New England college or university-and we have seen the best more than once at their work-has given us a higher impression of the creditable progress made within the last decade by our firstclass American educational institutions than Lafayette College.

Finding, in glancing at our manuscript-pile, that we have scarcely any space left in this article, we are glad to remember that there is not much to be said of Rutgers Collegehardly any thing which would not be time enough months hence. We are all the more sorry that we cannot speak highly of Rutgers' classical standard from the fact that all of its professors whom we happened to meet are modest, cultivated gentlemen who make no false pretensions. The Rev. Dr. Cooper is undoubtedly a sound Grecian. The recitation of his class in Homer interested us much. But most of the students must have come from preparatory schools of about the calibre of Peekskill Military Academy, Stamford Military Institute, East Greenwich Academy, etc. It is certain, at all events, that they were not "prepared" to understand the elementary principles of the Greek tongue, yet equally certain that Prof. Cooper is abundantly competent to explain and illustrate those principles. Thus, for example, no student in the class could tell whether more use was made of the participle, or the infinitive, in the Greek than in the Latin or English. Nor had any of them any definite idea of what the Greek owes to its article or its partitive pronouns, as compared to any other language, ancient or modern; whereas, the observations and suggestions of their professor rendered it evident to us that he was entirely familiar with the peculiar characteristics of Attic Greek.

We sincerely regret to say that still less did the Latin class please us; or, rather, still more did it surprise us. It was really painful to us to witness in a college, from which we had expected a different record, such translating of one of the simplest and most beautiful passages in Cicero. After we had heard this, the professor politely conducted us to the grammar-school, but, from motives of benevolence, we respectfully declined to witness any of the recitations there. Whether we were right or wrong, we thought that, since the College

TCL. XXX.-NO. LIX.

8

recitation was such "hard" work, we could not expect much from the grammar-school.

Some of the students told us, with an expression of awe and reverence for such profound learning as Rutgers', that the President was conducting a recitation in Hebrew. As the door stood open, and we were invited to enter, we listened a few minutes, although quite aware that we-a mere editor, and not of the Jewish persuasion-were not expected to know any thing whatever of so mysterious and holy a language as that of our worthy first parents. Probably it was only owing to our ignorance that all we were able to see or hear was a lesson on the Hebrew alphabet, the letters of which were scrawled more or less awkwardly on the black-board. How long it would take the class to learn the whole alphabet at this rate-to distinguish the vowels from the consonants-or even Cheth from Tav, Wav from Yod, not to mention distinguishing Holam from Shooraik, etc., is one of the questions that puzzled us during the recitation. As for translating, or even reading, a word of Hebrew, we saw no such rash attempt!

Yet, of all the ancient languages studied at the present day, the Hebrew is one of the easiest; and there are but few modern languages so easily acquired. As for Latin or Greek, either is vastly more difficult, because vastly richer and more copious; nearly the whole vocabulary of the Hebrew, which has to be learned, being embraced in the Old Testament. Accordingly, Bishop Walton assures his readers that "Three months are sufficient to acquire a knowledge of the Hebrew." Martinus, another excellent authority, says: "The ease of acquiring a knowledge of Hebrew is such that a student will make greater proficiency in it in one month than in Latin and Greek in a whole year." This is no exaggeration of the fact, yet it is thought a great affair at some of our colleges to have an indifferent knowledge even of the Hebrew alphabet!

We find no fault, however, with President Campbell or his Hebrew; on the contrary, we are willing to believe that he knows much more about the Hebrew than his modesty permitted him to disclose on the occasion alluded to. In a word, our impression of Rutgers in regard to its standard is very

similar to our impression of Dickinson; but there is this important difference in favor of the former, that its professors are more straightforward and unpretending-in a word, more honest-than those of the latter. We would gladly speak approvingly of all if we could conscientiously do so. But those who do not like our views need not accept them. no bribes for readers.

We offer

ART. VI.-1. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

2. Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris.

