make every well wisher to his species careful not to impede the progress of so benevolent an object. Whatever views, therefore, physicians may have taught us to entertain in our own case, we cannot but wish well to a system which has rescued so many thousands of our fellow creatures from one of the most degrading and destructive of vices.

A Visit to the East, comprising Germany and the Danube, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Idumea. By the Rev. HENRY FORMBY, M.A.

Since the application of steam to the propulsion of our vehicles by land or water, distance, as measured by time, has been so far annihilated, that a tour of years has become one of months, and books of travels are no longer what they once were, matters of rare and extraordinary occurrence. Nor is it less observable that our travellers themselves appear to have their mental perceptions accelerated in a somewhat corresponding ratio. The author of the work before us exclaims indeed, "Alas! that steam and romance should have no congeniality!" but then he presently disclaims the verbatim manner of setting down all he meets with, and prepares his reader for an account of his Danube Voyage upon quite a different plan. Whatever may be thought of this in the abstract, Mr. Formby's readers will in the present instance be the gainers by it, for it has enabled him to bring into a very moderate compass a vast deal of information, much of which, if not new, will at least have the air of novelty, as coming through a new channel. There is, however, considerable interest in the work; and as an actual tour over so many countries, mixed with much personal adventure and agreeable remark, we are pleased in recommending it as an instructive and portable volume. The illustrations, for the most part engraved from the author's own sketches, are highly creditable.

A Review of the Administration of the Board of National Education in Ireland, from its Establishment in 1831 to 1843; with Suggestions for its Improved Administration. By DURHAM DUNLOP, Esq. M.R.I.A.

The vital importance of education for Ireland needs not a word of proof: her wasted energies, her fearful privations, and her alarming disorganization, speak with trumpet tongues for its necessity; at least to our understanding, convinced as we are that a physical would follow on a moral renovation, but cannot precede it, and that it is vain to look for one without the other. It is not of the existing population of Ireland that rational hopes can be fairly entertained, since with the adults the seed time is passed, and it were vain to look for the harvest; but it is for their children, if we have only the Christian policy to give them education, that we may fairly look with hope to see a rejoicing product from a labour which ought indeed to be one of love.

Thus feeling, we rejoice to call attention to the pamphlet now before us; and what though there seem severity in its probings, yet is the lancet of the physician a friendly one. It consists of a searching inquiry into the mode in which the National Board of Education in Ireland have performed their onerous duties; and we hold that they who have discharged their responsibilities with a single eye, may well rejoice at the investigation which brings their good deeds to light, whilst those who have proved themselves unprofitable servants deserve exposure. Human systems will ever be defective, more especially at their outsets, whilst measures are undertaken in the dark and on a venture; but when the officials act up to the best of an honest belief, and a well exercised judgment, no blame attaches to their imperfectibility; but when they hold in their hands an unrecognized responsibility, and suffer their faculties to contract the rust of indolence and indifference, then are they indeed unprofitable servants. The justice that arraigns may look like severity, but he who exercises it performs an act of patriotism. We look upon Mr. Dunlop to have done this. With all our sympathies open to the suffering condition of our unhappy sister kingdom, we always rejoice in an opportunity of bringing her claims before those who may be efficient in the consideration of means of redress; and thus feeling, we must say that this pamphlet deserves attention, should suggest inquiry, ought to stimulate investigation. Ignorance and abuses have assuredly crept in, when all should have been vigorous and clear-sighted. The large government grants have in fact done little in proportion to the efficiency which they should have commanded. Our limits will not allow us to enter diffusely on the question, but we shall rejoice at a wide circulation of the document; and we gladly make space for some of Mr. Dunlop's suggestive improvements in the Training System of the Teachers, fully concurring in that observation of Mr. Colquhoun before the Lords' Committee on Education, that "in all cases the master is the school."

"The main defect in the course of instruction, pursued in the Training Department of the Board, is its discordant comprehensiveness-not being at all adapted to the time allowed for training, and having no reference whatever to the capacity or previous acquirements of the teachers.

"The comprehensiveness of the course is such as to demand, at least, two years' diligent study for the teachers to attain the requisite proficiency. The truth of this will be manifested by a reference to the synopsis of lectures, published in page 17, et seq. Yet the time allowed by the Board for the teachers to go through such an extensive course is just four months!

