minimum length also is prescribed. Such compositions are generally written once a-fortnight. The teacher, on returning the corrected exercises to the pupils, tells them how the class generally have succeeded in their work, reads and criticises some of the best and some of the worst, having previously classified and arranged all the compositions according to their comparative merits. Sometimes he reads a composition on the same subject written by himself, to show the class how the work should have been performed to be entirely satisfactory. Sometimes an hour will be spent by the teacher in narrating interesting stories, true or fictitious, or he will ask one and another of the pupils to do so; or some rare book will be read aloud. At other times the teacher will spend an hour in asking enigmas and riddles, which are frequently of a grammatical or etymological nature.

Arithmetic is taught in the lowest two classes of the gymnasium; text books are hardly ever used; very little, if any, cyphering is done in school hours; problems are dictated to be worked out at home, and written out, result as well as the work itself, in a copy-book, which is handed to the teacher in the next recitation, who, in the recitation after, returns it, with his marks noting the correctness or incorrectness of the several sums. The school-hours are taken up partly with the explanation of new rules, &c., and partly with mental arithmetic; in this some scholars attain to great proficiency.

In Algebra the method is very much the same as that followed in this country, only that a text-book is hardly ever used, and the course is consequently slower but more thorough.

In Geometry the method is somewhat different. A text-book, again, is something the pupils in a majority of the gymnasia never hear of. The whole of the first year is spent in what are called the definitions and axioms, which with us are generally despatched in one or two lessons. The method followed subsequently is this: The teacher dictates a proposition, explains all the terms, and ascertains by questioning whether it is understood. Some one of the pupils is now required to draw the figure on the black-board which seems to be demanded by the proposition. If auxiliary lines are necessary, he is either led, by questioning, to find them himself, or other members of the class find them for him; or, if they are of a more complicated nature, the teacher draws them himself. The hypothesis is then stated, as well as the thesis (the thing to be proved), by some formula (if possible) resembling an algebraic one; then the demonstration is found by the pupil, aided by the teacher, in the same heuristic or zetetic manner to which we have had occasion to allude before. The pupils are allowed to take notes of the demonstration, provided their attention is

not distracted by the operation, as they are constantly liable to have questions addressed to them just as much as the one who is engaged at the black board. This demonstration is then fully worked out at home, when care must be taken to have as few words as possible, representing every thing by algebraic signs and by the position of the equations. All the propositions then gone through within one lesson are repeated in the next without the aid of the teacher, when the pupils have an opportunity of supplying defects in their demonstration, and of correcting errors. For the lesson after this, these propositions with their demonstrations are entered in a separate copybook, which is handed to the teacher, at certain stated periods, for inspection and revision. The deduction of corollaries, the solution of problems, and the demonstration of minor propositions not treated of in class, constitute the remainder of the pupil's industry at home.

An important constituent part of an education is the culture of the physical powers. A number of melancholy experiences united to press this truth upon the attention of the Germans. But, as is usual with them, they discussed long and learnedly before they took hold of the idea, and introduced gymnastic exercises into their schools. The pedagogic difficulty with them was to determine whether these exercises were to be performed as play or as work. If they were to be considered as play, then it was contended they did not belong to the school as a school exercise, but considered as work, they would seem altogether to concern only acrobats, jugglers, and so forth, or at best to constitute a part of the regular training of soldiers merely. After much had been spoken and written on the subject, a general assent appears to have been produced to the view which maintains that the aim of these exercises was to bring the youths of a school together in greater numbers, for the purpose of physical and corporeal development, so that, at the same time, they should not be left without supervision. This was effected by the general establishment of turnplätze, gymnasia in the English sense of the word, where gymnastics were made a regular branch of instruction.

The principal methods followed are three in number, which bear severally the names of Jahn's, Spiess', and Ling's. That of which Jahn was the most prominent advocate is the oldest. In 1793, Gutsmuth published his Science of Gymnastics, which is founded, to a great extent, on the ancient Greek art, and which was designed to awaken the attention of parents and teachers to the necessity of giving the body a healthful development, whilst the intellect received its due share of training and exercise. The means which he employed to effect this development was a union of vigorous effort with unrestrained sport. Though

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his endeavours did not fail to turn the thoughts of multitudes to this subject, yet the convulsed state of Europe at that time, the wars of Napoleon, and the general calamities in the train of contending nations, impeded its full development and its progress. But during the time that Germany, and especially proud Prussia, felt the yoke of the Corsican oppressor, Jahn had given to the ancient and yet novel art a new impulse among the descendants of the Teutons. The general armament against France, which almost emptied the universities and gymnasia (these youths were not pressed into the service, they were volunteers)-only stirred up a greater desire among the remainder for personal prowess, and bodily strength and vigour, all of which were greatly advanced by those gymnastic exercises. Jahn's system-if such it can be called, for it is merely a natural development and regular arrangement of play -is by far the most prevalent. To look at one of these places where youths are assembled for gymnastic exercises, one would think each one did just as he pleased, without rule or order; and, in many cases, his supposition would be correct. In fact, this system has no special reference to respiration or muscular action, and teaches only the use of limbs. All it produces appears to be agility, and perhaps boldness. Generally all the pupils of the gymnasium are divided and arranged, not in classes corresponding to those in the school, but in sections according to size and strength, and each of these sections is committed to the special instruction of a poyμvaor's (Vorturner); this latter is either one of the older pupils, or one of the teachers of the gymnasium; and many of us would perhaps be surprised to see some of those learned professors, with whose names and books we have become familiar, and whom we represent to ourselves somewhat like the figure on the cover of Klotz's lexicon, lank, worn-out, in gown and slippers, almost buried amongst musty tomes-to see one of these in the gymnast's linen roundabout, going through some break-neck motions and perilous ventures, or playing leap-frog con amore. A practised teacher of gymnastics superintends and directs the whole. These exercises take place in the open air, twice a-week, for two hours each time, and generally only during the summer months.

