pline we do give them. Is it always the wisest? Might we not add some mental store?

Such are the simple facts about Grammar School work. They are commended to the consideration of parents and friends who complain about overwork, and to the attention of teachers and committees in whose hands rests the disposal of these precious hours, and from whom some day the community may ask an account for wasted time.

MRS. A. C. MARTIN.

MOUNTING A CAMEL.

FEW places, perhaps, have been so unanimously vituperated as Aden, and I never met with one more deserving of all the rugged things which have been said of it, than this hard-baked, terrestrial antithesis of Paradise. Aden appears to have been. designed by nature to afford the British Government an opportunity to exhibit its skill in engineering and in developing its national debt. As long as this place keeps above water, there is little fear of that financial institution languishing. The chief work consists of a series of tanks cut out of the solid summit of a mountain, but into which no water has as yet found its way, mainly owing to the difficulty of inducing it to flow uphill. The next undertaking was to cut an open road through an adjacent mountain. This affords a means whereby the other sentinel who forms the English army here can get up and relieve the one who spends half of his existence in solitude and contemplation of blasted granite, midway.

Like other maniacs who land here for pleasure, we went up to the town, chartering for that purpose three fourths of an American buggy and half an Arabian steed. The driver, the only complete part of the conveyance, furnished our first acquaintance with the noble Arab. When Jack (the writer's companion) asked him his fare, he produced a tin case containing his diploma and scale of fees, and after rubbing on to his forehead some of the dirt which adhered to it, he laid it at our feet with that quiet dignity and polished ease which characterize this wonderful people. Jack observed that if he was likely to

want it again, and had an objection to its being trodden upon, he had better take it up and drive on,- which he appeared to understand, and we proceeded.

The first remarkable sight which presented itself, was a row of travelling hay-ricks; a close examination revealing the fact that each had a camel hidden inside it. We shortly met several faggot stacks with the same internal complaint. Our Jehu, who evidently thought that name had some relation to "gee up," and hit his horse every time Jack so addressed him, told us in answer to our inquiries, that they belonged to "Nosavey"; we concluded that he must be a great chief hereabouts, and he seems to own the principal part of the settlement. About half-way up, the pluvial kettle boiled over, and we had a hot shower-bath. This was the means of dispelling one of our illusions; for on the first drop, Jehu unwound from his head the twenty-seven and a half yards of cotton shirting which he and his compatriots delight to bind round that end of their persons, and he sat revealed a most ordinary looking nigger, and not a reflective nigger either; for we mutually agreed that if ever there was a garment capable of being benefited by tepid rain-water, it was that cotton cable which he was taking such pains to keep dry.

The houses forming the settlement were probably built four thousand years ago. They are finished, all except the roofs, which in all likelihood will be added in two or three centuries. The chief occupation of the people is contemplation, and the natural products of the place are goats and whitewash. We found a shop where two turbaned sages convinced us of the utility of measuring our mental strength with the wisdom of the East, by forcing upon us a pair of leopard skins (which they had probably stolen) in exchange for about twice the number of rupees which would have bought them in Broadway; and then we concluded to return.

I thought how incongruous it will sound to say, "We drove back to the ship." We are in Arabia, and the camel, that patient fleet, long-enduring ship of the desert, is the proper means of locomotion; so I left the buggy (Jack has no poetical conceptions, and stayed inside), and, hailing a son of Ishmael, made known my desire. He promptly led out a twelve-foot scaffold

ing of bones and mange, to which he addressed some words in a foreign language. The scaffolding replied in a more foreign language, and a louder tone, upon which the Ishmaelite hit it with a golf-stick, and it began to fold up; when it had finished, they told me to get on. This, then, was a camel. I had never seen the feat performed, but having surveyed with interest several of the natives who had got on, I knew pretty well whereabouts to "get," but I was not prepared for the succeeding part of the programme; for I had hardly settled myself upon a protuberance formed, I guess, of paving stones in a gunny-bag, and was beginning to look out for places for my feet and something to hold on by, when the animal, yielding a second obedience to the eloquence of the golf-stick, began to rise. Now, if it would only have done that steadily and calmly, I should not have objected; but the vicious brute seemed to get up in five different places at once. The first movement afforded me a closer view of the sands of the desert than I had yet experienced or intended ; and before I was able to form any decided opinion on that section, I was introduced to a study of the sky checkered with such a rapid recurrence of sea views, that it was n't until the ferocious caravan began to go that I collected my jolted senses. My first discovery was the enormous height to which I had been elevated. The sands were now almost undistinguishable, and the slave who held the rope attached to the end of the machine that went first, looked a mere pigmy. I was at the same time sensible of the extreme affection I entertained for those same sands, tempered with earnest and disquieting fears of a premature and too rapid resumption of their acquaintance.