"Ridiculous as this is, however, the method of training is infinitely more absurd. Some sixty or eighty teachers are brought up to Dublin at a time, from various parts of the country, and are all subjected to the same course of lecturing. A matter of primary consideration is entirely overlooked-their proper classification. They are all strapped and harnessed together-all obliged to go through the same hot-pressed process, and are all turned out, at the end of four months, as trained teachers!

"It requires little argument to prove that a course of well-digested Normal instruction ought to have especial reference to the capacity of the teachers, and the extent of rudimental knowledge they possess. It is utterly impracticable to carry out with effect any sound practical system

of training, unless it be based on the principle of classification, for the plain reason that you cannot get classes all possessing the same capacity for acquiring knowledge-the same habits of diligence, and the same extent of information. Unless the principle of classification is adopted, and the nature of the instruction meted out according to the measure of the capacity and standing of the teachers, all efforts effectually to train them— especially in the short period of four months-must prove, if not entirely, at least in a great degree abortive. Yet this salutary principle is wholly overlooked by the Board. The teachers are all huddled together in one class the professors lecture to them all indiscriminately, and thus time and opportunity are sacrificed-money squandered, and effectual training caricatured!

"In point of discipline, too, the administration of the Training Department is most defective. The teachers reside at Glasnevin, three miles from Dublin. They are marched into town each morning, and attend one professor for one hour on five days in the week, and another for one hour on four days in the week. They attend also, during a portion of each day, in the Model Schools, professedly for the purpose of being educated in the art of teaching, and are marched out again to Glasnevin in the evening, when they are drilled by the Agriculturist. Thus their time is uselessly consumed-their minds distracted by a discordant multiplicity of subjects-systematic training is discarded, and it is impossible to enforce a proper system of intellectual or moral discipline. The professors cannot do so, because the teachers are actually under their care only nine hours in the week-they cannot, therefore, exercise that vigilant control over habits, and wholesome direction over study, which well-ordered discipline necessarily implies.

Discipline cannot be efficaciously enforced, if it be relaxed and partial. General superintendence is not discipline. Meeting the teachers in the morning, when they arrive from Glasnevin, and marshalling them again in the afternoon, when they return, is not discipline. What is required is constant and watchful intercourse-not the unproductive intercourse which results from a few hours' lecturing in the week. On the contrary, intellectual and moral discipline ought to be enforced-the one by a strict adherence to a systematic course of well-digested instruction— the other by the force not of precept alone, but of continuous example. "Thus then we sum up briefly the principal defects in the Training Department of the board :

1. The course of instruction is not at all adapted or designed to raise up such a class of Elementary Teachers as the wants of Ireland demand. "2. The extreme disproportion between the comprehensiveness of the course-to attain proficiency in which would require at least two years' diligent study-and the time allowed by the Board for the teachers to remain in training-which is only four months.

"3. The total absence of all classification in training.

"4. The non-enforcement of a proper system of mental and moral discipline.

"These defects naturally suggest their remedies. We are quite aware that the Board's apologists have sought to palliate the great imperfections of the Training Department, by dwelling on the unavoidable necessity of the Board's employing such masters and mistresses as Ireland afforded, until measures could be organized for procuring a proper supply of competent teachers.'

"This might have served as a reasonable excuse in '35, or even in ’37 ; but such an apology is wholly inadmissible in 1843, when the Board should have completed the proper organization of its Training Department. If it was ever intended to organize it, eleven years surely was time sufficient to allow for that purpose, and yet, after the expenditure of nearly half a million of money, and eleven years of valuable time, we find the Training Department in the wretchedly imperfect state we have described."

The Countinghouse Manual. By " CALCULATOR."

The Countinghouse Manual presents a comprehensive, though simple system of practical bookkeeping, from which every tradesman may select what is most suited for his own particular business; we know of no better formula from which to prepare a return for the income tax, nor one by which every man may know at all times whether he is living on his capital, or profits derived from trade.

The author gives his very simple method for calculating interest at five per cent., from which he deduces all other rates. The rule is, "Take half of the principal above the unit figure, count it for pounds; if one remains, reckon it ten, to which add the unit figure for shillings; thus the interest on 37,5317. is 1,8767. 11s." While his work was in the press he discovered what he candidly acknowledges to be a better plan (we believe it to be Lord Brougham's method). The rule is, Multiply the given number of pounds by twice the rate per cent. Take the unit for the pence, and the remaining figures are the shillings. Thus 837. at two per cent. is multiplied by four, which makes 63,2, that is, 3838. 2d.; this plan is so concise, that it must be valuable in calculating commissions, brokerage, &c., progressing as it does with unerring certainty from 1-8th per cent. ad infinitum.

