his voice against the bad reading to be met with in the Volksschulen. The reading in Germany is as weak a point as it is with us. But perhaps it is better here to give the opinion of the Germans themselves rather than my own. The master to whom I have referred, Herr Rektor D., mentions it in one of his books in which he also speaks of what he has been able to effect. During a conversation between some pastors and school inspectors, the question had arisen as to how much ought to be required from a boy entering a Training College, if he had been educated at a Volksschule. This master instanced good reading as one of the three things he should demand.

But

He goes on: "In the greater part of what I said they agreed with me, but upon my asserting that one might reasonably expect good reading from a good national school, a smile of incredulity was to be seen on all their faces, plainly showing what they thought. I understood it well, and hastened to add, not reading à la Tieck, but simply a clear, well-emphasised and fluent style of rendering a passage. this limitation was not accepted, the incredulous smile remained, and one after another gave the opinion that as far as his experience went, there was no school that would come up to my expectations in that respect, on the contrary, they were far behind, for the most part very far behind them." However, the Herr Rektor has not only brought a better order of things into his own school, but in a great measure into the whole neighbourhood. He has also set himself against Raumlehre for girls, and in that district Government sanctions the elder girls having four hours a week for needlework and knitting. The girls in his school have only a needlewoman from the town to teach them, so there is an absence of all system, but the specimens I have of the work are the best of those from Germany.

I spoke of having visited the Beuggen Institution. It was at the time of its

inspection by the Baden authorities. The reading there was wonderfully good, and I had an opportunity of seeing a little of how the result was arrived at. It seems that the great point is, not that the children shall read much, but that they shall learn to think of what they are doing from the very first. In one of the lowest classes a little boy in reading three short words put the emphasis on the Herr Direktor Zeller, son wrong one. of the founder of the Institute, immediately made him stop, and try to think what was to be said, and with the most unwearying patience made him try, or let the others say it, until the poor little fellow managed to get it right. He seemed to have been frightened at all the committee looking at him. There was not another child in the class that did not know where the fault lay,—a rather different state of things from ours, where knowing all the words is called reading. At an inspection I was at last spring in the neighbourhood of London, a large class of boys and girls were to read to the Inspector's Assistant. A boy began: "The po-ta-to in its native soil.America is small and not fit to be eaten." "Oh, stop! try again," said the teacher, jokingly. "I thought you were going to tell me about the potato, not about America." The boy read it again exactly in the same way. I glanced down the whole class and saw that not one of the faces showed that the children knew what was meant when he was again told he was wrong. However, the assistant, who was evidently an experienced teacher, soon brought them to understand, and then they were all much amused. But every child must have read that lesson some dozen times. The fact of one boy making such a mistake was not to be wondered at; he might have been shy or stupid; but that not one of the children could discover the mistake was somewhat startling.

To try and make children imitate the teacher's reading, particularly if he happens to be a pupil-teacher and

likely to give an exaggerated emphasis, or to deliver the sentence, instead of reading it, is, to say the least, not always a safe experiment, and one it would require caution in using; but to teach a child to understand what he reads is something quite different. We do not want mannerism, but we do want sense.

The reading was excellent at BAt the beginning of one of the lessons there I thought what model little girls were before me, for they kept their eyes so attentively fixed on their books. However, I soon found out the reason; before more than a dozen lines had been read, the books were closed, and one girl after another had to repeat something of what they had read. Questions were asked, little anecdotes told to illustrate the subject, and the piece read over again before going on farther, sometimes by the master, sometimes by one of the girls. Only a few read, but all were interested and engaged.

Before concluding, I must again touch on the subject of the needlework.

For the last few years the Germans have become conscious of the way in which it has been neglected, and have established a few schools, principally in Berlin, where teachers are trained and required to pass a government examination before taking situations. But these teachers are only for middle-class schools. These Training Schools have also special classes for children. It may have been from them that the much vaunted work came. I visited one such school and saw a class of little girls at work, and also the pupils preparing for their examination. latter had to do some knitting, crochet,

The

embroidery, plain work and the muchtalked-of German darning, which is really only weaving by hand with needle and thread. A perfect mistress of it might make the pattern of any kitchen table-cloth, but it is not possible to imitate damask. The pupils are obliged to show nine different patterns darned into a piece of coarse linen. It is very ingenious, but when I heard from one lady that if she worked very hard, she hoped to get the nine done at the end of three weeks, the unpractical side of German teaching seemed to me again to show itself. Fancy an English girl of eighteen, just come from school, being set to darn a kitchen table-cloth with half a dozen holes in it, and after three days hard work, finishing one of them. I am afraid by that time her mother would have lost all patience, and certainly would not let her attempt the rest.

