schools of commerce abroad; but one of the distinguishing characteristics of the high schools of France and Belgium, and to a less extent of the academy at Vienna, is the instruction in office practice, which goes by the name of the Bureau Commercial or Muster Comptoir. By the "Bureau Commercial" is meant practice in carrying on between different classes or comptoirs, mercantile transactions, similar, so far as circumstances permit, to those carried on between mercantile firms in different parts of the world. For example: a student in the German comptoir is told to suppose himself at Hamburg, and is required to purchase a certain quantity of cotton, say from New York. He writes a letter in German to his supposed agent in New York, asking for particulars as to the cost of the cotton required. This letter, before being sent, is submitted to and corrected by the German professor. He receives from another student a reply written in English, in which the particulars of prime cost, package, freight, duty, etc., are expressed in the coinage and weights of the United States. This reply the student trans. lates into French, and his translation is revised by his instructor. The transaction is then completed by forwarding a bill, which is duly made out by the student. As far as possible all the incidents of the transaction are brought under the notice of the student, and all the office-work connected with it is done in the different comptoirs of the school.

It is contended that, by introducing a certain appearance of reality into the correspondence connected with a commercial transaction, the student's intelligence is exercised, and habits of care and accuracy are formed; and that a facility is acquired in corresponding in foreign languages which could not be otherwise obtained. It is evident that, in a course of exercises and correspondence extending over a year, and dealing with different kinds of merchandise, the student must acquire the ability to read and write foreign business letters, as well as an acquaintance with foreign system of weights, measures, and coinage, and with arithmetical problems in which these occur. But whether such practical knowledge could be better acquired in a merchant's or banker's office, and whether the time thus occupied at school or college might be more usefully employed in the study of the ordinary subjects of instruction, is an educational question which, without further experience of the working of the system, I find it difficult to answer. The evidence I have been able to gather from masters and merchants abroad leads me to believe that this special instruction is highly valued, and the fact that it has been introduced into the new school of the Chamber of Commerce of Paris, and that it is about to be extended to the more recently opened school of the same kind at Genoa, would seem to show, that those who have had experience of the working of the system regard

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this instruction as a useful introduction into commercial life. this point, however, as on many other, doctors differ. The director of the Antwerp Academy informed me that students who had completed this course of "bureau commercial" were much sought after by merchants, who attached the highest value to the instruction. On the other hand, we are told that the director of the Vienna school is of opinion that the system, "especially for large numbers of pupils, is superficial, and tends to no really useful results." It is, however, still retained in a somewhat modified form at Vienna, although confined to the work of the last year. In Prague, the French system prevails. What is evidently wanted, is to inform young men as to the kind of correspondence which is carried on in commercial houses, and to teach them to conduct the correspondence in foreign languages. Whether this can be best effected by the method adopted in Paris, Antwerp, Prague, or Vienna must for the present be left undecided.

There is another subject of instruction common to all schools of commerce, of the value of which there can be no doubt-viz., commercial geography. It is a wide subject, the study of which, if properly pursued, might by itself constitute a liberal education. In this country, it has never yet received the attention which its importance demands. In a letter to the late Lord Iddesleigh, appended to the Report of the Commissioners on the Depression of Trade, Commander Cameron specifies the various heads under which commercial geography should be studied, and shows how essential is a knowledge of the subject to those engaged in mercantile business." In Germany," he says, "there are no less than fifty-one publications devoted to the cause of commercial geography, and there are many societies specially founded for its study. These societies have agents in various parts of the world, who conduct all sorts of inquiries. They find out not only what goods are required in various markets, but also the precise mode of packing to suit the idiosyncrasies of buyers. After referring to a number of questions which might be elucidated by a knowledge of commercial geography, Commander Cameron further states: "The extension of our commerce and its maintenance on a sound and remunerative basis depends greatly upon the knowledge of commercial geography with which it is conducted." And the Commissioners, in their final Report, say: "In connection with the development of new markets for our goods, we desire to call special attention to the important subject of commercial geography." They might have added that this subject is carefully taught in every foreign school of commerce, and that thousands of youths are annually sent out from these schools with a respectable knowledge of the subject, and with the aptitude for further knowledge which traveling, and the reading of

consular reports and the journals of geographical and trade societies, enable them to obtain. In England, the Society of Arts has arranged for examinations in commercial geography, and in other subjects useful to the mercantile student; but of late no examination has been held in commercial geography, owing to the fact that less than twenty-five candidates, not from one center only, but from the entire kingdom, have presented themselves. Nothing, perhaps, could show more strongly the total neglect of commercial education in this country.

Closely connected with the teaching of commercial geography is the instruction given in all foreign schools in the technology of merchandise (Étude des Marchandises, Waarenkunde). The teaching of this subject is illustrated by reference to specimens of raw and manufactured products exhibited in the museum, which is a part of the equipment of nearly every foreign school. The museum is generally furnished by gifts from the Chamber of Commerce, and from merchants resident in the city. The specimens are carefully selected with a view to their educational value. They generally comprise samples of some of the principal raw materials used in commerce in their natural state and as met with in trade. These are carefully classified and arranged. The museum also contains various substances, principally local, as altered by different processes of manufacture; diagrams and models illustrating the diseases to which substances of vegetable and animal growth are liable; specimens showing the effect of adulteration, and the differences between genuine goods and their counterfeits, and a variety of other things too numerous to mention. In these museums, objects having reference to the trade and commerce of the district occupy a prominent position. In all the newest schools, the museum communicates with the lecture-room, in which these commercial "object lessons" are given; and every opportunity is afforded to the students, by the actual handling and tasting of the specimens, by the chemical analysis of some of them and by the microscopic examination of others, and by general descriptive lectures, of becoming practically acquainted with many of the principal mercantile commodities.