History of the Hawaian or Sandwich Islands, embracing their Antiquities, Mythology, Legends, Discovery by Europeans in the Sixteenth Century, Re-discovery by Cook, with their Civil, Religious, and Political History, from the Earliest Traditionary Period to the Present Time. By JAMES JACKSON JARVES, Member of the American Oriental Society.

There is always something intensely interesting in watching the gradual developement of civilization in any country, and we know of none of the little green spots of earth rising out of the bosom of the ocean for the habitations of man where this is more true than of the Sandwich Islands. Considered as bearing upon the interests of France, England, and America, these islands are of vast political importance, yet to the eye of the philanthropist and the philosopher, they furnish other material of abundant speculation and contemplation, and the history which the American traveller and author, Mr. James Jackson Jarves, has here given us, is as really interesting in its arrangement and management as in its material. Writing from personal observation, we have a faithful description from the best means of its attainment, since no hearsay evidence can equal that of the bodily organs; and while the present is displayed in the colours of existing truth, the past has been narrowly investigated to furnish its own history. Thus Mr. Jarves has produced a really capable and interesting work, into which is crowded a vast mass of information, of which perhaps the most important feature is the theology of the land, though its domestic usages might seem to rival such a preference. We make room for an interesting extract of one of the last grand ceremonials of heathenism.

10

"On the 26th of the same month, his majesty held his annual festival in celebration of the death of Kamehameha I. On this occasion he provided a dinner in a rural bower, for two hundred individuals. The missionaries and all respectable foreigners were present; and the dresses were an improvement upon the costume of the preceding year. Black was the court colour, and every individual was required to be clothed in its sombre hue. Kamamalu appeared greatly to advantage. The company were all liberally provided for by her attentions, and even a party of sailors, to the number of two hundred, who were looking on with wistful eyes, were served with refreshments. While at the table, a procession of four hundred natives appeared in single file, clad in white, and deposited their taxes at the feet of the king. The festival was prolonged for several days, and was concluded by a procession in honour of his five queens. Its ceremonies were striking and interesting: the more so as being the last national exhibition of their more ancient customs, combined with the splendour derived from commerce, and arranged by their taste. Kamamalu was the most conspicuous personage in the ranks. She was seated in a whaleboat, placed upon a frame of wicker-work, borne on the shoulders of seventy men. The boat and the platform, which was thirty feet long by twelve wide, were overspread with costly broadcloth, relieved by the richest coloured and most beautiful samples of tapas. The carriers marched in a solid phalanx, the outer ranks of which wore a uniform of yellow and scarlet feather cloaks, and superb helmets of the same material. This queen's dress was a scarlet silk mantle, and a feather coronet. An immense Chinese umbrella, richly gilded and decorated with tassels and fringes of the same gaudy colour, supported by a chief, wearing a helmet, screened her from the sun. Kalaimoku and Naihe stood behind her on either quarter of the boat, both in malos, or girdles of scarlet-coloured silk, and lofty helmets. Each bore a kahili, the staff of royalty; these were nearly thirty feet high, the upper part being arranged so as to form a column or plume of scarlet feathers of a foot and a half in diameter, and from twelve to fourteen feet long; the handles were surrounded with alternate ivory and tortoiseshell rings, beautifully wrought and highly polished. A more magnificent insignia of rank, conveying at once the ideas of grandeur, state and beauty, as they towered and gracefully nodded above the multitude, was never devised by barbarians.”

Reform your Waltzing. The True Theory of the Rhenish or Spanish Waltz, and of the German Waltz à Deux Temps, Analysed and Explained for the First Time. The figure of 8, in both these Waltzes, on an entirely new principle. By an Amateur.

We pass from the grave to the gay—it is a pleasant transition. Not but that our author is grave enough, but then it is on a gay subject. True it is that clumsy trifles are worse than clumsy substantialities, and perhaps for this reason, that the one is a voluntary, the other a requisite thing, and that the necessity of the deed not only excuses but warrants the mode of its doing. But waltzing is not an imperative thing, and therefore, if it be done at all, it ought to be well done, and to do it well we could find no possible adviser or instructor so capable as the "Amateur" in his little work before us. He tells us in his title-page, that "Waltzing is the art of a gentleman, and never yet was taught or understood by a dancing master," and so proceeds to define, to describe, to explain, to illustrate, and to make his 1, 2, 3, as a, b, c, as possible; and this he has done right well. We know not