Its commencement has been strangely successful, and everything seems to promise fairly. Round the tables of the Old and New Testament companies the most prominent Biblical scholars of our country, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have assembled: nor is the lay element wanting. The Rules (appended below),* mainly drawn up, we believe, by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, which will guide the long and careful deliberations, plainly show what the character of the work is intended to be. The least possible amount of change consistent with faithfulness may be termed the motto of the two companies. All classes of English Protestants, Churchmen and Nonconformists, will wish them "God speed" in their arduous labours; and for once in the story of England her hostile religious camps meet on common ground. Many earnest and devoted men in both camps are looking at this union as a bright omen of future peace, if not of loving friendship. We confess ourselves, in spite of the dark forebodings of timid and inactive men, to feeling perfect confidence in the result of the work. No doubt, at first, the revisers will try to become improvers; and improvement, rather than correction, will be suggested, and in some instances perhaps even adopted; but as time goes on, and constant practice and discussion teach and discipline, the tendency to improve will give place in the Revising Companies to a spirit ever more and more conservative; and the number of improvements, and even of corrections, will grow fewer and fewer as the work advances. Then, in the second and final revision, the wisdom of Rule 5 will become apparent; for, disciplined by long practice and careful discussion, the revisers will carefully reconsider many words and *The General Principles to be followed by both Companies: 1. To introduce as few alterations as possible into the Text of the Authorised Version consistently with faithfulness. 2. To limit, as far as possible, the expression of such alterations to the language of the Authorized and earlier English versions. 3. Each Company to go twice over the portion to be revised, once provisionally, the second time finally, and on principles of voting as hereinafter is provided. 4. That the Text to be adopted be that for which the evidence is decidedly preponderating; and that when the Text so adopted differs from that from which the Authorized Version was made, the alteration be indicated in the margin. 5. To make or retain no change in the Text on the second and final revision by each Company, except two-thirds of those present approve of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple majorities. 6. In every case of proposed alteration that may have given rise to discussion, to defer the voting thereupon till the next Meeting, whensoever the same shall be required by one-third of those present at the Meeting, such intended vote to be announced in the notice for the next Meeting. 7. To revise the headings of chapters, pages, paragraphs, italics, and punctuation. 8. To refer, on the part of each Company, when considered desirable, to Divines, Scholars, and Literary Men, whether at home or abroad, for their opinions. passages altered in the earlier sittings. The loose nature of the language of the New Testament (Hellenic, not Attic) will have become fully recognised; and, except in cases of undoubted error either in the text or in the translation, we have little doubt that many of the first alterations will be swept away, and the old words restored. The result, then, of the labours of the revisers, to which with real confidence we may venture to look forward, will be to give to the great and wide-spread English nation (we are speaking of the New Testament) a comparatively good and trustworthy text-a text based on that vast accumulated knowledge of manuscripts and versions made available by the labours of scholars during the last two hundred and fifty years-and a translation consistent with itself, free as far as the Greek scholarship of our day can secure it from grammatical error, with those inaccuracies which here and there give false tinges to deduced doctrines removed, yet still preserving in all its many details its old character, in its very alterations the old rhythm and cadence of the Authorized Version. The Revised Version will then, to adopt the words and thoughts of Bishop Ellicott, be a version that reads well, and will be still heard with the old and familiar pleasure with which our present version is always listened to; for few ordinary hearers will ever be conscious that they are listening to anything else than the old well-loved words they have listened to from their childhood. Such a revision of the noblest version of the word of God that the world has ever known will be a good work and a blest, for it will have responded to a just and long-sustained cry from the thoughtful portion of English Protestants; and, while responding to the cry, will yet have laid no rash hands on the ark which contains England's greatest treasure, but "will have handed down to the calm judgment of the holy and wise in distant days and generations yet to come, not an improved but a revised English Testament." HENRY DONALD MAURICE SPENCE. Instances of this looseness of language will occur readily to every scholar as examples of what we refer to. We would quote such passages as Rev. v. 11, ýкovσa φωνὴν ἀγγέλων . . . . καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτῶν. ... μυριάδες μυριάδων . . . . λεγοντες-where Aéyores refers to "innumerable angels" suggested by the whole clause. 1 Tim. iii. 16, τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον ὃς ἐφανερώθη. Gal. iv. 17, ἵνα αὐτοῦς ζηλοῦτε. 1 Cor. iv. 7, ἵνα μὴ φυσιοῦσθε. Phil. ii. 1, εἰ τις σπλάγχνα. αἱ δύο έλαιαι καὶ αἱ δύο λυχνίαι ἑστῶτες. Such forms as ἔγνωκαν κατελίποσαν, εἴδαμεν, ἔφυγαν, αφέωνται, and many more. Again, the force of the aorist as compared with the perfect is still a subject of controversy with New Testament scholars. It has been suggested that writers of the New Testament use perfects where classical Greek writers would have used the aorist, as in such passages as οὐδεὶς ἀναβέβηκεν εἰς τοὺ οὐρανὸν, and the converso, as in the words Λάζαρος ἀπέθανε. .... DAY-SCHOOLS: THEIR ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. I Do not wish to write as a partisan either of day-schools or of the boarding-house, or of what, in the admirable paper which he lately published,* Mr. Bradley of Marlborough calls "the hostel system.' Classing the two latter together for the purposes of this essay, I would say that each method will no doubt continue to have, as each deserves to have, a place in the educational system of the country. There are classes to whom the one, there are classes to whom the other, is a necessity. To the man of moderate