a register of progress.* As an illustration of the manner in which it is intended to be used, I will give a short extract from the "Recommendations addressed to the pupil," which are printed inside the cover. Child, this book is delivered to you to be the companion and the witness of your work during the whole time that you are to pass at school.... See to it that hereafter you may be able to look over this abridgement of your ... one of these. She willingly allowed me to look through the monthly copy-books of an entire class, but, indeed, the way in which they were kept would have been a credit to any school. And this was in a district so poor, that it can only be compared to those unhappy quarters in our own towns, where whole generations of charitable effort seem, as it were, to be swallowed up in a sea of poverty and to leave no trace, except in momentary relief to individuals. Paris is not so large as London, and the outward signs of squalor and misery seemed less apparent; but the directress said to me that, if I had time, she could have taken me to scenes within a few minutes' walk that would have made my heart ache. It was a comfort to remember that there was a cantine, so that, if many of the children that I saw before me had come to school hungry, they would at any rate not go home unfed. school-life without a blush. To do this you need not be one of the foremost pupils; the precise advantage of this copy-book is that its aim is not to make a comparison between you and your schoolfellows, but to compare you with your successive self. The question is not whether you are more intelligent, cleverer, better informed than this or that pupil, but whether each year, each month, you have improved upon yourself. . . . Child, think besides of this: we do not work for ourselves alone in this world, we work for others also. Even children, without thinking of it, work for their country. For good scholars grow But more than that, I could not help up into good citizens. If you employ your feeling that the very existence of such young years wisely, if you put to serious use well-built and well-provided school buildall the means of instruction that the Republic ings must have a civilizing and uplifting takes care to offer to all her children, you influence. Nothing seemed neglected that may one day give back to your country that could make both the pupils and teachers which your country is now doing for you. take a pleasure and a pride in their school; France needs industrious and good people; you may be one of these if you begin to pre- and to the very poor how few things there pare for it now. Do not waste your time, for are in which they can take either pride or you have no right to do so. The idle scholar pleasure. Everything was in perfect redoes a wrong to himself no doubt, but above pair and scrupulously clean; none of the all he does a wrong to his country. If you proper school appliances were wanting. are passing through some moment of weak- I even observed that here, as in the other ness or discouragement, do not allow yourself primary schools visited by me, there was to be cast down. Say, rather, silently in your in one of the class-rooms a bookcase conown heart: No, I will not be one of the useless ones of the earth, ungrateful to my fam-taining a small educational library of all ily, ungrateful to France. I will work, I will such books as the teaching-staff were at improve, and that not only because it is my all likely to want to consult. interest, but because it is my duty. This is also an instance of that constant appeal to patriotic motives which seems to pervade French education. I believe such motives do actually count for a great deal in producing the high average of regular attendance which is so noticeable in the elementary schools of France, though no doubt Mr. Fitch is right in pointing out the marked effect in this direction of the livret, or fortnightly report to the parents, and the brevet d'études primaires, or leaving certificate. The regular keeping of the cahier men: suel is, of course, a pretty severe test, and I was not surprised to learn that there are teachers who regard it with disfavor. The directress of the Rue Lacordaire was not An exercise-book of a similar character, for use in English schools, is being published by Allman and Son. The next day M. Martel was good enough to conduct us himself to the Ecole Sophie Germain, the only école primaire supérieure, or higher grade school for girls, in Paris. In France the two grades of elementary instruction are distinctly recognized and provided for. There are, first, the children of parents who cannot as a rule afford to prolong the period of school education beyond the age of thir teen, and who very often withdraw both boys and girls in order that they may begin to earn their own living at the moment they the children of parents who can afford to can legally do so. There are, secondly, keep their children at school, and are ready to make sacrifices to do so, up to the age of fifteen or even sixteen. For these the higher grade school is intended, offering a three years course which begins after the certificate of primary studies has been obtained. ress. 