There are many points connected with the middle-class schools I should have liked to bring forward, but for the present enough has been said to prove that the German system of education is not a very safe one to follow.

There is one thing more. The Germans sometimes affirm that we think more highly of Goethe than they do. Be that as it may, we shall do well to remember his warning. He told his countrymen that they would be

THE question of railway communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf has long occupied the attention of many practical men both in the world of commerce and in that of politics, but hitherto speculators and investors have been deterred from attempting the work owing to a fear of losing their money through the maladministration of the Turkish Empire, a fear which, now that England has undertaken the protection of the Asiatic Provinces on the condition that their administration should be reformed, ought to be deemed groundless. Many routes have been proposed, but though none present obstacles as great as those that have been already successfully overcome in various parts of the world, the only one which at the present time would prove remunerative to its constructors is that whose course I will endeavour briefly to trace.

Other lines have to traverse mountain ranges, waterless plains, or tracts of country inhabited only by the wandering Bedouins, where labour would be costly, and where the local traffic would not be sufficient to constitute the main source of revenue, without which it is rare indeed that a railway can be depended upon its way.

to pay The best line, in my opinion, would be that which, starting from the Mediterranean port of Tripoli, would pass by the great commercial centres of Aleppo, Orfa, Mardin, Mosul, and Baghdad, and have its eastern terminus, for the present, at the port of Bushire on the Persian Gulf.

Other ports on the Mediterranean have been proposed as termini for the line, but after carefully weighing their respective merits, none, I believe, can at all compete with Tripoli. In this matter I have changed my opinion, as

at different times I have been an advocate for both Latakiah and Ayas Bay. This, however, was before I had visited Tripoli and seen the admirably easy path from that town to the plains around Homs.

El Arish, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Latakiah, El Ruad, Seleucia, Iskanderûn, and Ayas have all had arguments advanced in their favour, but to all objections apply, though not in each case with equal force.

El Arish is so far south that a line thence would have to pass through desert and arid plains, where for the greater portion of the year no water could be obtained, and when that necessary of life is to be found, the country is overrun by the Aneizah and Djebel Shammar tribes of Arabs, who here, even more entirely removed from the authority of any government than they are in their northern pastures, would feel themselves at liberty to obstruct any works which might seem even remotely to threaten their dearlyprized freedom.

Tyre has been advocated by no less an authority than Captain Burton; but though in most matters I would bow to him as to a master, I must differ from him in this. The old port of Tyre in its palmiest days was only fit for the war-galleys of that age and for merchantmen which, presumably from the coins and sculptures, were the forerunners of the Arab dhow, and could scarcely have even then accommodated one of our modern steamers. This port, such as it was, has been ruined by the moat constructed by Alexander the Great when he took and destroyed the town. The line would lead in the interior through an unproductive country which would scarce supply the necessary

water for the locomotive, and where the local traffic would be almost nil.

Sidon has a small harbour, but it is open to northerly and north-westerly winds, and is not of sufficient capacity for such an important port as the Mediterranean terminus of a line joining the East to the West would become. The country behind Sidon is mountainous, and presents great engineering difficulties.

Beirut is cut off from the interior by the range of the Lebanon, and any attempt to form a port there would involve an immense outlay. It has attained its present importance and magnitude owing to a series of fortuitous occurrences. The debarkation of the French troops in 1860 led, though indirectly, to the construction of the only road worthy of the name in Asiatic Turkey, viz., the French road across the mountains from Beirut to Damascus, which is now thronged by tourists of every nation and degree, and makes Beirut the most frequented of all Syrian ports.

Latakiah has an ancient port, but, like all other ancient ports on the coast, it is small and silted up. The construction of a railroad across the mountains behind Latakiah could only be effected by a large expenditure of time and labour, and necessarily of capital. Another bay which might otherwise have perhaps answered as a port for Latakiah is barred by dangerous reefs.

El Ruad, more a small roadstead than a port, is sheltered by an island, and considerable works would be required in order to fit it for the purpose of a port of embarkation and debarkation of mails and passengers. A range of mountains would again have to be passed in this case as well as in that of Latakiah.

Seleucia, the ancient port of Antioch, might no doubt be very easily dredged out, and a line to Aleppo would not have to encounter very steep gradients, but the Nahr el Asy (Orontes) must be so often bridged that, flowing as it does in a deep, narrow valley, at many

places a mere gorge, it would cost as much to construct this line as if the passage to Aleppo were barred by a severe range of mountains. I have heard the number of bridges estimated as high as sixteen in the first sevenand-twenty miles, and all of these would be works of considerable difficulty to the engineer.