But these gymnastics had their evils; they were found, in many instances, to engender a certain degree of bluntness, which soon became rudeness, a pride in personal vigour and strength, a spirit of defiance, and negligence of external forms and appearances, so that when it was found that the various societies of gymnasts (they existed to a very great extent among the people at large) cherished a spirit of liberty by (at least during the time of their gatherings) obliterating distinc

tions derived from birth, by engendering a spirit of equality, and a democratic turn of mind, they were considered in those monarchies as politically dangerous, radical, and revolutionary, and the public places for gymnastic exercises were closed.

Thus this beautiful art languished, at least in the northern parts of Germany, until Prussia, in 1842, again endeavoured to revive it; that is, in connection with the gymnasia. But, in the mean time, a new system had arisen in the south, that of Spiess, who, failing to find thoroughness, order, and method in the old system, wished to make the whole subject much more one of the real and recognised branches of an education. This system makes the attendance of the pupils obligatory, as at any other branch of instruction; the different classes of the gymnasium are taught by different teachers as classes, and not together with other classes, daily at least for one hour-in summer in the open air, in winter in a building; the order of sequence in the exercises, as laid down in the books on the subject, must be strictly attended to, and not deviated from any more than the rules of Latin syntax. There are, however, occasional pedestrian excursions of the whole gymnasium (including the teachers) for amusement, and partly for the exhibition of gymnastic exercises learnt before, and the practice of those for which there is no opportunity in a more or less confined gymnasium.

The third and most artificial system is that introduced by the Central Gymnastic Institute, established at Berlin, which is to educate teachers of gymnastics, inasmuch as it is for want of these that gymnastic exercises have not been introduced yet into all the gymnasia, though the government ordered it about ten years ago. The difficulty was not that of obtaining men qualified to teach gymnastics, but men scientifically educated for the office of instructor, who should act as professors, and, at the same time, discharge the duty of teachers of gymnastics. The government attaches great importance to this office, because these teachers, with their pupils freed from the ordinary restraints of the schoolroom, are found to possess much more direct influence upon them than other teachers. It is also considered of the greatest importance that such teachers should be thoroughly acquainted with anatomy and physiology. The system pursued in that institution, and prospectively to be introduced into all the gymnasia, is that of Ling, a Swede, who divides the whole practice into four parts:

1. Pedagogical gymnastics (subjective-active), which teaches us how to subject our own body to our will.

2. Military gymnastics (objective-active), which teaches us

to subject the will of another person to our own (wrestling, boxing, fencing, &c.)

3. Remedial gymnastics (subjective-passive), by which man endeavours to overcome those anomalies and diseases of the body which have arisen from some abnormal state or condition.

4. Esthetical gymnastics (objective-passive), which teaches us to manifest our thoughts and feelings by attitude and posture, or to express the idea of the beautiful by the movements of the muscles.

In some gymnasia, swimming, riding, and even dancing, are also taught.

Desultory and imperfect as this sketch is, it would be still more so should we pretermit every allusion to the religious position and influence of these gymnasia, the relation of classical studies to the Christian spirit in Germany, and the manner in which they are regarded by the earnest Christians there.

A quarter of a century ago, when F. Thiersch wrote his able work Ueber gelehrte Schulen, he believed he saw no greater foe to Christianity and to its spirit than the materialistic and utilitarian tendencies of the age, which endeavoured to banish the classics from the German gymnasia, or at least to greatly circumscribe their sphere. Nor was he alone of this opinion. Voices most worthy to be heard were raised in defence of a thorough and almost exclusive study of the classics as one of the chief pillars of a truly Christian education and sentiment. So much the more astonishing is it to see at the present time men of equal zeal for Christianity charge the same branch of instruction with being the cause of a great part of the mischief in Church and State, recently experienced there. The fact is, thinking men had always followed with their sorrowing eyes the fearful inroads which rationalism, infidelity, and hostility to Christ were making in their country; and proverbially slow as they are in perceiving the practical bearings of a subject, they met the enemy at impracticable points, and with inefficient weapons. At first the preaching of the word from Sabbath to Sabbath, faithfully and fervently, was believed to be suffi cient to counteract the evil among the people at large; but by degrees they perceived that irreligion was on the increase, and that they would not succeed in sweetening the bitter waters without ascending to their fountain. At this point of time the field of theory became the arena of the combat, and the consequence was that rationalism, as far as its theoretic and literary pretences were concerned, yielded up the ghost. Nevertheless, its advocates continued to parade about the dead carcase, incredulous of its demise, and the people at large