BY J. BROWNLIE HENDERSON. 8 
ignorance, and the decay of power and ability in the upper 
class could consequently not be mad- up by fresh strong 
recrulis from the body of the people. 
Little is known of the methods of education of the old 
Semitic nations, the Babylonians and Assyrians. There 
was certainly a well-educated class among them, and that 
class gathered together enormous libraries, the one at Nineveh 
containing at least 10,000 books. As the books treat 
of religion, law, literature, astronomy, mathematics, geo- 
graphy, plants and animals, the system had certainly done 
good work. One treatise on astronomy dates back 
nearly to 4,000 B.C. The Hebrew branch of the Semitic 
nations developed a system of education pecuhar to them- 
selves. It was a part of their religion, which was the 
noblest the world had ever seen. The Hebrews believed 
that all law—physical, moral, and legal—was an expression 
of the will of God, so that all their methods of education 
were necessarily concerned with their religion. They be- 
lieved in the equality of man, of course in the general sense, 
and consequently every man had to be educated. We are 
all fairly familiar with the ancient Hebrew methods of 
education. It was laid down by law that parents must 
teach their children the laws of God, and though occasionally 
much neglected, that system has never been abandoned, 
and the obligation of parents to teach their children has 
undoubtedly done much to preserve what is best and 
noblest in Hebrew lives. Unfortunately little attempt was 
made beyond this—the Hebrew child was taught the highest 
moral law that the world had ever known. That was a 
magnificent start in life, but it did not tend to broaden or 
deepen the intellect. The priests and prophets had often 
schools in which were studied law, history, music and poetry, 
but higher education was practically non-existent. Later 
on in their history the scribes taught in the synagogues, 
and used a method of teaching which has been in existence 
until within recent years—the system of question and answer. 
It was used in giving instruction in the synagogue and else- 
where as being the method to which the people were accus- 
tomed by the Greatest Teacher of all time, the Christ. See- 
ing the results He obtained by it, one does not wonder at 
its almost universal acceptance by Christendom. The 