Alexandretta or Iskanderûn possesses a fine roadstead, but no harbour, and is by all authorities admitted to be the most unhealthy point on the coast. Some say that draining the marshes would render it healthy, and that this can be done easily and cheaply; others, and notably Mr. Barker, who may be considered the best informed authority, thinks that this operation would be costly, and, when completed, of little use, owing to the peculiar atmospheric conditions prevailing during a great part of the year, induced by the configuration of the mountains surrounding most of the bay. To reach Aleppo from Iskanderûn, the Beilan Pass must be crossed, an engineering work of no mean difficulty, and which would either require a tunnel of enormous length or a mountain railway. former would be costly in construction, and the latter, as far as our experience goes at present, would entail such an expenditure of motive power, as to be only worked at a loss for a heavy goods traffic.

The

Ayas Bay, which lies opposite Iskanderûn, is the best natural port at present existing on this coast, but a long detour would be necessary, and very severe mountains would have to be passed ere Aintab, the first objective point of a line leaving Ayas, could be reached, so that the cost would be even greater than by the Beilan Pass from Iskanderûn.

Tripoli (Tarabulus es Shams) possesses more natural advantages and fewer disadvantages than any of the above ports, and is also nearer to Famagusta than any except El Ruad and Latakiah. The whole line to Aleppo would pass through a grain-producing country, of which a fair proportion is

now cultivated, and which before the days of the Mohammedan domination was thickly populated, and studded with prosperous towns. Tripoli at present has a magnificent roadstead which offers enormous facilities for the construction of a port of almost any magnitude; indeed the size of the port need only be limited by financial considerations. The trade of the place is even now considerable, and had it the advantage of a railway, it would at once absorb all that of Iskanderûn, Antioch, and Latakiah, and a great portion of that of Beirut.

After leaving the plains which fringe the sea, the hills between it and the level country around Homs can easily be crossed by the Wadys Kara Chibok and Eyne Soody as far as the small, lovely, and fertile plain of the Bukeiá. After passing the Bukeiá, the country for the first three miles would present some difficulty, but nothing that can be compared with any part of the mountainous tracts traversed by the other routes; indeed the only difficulty which presented itself to me at Hadeedy when passing this piece of country, was to decide which of the numerous wadys intersecting it could be most easily utilised to bring the line from the lower level of the Bukeiá to that place.

After Hadeedy no engineering difficulty whatever presents itself till the crossing of the Orontes at Rusta, about fourteen miles north of Homs. The old Roman road descended into the narrow valley, and again rose out of it after crossing the river by gradients too steep for the ordinary locomotive, and it would probably be necessary to construct a viaduct five hundred yards long and fifty feet high at the highest point on the southern side, and a cutting of half a mile in length, and from fifty to sixty feet deep, at its commencement, running to nothing at its termination on the northern side.

From Rusta to Aleppo there is no difficulty worth mentioning; in some

places bridges over small torrent beds and streams would be necessary; in others, small detours made to avoid steep gradients, and occasionally an incline of from one in two hundred to one in one hundred and fifty, and perhaps one or two short cuttings.

From Aleppo to the Euphrates, at the embouchure of the Nahr Sadschur, the greater portion would be quite level, and the remainder over two gentle elevations in the plain shortly before arriving at Mombedj (Hierapolis), and nearly the whole distance through wheat-producing districts. To cross the Euphrates a bridge would be required, but as there is at present a camel ford, although the bridge would be of considerable length, there would be no great engineering difficulty; indeed, the foundations of the piers (or the piles) on which the bridge would be supported, might mostly be built (or driven) on the islands which divide the river and are dry during the greater portion of the year.

Once the Euphrates is crossed, and fifteen miles of slightly hilly country passed through (by making trifling detours, and increasing the distance travelled to twenty miles, all earthworks may be avoided), a level plain brings us to Haran, situated about twenty miles from the important commercial centre of Orfa.

To reach Orfa, a divergence from the direct line might be made, or a short branch line run off, if it should be deemed more advisable; but all is quite level as far as Khan Medscheri, where some very low hills divide the plains of Haran from the great northern plain of Mesopotamia. Nowhere do these hills offer any serious obstacles, and they only extend for a distance of ten miles or thereabouts. Once on the great plains there are no works whatever required to reach Mosul, except bridging a few small streams from ten to twenty feet in width, at one place near Ischill Agha, where either a detour should be made, or earthworks constructed of moderate size, for a distance of seven miles,