3. Astronomie Populaire. By M. ARAGO. 4 vols.

THE individual masses which compose the physical universe, the forces which animate them, and the laws by which their forms and movements are regulated, together make the objects of investigation in the oldest and most sublime of all the sciences. The stars, which in most cases seem to the unaided eye to be fixed with respect to one another, early served mankind as marks by means of which the return of several important but regularly recurring phenomena of nature were prepared for somewhat in advance of their actual occurrence. The various objects and departments of this science have engaged the closest attention of the greatest intellects that our world has ever known; and to-day we see astronomy the most completely developed science of all those which have yet engaged the attention of the human mind. That wonderful instrument, the telescope, has not only extended the known limits of the material universe almost immeasurably beyond what the naked eye could perceive, but it has revealed to us the distances, the form, and the dimensions of the celestial bodies, as well as much of their physical construction. That powerful instrument of the human mind, mathematical analysis, has enabled man to reduce the phenomena of the heavens to known laws, so that the formulæ of physical astronomy comprehend not only the present but the past and the future state of the system of the world.

The sun is so large that the geometrical and mechanical centres of the solar system are both within his surface. The actual orbit of the sun within the planetary system is a rather complicated curve, described around the centre of gravity of the system, being the reflex, so to speak, of the orbits of all the planets. The nearest planet to the sun, whose existence is placed beyond a doubt, is Mercury. The next in order is Venus, then the earth, after which come Mars, one hundred and thirty-four asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The mean distances cf these bodies from the sun, omitting the asteroids, are, in the order above given, thirtyfive, sixty-six, ninety-two, one hundred and forty, four hundred and ninety, nine hundred, eighteen hundred and fifty, and twenty-eight hundred and fifty million miles, respectively. Their periods of revolution are, taking the bodies in the same order, eighty-seven and a half, two hundred and twenty-four and a half, three hundred and sixtyfive and a fourth, six hundred and eighty-six, four thousand and ninety-six, ten thousand and eighty-six, twenty-eight thousand, and sixty thousand days, respectively.

Among these bodies we may mention Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, as members of the solar system, that are frequently written about. Mars is one of our nearest planetary neighbors, and, since his orbit is exterior to that of the earth, very many interesting facts respecting his physical constitution, and the conformation of his surface, have been made out.* But, while this is true of Mars, we must not forget that Venus is a still nearer neighbor to us, and is, besides, of much more importance to us, in the way of helping the astronomer to a knowledge of the distance of the sun from the earth, and thence to a knowledge of the dimensions of the planetary orbits, the magnitude of the visible universe, and of the bodies which compose it. Moreover, the beauty and brilliancy of Venus, when she is our morning and evening star, have served to cheer the minds of the poet and the astronomer in all ages of the world, since man began to make progress in the arts of civilized life.

*See N. Q. R., Art. VII.

The orbit of Venus being within that of the earth, the astronomer, armed with his telescope, has not been able to discover so many things which pertain to the surface features of that world, as in the case of some of the other planets; but, still, the facts which have been made known are not less interesting than many which have been revealed respecting Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

*

The date of the discovery of Venus as one of the planets— a wandering star-must be placed, it would seem, in prehistoric times. As the Evening and the Morning Star, Venus must have attracted attention at an early period in the development of mind. According to Laplace, the Egyptians were acquainted with the fact that Mercury and Venus revolve around the sun, and, consequently, that the Morning and the Evening Star is one and the same body. It is said that Pythagoras thought so too; and Whewell says† that this is probably the earliest mention of that astronomical truth. We may remark that almost any attentive observer of the phenomena which Venus presents during a few years must certainly have arrived at such a conclusion.

The time of revolution of Venus around the sun, and also. of all the planets whose existence was known before the invention of the telescope, was exactly known to the ancient astronomers of both Greece and India. According to the astronomy of the Hindus, the period of revolution of Venus around the sun was 224 days, 16 hours, 45 minutes, 56.19 seconds. According to Ptolemy, whose great work known as the Almagest contains the substance of the astronomy of the ancient Greeks together with the investigations which he himself made, the period of revolution of Venus was 224 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes, 56.8 seconds. According to the modern astronomers, the mean period of revolution of Venus is 224 days, 16 hours, 49 minutes, 7.99 seconds. t

*Syst. du Monde, tome ii., p. 247.

Hist. Induc. Sci., vol. i., p. 149.

See on this subject a translation of the Hindu astronomical work, Súrya-Siddhanta, p. 24.