means, for instance, resident in London or its suburbs, the dayschool presents itself as a ready means of providing an education for his sons, for which his circumstances scarcely allow an alternative. Those, on the other hand, who live in the country, or in one of the many smaller towns which possess no school of their own, or in which the school is, from any cause, in an unsatisfactory condition, have no choice beyond either educating their sons at homea course often impossible, very seldom indeed satisfactory—or sending them to a boarding-school. But it does not by any means follow that, because each sort of school is a necessity, it is a useless task to institute a comparison between them, and to point out the advantages and disadvantages which each possesses. There is a large class of parents whose circumstances admit of their exercising a choice in Macmillan's Magazine. the matter, and, as there are boys who, from differences of moral temper and mental power, are likely to prosper or fail, according as they are brought under this system or that, it is well that these parents should have the case put plainly before them. Some, again, of the evils which experience enables one to point out admit of being remedied, or at least mitigated; while others may be made harmless, or at least less harmful, by counteracting influences. In any case it is well to know the truth. In this paper I shall endeavour to state, without favour or prejudice, some of the observations which I have made and of the conclusions which I have drawn in a great London day-school; and I cannot, I must be allowed to say, propose to myself a better model than that essay of Mr. Bradley's to which I have before alluded—an essay which, in respect of the candour and the calm and judicial temper in which it is written throughout, is simply perfect. Another word of preface will suffice. It will be seen that much of what is said in the following pages applies mainly to London schools, as they are influenced by the habit of London life-a habit which of late years has become very general-of deserting the City for the suburbs. So far, then, the application of these observations must be limited. But London contains a seventh part of the whole population of England, and probably more than a seventh part of classes which avail themselves of such day-schools as I am now speaking of. And many other towns, especially, I believe, the great manufacturing towns of the North, have for some time been adopting the London habit, and, as the causes which have produced that habit operate on them even more strongly than they do on the metropolis, will probably do so more generally in the future. 1. There are to be considered the difficulties of access to the dayschool, and the consequences, physical, moral, and intellectual, which come from these difficulties. These may be illustrated by a short statement of facts about the school in which my own experience has been gained. Merchant Taylors' School stands within a few hundred yards of London Bridge, and is therefore within easy reach of every metropolitan terminus, the suburban traffic of the Great Western and Great Northern being brought near to it at Moorgate Street, that of the South Western at Cannon Street. It is possible that under these circumstances the proportion of boys coming up to the school from the suburbs may be somewhat larger than would be found elsewhere, though, on the other hand, as admission is a privilege of some value in the hands of a widely-dispersed body of governors, it is probably sought for and obtained with little reference to considerations of residence. A recent inquiry showed me that out of forty-eight boys to whom the question was put (these forty-eight constituting my own forms, and probably giving a fair representation of the whole number), not more than three resided sufficiently near to be able to walk to the school. A few came the whole or part of the way by omnibus, but fully four-fifths of the number were in the daily habit of travelling backwards and forwards from their homes by the railway. Some of the distances thus continually travelled over are large. Gravesend, Erith, Ewell, Sutton, even Crawley, which is thirty miles from London, are among the places from which I have known boys come daily to school. To the length of the railway journey must often be added a considerable distance that has to be passed between home and the station, and another, not long, but adding appreciably to the fatigue, between the terminus and school. It is evident that there must here be a considerable waste of time and strength. As much as two hours and a half will not uncommonly be spent in the mere process of getting to and from school-more time than would suffice either for the necessary preparation of lessons for the next day, or for the play that is not less necessary. Lessons indeed may be, and doubtless often are, learnt in the train, not without possible injury to eyesight and brain-the lightest literature is apt to weary one under these circumstances, and what must be the effect of fixing eye and mind on what are commonly unfamiliar words and an uncongenial task! As for play, it is almost out of the question. At the boarding-school the boy rushes straight from his lessons to the fives-court, to the cricket-field, or to football. His less fortunate brother at the dayschool is obliged to spend the hours which might give him some real recreation in the walk tediously repeated day after day, and the no less monotonous and unprofitable railway journey. As a matter of fact, the ordinary schoolboy sports-surely the healthiest form of amusement, and one which, where the masters will not allow the real work of the school to be neglected, cannot be carried to a hurtful excess are followed with but little zeal and indifferent success at the great day-schools with which I am acquainted. None of the City schools, for instance, could, I imagine, send out an eleven which could contend at cricket or football with any good chance of success with a country school possessing the opportunities of practice close at hand, even though this might be far inferior in numbers, and alsoa most important consideration in such matters-in the average age of the players. This is not because the City boys are really inhabitants of the town,—on the contrary, as has been explained, nearly nine out of ten live in the country,-but they are obliged to waste their play-time in travelling. In default of the healthy sports of cricket, &c., from which they are thus almost shut out, they have recourse to a form of amusement certainly less healthy, and which many teachers and parents are beginning to regard with a justifiable aversion to athletics. For here the opportunities of practice are at hand. Running, under various conditions, supplies more than half |