Another important feature of the instruction is the periodic visits of the students, under charge of their professors, to various industrial works. These visits are sometimes extended to factories and business houses at a distance, and occupy some days. At the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce du Havre these excursions form a very important part of the instruction. In 1883, under the conduct of the director and of the professor of merchandise, eighteen of the students visited Hamburg and Lubeck. In 1884, two excursions were made, the first to the principal centers of industry in Belgium; the second, by first year's students, to Hamburg and Bremen. Some of the

high schools of commerce have traveling scholarships, tenable for one, two, and three years, which enable the student to reside abroad, to perfect himself in foreign languages and to learn foreign methods of conducting business. The Belgian Government, besides paying three-fourths of the cost of the maintenance of the high school at Antwerp, makes an annual grant of 18007. for traveling scholarships, which are given, under certain conditions, to the most distinguished former students, who desire to spend some years out of Europe. Each scholarship is of the annual value of between 2007. and 3007.; and one of the special objects of these scholarships is to encourage the establishment of commercial houses in colonial and other settlements. The result of this expenditure is said to have been most satisfactory, as shown by the establishment by old students of the Antwerp Academy of flourishing commercial houses in Brazil, Mexico, Melbourne, Sydney, Calcutta, Chicago, and other places.

This brief notice of the facilities for commercial education enjoyed by the principal Continental nations, and of the methods of instruction adopted in their schools, cannot fail to impress us with the fact that Englishmen are seriously handicapped in the struggle for their fair share of the commerce of the world.-SIR PHILIP MAGNUS, in The Contemporary Review.

AUTHORS IN COURT.

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THERE is always something a little ludicrous about the tacle of an author in pursuit of his legal remedies. It is hard to say why, but like a sailor on horseback, or a Quaker at the play, it suggests that incongruity which is the soul of things humorous. The courts are of course as much open to authors as to the really deserv ing members of the community; and, to do the writing fraternity justice, they have seldom shown any indisposition to enter into them -though if they have done so joyfully, it must be attributed to their natural temperament, which (so we read) is easy, rather than to the mirthful character of legal process.

To write a history of the litigations in which great authors have been engaged would indeed be renovare dolorem, and is no intention of mine; though the subject is not destitute of human interestindeed, quite the opposite.

Great books have naturally enough, being longer lived, come into court more frequently than great authors. Paradise Lost, The Whole Duty of Man, The Pilgrim's Progress, Thomson's Seasons, Rasselas, all have a legal as well as a literary history. Nay, Holy Writ herself has raised some nice points. The King's exclusive prerogative

to print the authorized version has been based by some lawyers on the commercial circumstance that King James paid for it out of his own pocket. Hence, argued they, cunningly enough, it became his, and is now his successor's. Others have contended more strikingly that the right of multiplying copies of the Scriptures necessarily belongs to the King as Head of the Church. A few have been found to question the right altogether and to call it a job. As her present gracious Majesty has been pleased to abandon the prerogative, and has left all her subjects free (though at their own charges) to publish the version of her learned predecessor, the Bible does not now come into Court on its own account. But while the prerogative was enforced, the King's printers were frequently to be found seeking injunctions to restrain the vending of the Word of God by (to use Carlyle's language) "Mr. Thomas Tegg and other extraneous persons." Nor did the judges on proper proof hesitate to grant what was sought. It is perhaps interesting to observe that the King never claimed more than the text.. It was always open to anybody to publish even King James' version, if he added notes of his own. But how shamefully was this royal indulgence abused! Knavish booksellers, anxious to turn a dishonest penny out of the very Bible, were known to publish Bibles with so-called notes, which upon examination turned out not to be bona-fide notes at all, but sometimes mere indications of assent with what was stated in the text, and sometimes simple ejaculations. And as people as a rule preferred to be without notes of this character they used to be thoughtfully printed at the very edge of the sheet, so that the scissors of the binder should cut them off and prevent them annoying the reader. But one can fancy the question, "What is a bona-fide note?" exercising the legal mind.

Our great lawyers on the bench have always treated literature in the abstract with the utmost respect. They have in many cases felt that they, too, but for the grace of God, might have been authors. Like Charles Lamb's solemn Quaker, "they had been wits in their youth." Lord Mansfield never forgot that, according to Mr. Pope, he was a lost Ovid. Before ideas in their divine essence the judges have bowed down. "A literary composition," it has been said by them, "so long as it lies dormant in the author's mind, is absolutely in his own possession." Even Mr. Horatio Sparkins, of whose brilliant table-talk this observation reminds us, could not more willingly have recognized an obvious truth.

But they have gone much further than this. Not only is the repose of the dormant idea left undisturbed, but the manuscript to which it, on ceasing to be dormant, has been communicated, is hedged round with divinity. It would be most unfair to the delicacy of the legal mind to attribute this to the fact, no doubt notorious,