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 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 are avoided. The Ecole Sophie Germain — like the Nor was there any embarrassment in Lycées the higher grade school has a the next class that we entered, where an special name of its own - was installed in interrogatory on geography was in progquarters 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 port-on a number of slips of paper. Each folios, 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 viva 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 succeeded in bringing out a clear answer to a question intended to elicit the connection between fresh air and a healthful circulation; and then she completely lost her head, she colored, the tears came into her eyes, she made random shots; and a second 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. At the top of the building was a very large studio lighted from the roof, in which a drawing-lesson was going forward. In another part of the same room I noticed several rows of light oblong tables. These I was told were for lessons in cutting out, 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." 66 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 girls exactly what the école primaire supérieure offers -a better general education than can possibly be attained by those who have to leave school at thirteen; but there is a far larger class for whom better professional training in technical work is an all-important advantage. Indeed, there is nothing to prevent higher grade pupils from going on to an école professionelle, and they often do, though generally speaking the pupils of the école professionelle come straight from the primary 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. 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 that was being done had a strictly practical application. The embroiderers were either designing patterns, or learning to paint flowers and butterflies with a special view to the requirements of their art. On one table lay a case of butterflies from which the students selected for themselves. A much larger number of the pupils were engaged in drawing and painting costumes and millinery from models specially composed by some of the elder pupils. There were at least a dozen miniature busts mounted on stands about two feet high, each of which supported a fashionable costume designed and made up in the right materials, and in the most exact and complete manner. On other stands were knots of ribbon, bonnets, and other speci mens of millinery. The beginners made their drawings in pencil, but as they improved they were promoted to the use of color. In the spacious kitchen to which we were afterwards conducted, a substantial midday meal was being prepared consist ing 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 were receiving a lesson in more advanced cookery, and 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. This sketch, brief as it is, would be incomplete without a few words upon that most important of all subjects, religious instruction, which the unhappy operation of religious and political jealousies excludes from the school programme - not, alas, in France only! It was desired," writes M. Martel, that the schools imposed upon children of all religions should, in the religious point of view, be neuter, and, without, however, excluding from the programme of instruction in morality, the study of our duty towards God, it was decided that the religious instruction should in future be given by the minister of each form of worship outside the school buildings. To this intent the law of March the 28th, 1882, has decreed that all public elementary schools are to be closed one day in every week besides Sunday." (Legislation et Réglementation de l'Enseignement Primaire, 1878-88.) The Saturday holiday, or half-holiday, seems to be a thing unknown in France, but in accordance with the above regulation every Thursday is regularly set apart as the day of religious instruction, with the intention of affording full opportunity for sending the children to be catechized in the various churches, and the fact that I heard this day commonly spoken of as the jour du catéchisme seemed to show that instruction of this kind is actually given, and regularly attended. I regret that it did not come in my way to be present, so that I can give no report of the method and character of the teaching. I suppose only a practical teacher can be fully aware of the almost complete uselessness of catechetical instruction that is given to large and miscellaneous masses of children; while, if the teaching is to be solely in the hands of the clergy, it is difficult to see how this evil can be avoided and the pupils separated into groups according to age and intelligence. There are other criticisms that suggest themselves to my mind, but I prefer to dwell upon the consideration whether, things being as they are in France, any better system can be shown to be possible just now. The duty of providing for religious instruction is certainly recognized, and this is a point of far higher importance than the adequacy or inadequacy of the present plan. In my own opinion it is a very inadequate arrangement, but I do see in it one advantage which may, perhaps, have farreaching consequences. It does throw back upon the parents that main and chief responsibility for their children's religious training