226 



The Reviews Reviewed, 



THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 



The August number possesses much diversified 

 interest. 



SCHOOLMASTERS ANCIENT AND MODERN. 



Mr. J. L. Paton find.s in the Order in Council which 

 provides for the formation of a teachers' register the 

 . establishment of teaching as a profession. It removes 

 the fear that the teacher would become a Civil Servant 

 in England as he is in Germany. The Council of 

 Registration will be to the teaching profession what 

 the General Medical Council and the Law Society are 

 to their respective professions. It must define the 

 teacher ; it must enforce the standard of qualification ; 

 it must create mutuality of trust and co-operation. 

 Mr. Paton thus distinguishes : — " A trade is what we 

 do to live : a profession is what we live to do." He 

 hopes that there will be a closer association of the 

 teaching profession with the universities. School- 

 masters in ancient Greece, as described in a recently 

 unearthed Greek inscription from the site of the 

 ancient city of Miletus, is the subject of a most interest- 

 ing paper by Mr. C. Robinson. The cost of the public 

 elementary education of this ancient city was met by 

 the patriotic generosity of wealthy citizens. The 

 teachers were elected by the show of hands ol the 

 citizens. The tablet contains a recapitulation lesson in 

 grammar of an intricate and perplexing kind. The 

 .School Guardians visited the schools regularly to 

 inspect. The schoolmasters were paid at the rate of 

 good unskilled labourers, but were much looked down 

 upon. 



THE RELIGION OF THE FRENCHMAN. 



Canon Lillev contributes an admirable study on this 

 subject, which he thus sums up : — 



The French mind even .at its freest has not consciously .ibjiirecl 

 Catholicism. At most it sits loosely to the practices of religion 

 mainly on account of what seems to it the negative allilude of 

 the official Church in its dealings with the world oi con- 

 temporary action, ^'et a new sense of religious need is every- 

 where making itself felt throughout the national life. On the 

 depth and intensity of this need depends llie influence it will be 

 able to exercise on the Church. And that in the end must be 

 the measure of the Church's influence upon it. The Modernist 

 spirit already exists abundantly in the leaching Church, but it 

 will never be eftectively released and justified unless it also 

 exists as an urgent irresponsible demand of the spiritual life of 

 the people. 



WHY ANTAGONISE THE CHINESE ? 



Mr. MacCallum Scott, M.P., calls attention to the 

 arbitrary action of the Colonial Office, which, without 

 consulting either Parliament or the local Legislative 

 Assemblies, has deprixcd all non-l",uropean British 

 subjects in Hong Kong, the Straits ,-iettlements. and 

 the Federated Malay States of tht^ right they pre- 

 viously enjoNcd of obtaining by exani.nation appoint- 

 ment to Government posts. The Straits Settlements 

 were included in the Imperial proclaii.ation which gave 



the people of India free and impartial admission to 

 offices in the Royal service. We have thus broken 

 faith. The Colonial Office has also abolished the 

 Queen's Scholarships formerly tenable by non- 

 Europeans. So " The British Empire, even in its 

 Chinese colonies, has no place for an educated and 

 ambitious Chinaman " : — 



The young Uritish-born Chinaman who is ambitious for a 

 career will be driven to find it in China itself; but he will go 

 there with no friendly feelings to the stepmother who has driven 

 him out. The British Empire will be to him, not an i]/w,r 

 mater, but a type of alien despotism and exclusiveness, which 

 must be resisted at all costs in China. There are many young 

 Chinamen training themselves for the future developmeiU of 

 their country in Germany, France, .\merica and Japan. Their 

 culture, though Western in character, will naturally be of an. 

 anti-British type. 



Mr. Albert Dorrington describes the difficulties of a 

 settler in Australia. The Rev. H. W. Clark thinks that 

 the ejection of 1662, while it increased the number of 

 Xonconformists, helped to weaken the stalwart w-itness^ 

 borne by the original Separatists and Independents. 



THE NORTH AxMEKICAN REVIEW. 



The July number is marked by much of the spirit 

 ol an apologia for the Constitution and policy of the 

 United States. The editor inveighs against the pleas 

 for social justice that are being widely circulated a.s. 

 being Socialism, and therefore directed against tITe best 

 interests of the American Republic. 



Senator Lodge feels it his duty to take up the 

 cudgels in defence of the Constitution, which for more 

 than a century American people have been wont to 

 reverence profoundly, but which of late has been made 

 the subject of persistent and widespread attack. He 

 glorifies the makers of the Constitution, the spirit and 

 the record of the Constitution. That such a defensive 

 utterance is felt to be necessary supplies a very signi- 

 ficant indication of the movement of public opinion in 

 the United States. 



Mr. Charles A. Conant justifies the strong action ol 

 the United States in Nicaragua. The effect of American 

 influence seems to have been to overthrow a most 

 galling tyranny, and to give the sense of security- 

 necessary to the prosperous development of the country. 



Rear- Admiral Mahan outlines the chief departments 

 of the science of naval war as taught in the Naval 

 College. 



The letters of Samuel F. B. Morse, written in 1S12. 

 declare that the United States acquired among the 

 nations of Europe in the late contest with England 

 such a reputation that none, England least of all. would 

 wish to embroil themselves with them. 



Papers on Syndicalism, Cuba, and Yuan Shi Kai 

 have been separately noticed. 