After two minutes of this agony, the animal began to run, or trot, or whatever else they may choose to call a motion which combines the vivacious dancing of a surf-boat with the wabbling jolt of a congress wagon on a corduroy road. When I had sufficiently mastered the intricacies of this method of navigation to be able to speak without falling off, I signified to Jack, who had driven alongside, that I would pay the nigger just as much if he would let me get down now; and he having communicated this fact to Jehu, and Jehu to the other nigger, and the other nigger, by a repetition of the stick process, to the travelling menagerie,

I was put through another panoramic course, and finally left upon the sands, right end uppermost. I presented the proprietor of this animated instrument of torture with a piece of silver sufficient to board and lodge him for six months, upon which, true to the instincts of his race, he held out his other hand for more. Jack said it was because I had forgotten to kick him, which I think probable. Both he and Jehu chose to assume

that I had n't enjoyed my experiment, although I never uttered a word to that effect. The latter observed, "Englishmans can best ride horses and carriage." I told him I could mostly ride in a four-wheeled carriage without falling off, especially if it was n't after dinner.

I believe arnica possesses healing properties. doctor for some directly on getting aboard.

I shall ask the

E. C. SMITH.

METHODS OF CLASSICAL STUDY.

THE value of oral and written translations of the classics, as a means of education, is sufficiently attested by the universal prominence given to such exercises in school instruction. Whether we seek familiarity with the productions of the regal intellects of antiquity, or inspiration for the work of life, which the contemplation of their sublime thoughts will kindle, or mental culture and the formation of correct principles of taste, it is to translation that we almost instinctively betake ourselves, as being the most natural and obvious means of attaining the desired end. Says the lamented Dr. Arnold, "The study of language seems to me as if it was given for the very purpose of forming the human mind in youth; and the Greek and Latin languages seem the very instruments by which this is to be effected." And subsequently his biographer remarks that he regarded extempore translation "as the only means of really entering into the spirit of the ancient authors."

That the value of an instrument depends chiefly upon the method of its use, is a truth of almost axiomatic clearness. Now translation may be viewed as an instrument of mental growth in the hands of the classical student, and therefore it must conform to the same rule. Rapid and substantial progress in classical

learning, with imperfect methods of translating, ought not to be expected, any more than a mason ought to expect to see the walls of the building he is erecting rise rapidly, so long as he uses the flat part of his trowel for a handle, instead of putting it to its legitimate use of smoothing mortar.

But an exact parallel to the mason's folly may be witnessed in many schools of reputed excellence and thoroughness. The whole aim and purpose of both teacher and pupils seems to be the wrenching and dislocating of their fortunately supple native language, so that it may be remodelled after the compacted, inelastic, classic tongue. "Disjecta membra" can be the only result. They are using the flat end of the trowel for the handle. They have bound a young, living, rapidly growing body to a beautiful but lifeless marble statue, and imagine that this young flesh and blood will shape itself with readiness to the symmetry and rigid repose of its companion.

The adaptation, however, must be mutual; the massiveness of the statue must be toned down, so as to correspond, in some degree, to the litheness of the youth; its majestic countenance must be touched here and there so that the severity of its lines may be somewhat mitigated; while the youthful mien must be made to assume at least the semblance of dignified repose.

Drooping the metaphorcal statement, we affirm that the translations of the classics which one hears in far too many of our schools are of the lowest, most meagre, and most unphilosophical description. Words are indiscriminately transferred: the ablative absolute is rendered with painful literalness; the subjunctive of purpose with 'ut' if of the 3d person, is almost invariably translated, "that he may" or "that he might"; and the relative pronoun must be "who" or "which," even if it stands at the commencement of a clause.

To suppose that such gross violations of English idiom are allowed to pass unchallenged, because the teacher's educational qualifications are insufficient, is simply impossible. Frequently, weariness and physical weakness are the causes to be assigned, but still more frequently, I fear, the absence of a settled determination on the part of the teacher that no superficial or crude translation shall be countenanced.