which unquestionably belongs to them. It is much more upon the home than upon the school that the question really depends whether boys and girls are to be brought up to act upon religious principles and duly grounded in the elements of Christian faith and duty; and anything that tends to make parents feel this more deeply may lead to much good. LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXIX. 4067 The chief point, indeed, in which the French system of elementary education struck me as distinctly superior to our own, is that it is so much better in touch with the parents. There is a constant endeavor to keep them acquainted with the conduct and progress of their chil dren. It is taken for granted that their interest and co-operation may be relied upon; the laws relating to compulsory attendance are carefully explained to them; the manner in which these laws are carried out appears to be far less vexatious than it is with us; the school course is not so rigidly tabulated, and the items are not calculated at a monetary value, but every parent can clearly understand the connection between regular attendance and the brevet d'études primaires which it is so important that his child should obtain; if there is anything he does not understand it is easy to ask for an explanation, for every head master or head mistress has a regularly appointed time for receiving visits from parents. And here, for the present, I must break off, only begging my readers to remember that this sketch has no pretensions to any higher authority than that of a simple record of the impressions of a very short, though very interesting, educational journey. M. E. SANDford. From The Nineteenth Century. SOME GREAT JEWISH RABBIS. THE study of the sayings and doings of the great Jewish doctors of the first cen Die Agada der Tannaiten. Erster Band: Von Hillel bis Akiba. Von 30 vor bis 135 nach d. g. Z. Von Dr. Wilhelm Bacher, Professor an der LandesRabbinerschule in Budapest. Strasburg i. E.: Karl J. Trübner. 1884. Die Sprüche der Väter, ein ethischer MischnaTraktat, mit kurzer Einleitung, Anmerkungen und einem Wortregister, von Lic. Dr. Herm. L. Strack, a.o. Prof. der Theol. Karlsruhe und Leipzig: H. Reuther. London: Dulau & Co., 37 Soho Square. 1882. Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, comprising Pirqe Aboth and Pereq R. Meir in Hebrew and English, with Critical and Illustrative Notes; and specimen pages of the Cambridge University Manuscript of the Mishnah "Jerushalmith," from which the text of "Aboth" is taken. Edited for the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press by Charles Taylor, M. A. [now D.D., Master of St. John's College, Cambridge]. Cambridge: at the University Press. 1877. Real-Encyclopädie für Bibel und Talmud. Wörterbuch zum Handgebrauch für Bibelfreunde, Theolo gen, Juristen, Gemeinde- und Schulvorsteher, Lehrer etc., ausgearbeitet von Dr. J. Hamburger, Landrabbiner zu Strelitz in Mecklenburg. Abtheilung II.: Die Talmudischen Artikel A-Z. Strelitz: Im Selbstver lage des Verfassers, 1883. Supplement band, Leipzig, 1886. Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart. Aus den Quellen neu bearbeitet 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. 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.* 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. 66 The anecdotes illustrative of Hillel's patience and suavity, as contrasted with the irritability and harshness of his distinguished contemporary Shammai, are well known, and may be found cited with sufficient fulness and accuracy in the appendix to Archdeacon Farrar's popular Life of Christ;" they need not, therefore, be repeated here. According to one of those anecdotes, Hillel is said to have given utterance to "the golden rule:" "What is hateful to thyself, that do not to thy fellow." Archdeacon Farrar con siders 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 era. 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 BresJau. 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. 2te Auflage, Zweiter Theil. Die inneren Zustände Palestina's und des jüdischen Volkes. Leipzig: Hinrichs. 1886. "Do that to no man which thou hatest." - Tobit iv. 15. 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 been handed down by tradition, unless, as is probable, some of those ascribed to his disciples may originally have proceeded from their master. Hillel urged upon his disciples the importance of studying Scripture for its own sake, and not for any ulterior benefit which such study might bring in its train. This appears to have been the meaning of his aphorism, "He who desires profit from the crown (of learning) perishes; "† or, as a later rabbi expresses 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.) ‡ 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 Syn agogue," 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 most valuable, and even more useful to beginners, for the Hebrew text is there fully pointed. Strack's critical remarks, though short, are most comprehensive, and the price at which his work is published ought to brew is studied. In our citations from "Aboth" in secure its use in every class-room where the later Hethe 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 opportunity 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. |