted by Taylor, has the suffix in the not them (disciples) a crown to glory in them [comp. plural, in which case the meaning probably is: "Make Phil. iv. 1; 1 Thess. ii. 19], nor an axe to live by them." The passage will be found in Taylor's edit. ch. iv. 9. The saying of Hillel is also quoted in "Aboth" I. 13. Dr. Charles Taylor's work on "The Sayings of the Jewish Fathers" is perhaps the most valuable of the Talmudic treatise. As an introduction to the study of many commentaries published on that remarkable the Mishna, Strack's handy edition of the "Aboth" is the Hebrew text is there fully pointed. Strack's crit most valuable, and even more useful to beginners, for ical remarks, though short, are most comprehensive, and the price at which his work is published ought to secure its use in every class-room where the later He brew is studied. In our citations from "Aboth" in the present article we have frequently followed the text of Strack. It may be well here to note in the outset that we have not considered it necessary in all cases, in a popular article like the present to give literal translations, and in quoting from the Talmuds and Midrashim we have sometimes paraphrased the original in order to avoid more lengthened explanation. We take this op portunity of noticing the recently published "Lehrbuch der Neu-hebräischen Sprache und Litteratur," von Hermann L. Strack und Carl Siegfried. Karlsruhe u. Leipzig: H. Reuther, 1884 which affords much assistance to students of Rabbinical literature.

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in ordinary life, deduced by him from | of the dead, and the rewards and punishEccles. iii. 4, 5:

Hillel the wise (lit. the old) used to say: "Do not be seen naked (when others are clothed), do not be seen clothed (if others are naked), do not be seen standing (if others are sitting), do not be seen sitting (if others are standing), do not be seen laughing (if others are weeping), do not be seen weeping (if It others are laughing). For it is written "there sdf is a time to weep, and a time to laugh," " fied time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing." (Tosefta Berachoth, II. at end.)* The teaching of Hillel on this point has tur been at least partially endorsed by the great apostle in his command: "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with 5,25 them that weep" (Rom. xii. 15).

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ments to be meted out in another world. The school of Shammai held that men in

general will there be divided into three classes, two of which, they argued, are expressly mentioned, and the third inferentially alluded to, in Dan. xii. 2, where it is written, "Many of those that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting those who may belong neither to the one contempt." The third class—namely, category nor the other according to the Shammaite doctors, will be delivered over to purgatorial fire, in which they will ultimately be "purified and made white" (Dan. xii. 10). In support of their views. the Shammaites adduced the expression The employment of the parable may also used in 1 Sam. ii. 6: "He bringeth down probe traced to Hillel. In the Midrash on to the grave (Sheol) and bringeth up;" rge Levit. xxv. 39, it is related that his schol- and, what was a still worse argument (conars asked Hillel one day where he was sidered from an exegetical standpoint), the going. "To perform a commandment," mention of "the third part" in Zech. xiii. answered the rabbi. "What special com- 9. The doctors of the school of Hillel mandment?" asked the disciples. "To agreed with the Shammaites in admitting bathe myself in the bath-house," said the existence of a middle class of transHillel. "Is that one of the command-gressors, but maintained that such persons ments?" inquired they. 66 Certainly," re- would be dealt with by God more merci joined Hillel; "if the statues of kings fully. In support of their view they adglory placed in the theatres and circuses have duced the description given of God in by to be kept clean and washed, how much Exod. xxxiv. 6 as "rich in mercy," and more ought I not keep my body clean, went so far as to affirm that David, in the since I have been created in the image of 116th Psalm, distinctly refers to the case. God?" of such individuals, and their final deliv

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It is unnecessary to enter into any ac-erance by God's mercy. count of the differences which divided the milder school of the Jewish doctors of the law led by Hillel, from the sterner school which acknowledged Shammai as its master. Schürer has an interesting chapter on this subject. Those controversies were often of deeper significance than appears at first sight. These rival schools of Jewish theologians discussed not a few of the questions which still agitate the theological world. They were divided in opinion on the question of the future state

It is not our object here to discuss the truth or falsehood of such interpretations, but to point out that many questions of permanent interest were discussed in these schools of religious philosophy, and much interesting material may be gleaned here and there from the sayings of the ancient. rabbis, tending to throw light on the controversies of the present day.

The citation of the Book of Koheleth by Hillel, and the quotation of proof-texts from Koheleth by Simon ben Shetach, who flourished sixty or seventy years earlier than Hillel, is fairly quoted as evidence against Graetz's theory that the Book of Ecclesiastes was composed in the reign of Herod the Great-a theory which has been endorsed by Renan. But such citations are by no means the chief evidence in opposition to that theory. Prof. Graetz has, no doubt unintentionally, misrepresented my views on this point in his review in the Monatsschrift für Geschichte u. Wissenschaft des Judenthums (Feb. u. März, 1885), which I may notice more fully on another occasion. See also on this subject the interesting work published by Rabbi Dr. S. Schiffer, "Das Buch Kohelet nach der Auffassung der Weisen des Talmud und Midrash, und der jüdischen Erklärer des Mittelalters." Theil L:"Von der M'schna bis zum Abschluss des babyl. Talmud." 1884.

Foremost among the rabbis properly belonging to the first century stands Gamaliel, the great teacher of Saul of Tarsus or the Apostle Paul. We can glance but, slightly at his history. He was a grandson of Hillel, and, like his grandfather, president of the Jewish Sanhedrin. St. Paul, in his speech to the Jews at Jerusa lem, states that he was brought up in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, "instructed according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers" (Acts xxii. 3). Gamaliel is first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as taking part in the meeting of the Jewish council before which Peter and the other apostles were brought for daring to preach and teach in the name of Jesus in opposition to the commands of