"pæs Hælendes moder wæs þær."

(The mother of the Saviour [healer] was there.)

"Sunedei is ihaten þes lauerdes dei.'

(Sunday is called the Lord's day.)

John ii. 1 (ninth or tenth century).

Old English Homilies (twelfth or thirteenth century).

"And specially, from every schires ende

Of Engelond, to Canturbury they wende."-Chaucer, "Prologue.”

With the exception that he employs some phrases, such as fader soule, "father's soul," and lady (= ladye) grace, "lady's grace," the first being an example of a noun which in Anglo-Saxon took no inflection; and the second, one of a few nouns containing a remnant of the termination an, Chaucer exclusively uses es as the sign of the genitive. Gower, his contemporary, as far as we have examined his poems, adopts the same suffix. In Wycliffe we have the modified form is :—

"If thou art Goddis sone, sende thee adoun.”—Matthew iv. 6.

So in the writings of James the First of Scotland (born 1395),—

"Now was there made fast by the touris wall

A garden fair."

Extracts might be multiplied to prove that up to the commencement of the sixteenth century, and a little later, the Saxon genitive was in use, after which time we find 's or s employed.

"My Ladie's beauty passeth more the best of yours.'

Lord Surrey (executed 1547).

"Exceeding shone, like Phoebus fairest childe, That did presume his fathers firie wayne."-Spenser (died 1599). "All the earth is Gods land let out to tenants."

Fuller's "Historie of the Holy Warre" (ed. 1647).

"It is not easie to write that Princes History."

Lord Herbert's "Life of Henry VIII." (ed. 1683).

If all the examples of the possessive case were like those given above, it seems to us that the first theory could not possibly be attacked; but it happens that in the Elizabethan period, and later, his was employed as the sign of possessive, e. g.,—

"Christ his sake."-Prayer Book.

"Asa his heart was perfect with the Lord."-1 Kings xv. 14 (ed. 1611). "And left us to the rage of France his sword."-Shakspere.

"From that same Brute

was Syluius his son."-Spenser.

"There being not a sword drawn in King Henry his quarrel.”—Bacon. "They overlooked not Pyrrhus his toe, which could not be burnt.”

66

Sir T. Brown.

"By young Telemachus his blooming years."-Pope. "My paper is Ulysses his bow, in which every man of wit or learning may try his strength."-Addison.

Following this analogy, we find

"Ronix her womanly subtlety."-Drayton's "Polyolbion." "Pallas her glass.”—Bacon.

The use of his by these and other writers was based on the assumption that's was a contraction of his, and Addison, in the Spectator (No. 135), boldly says, "The same single letter s, on many occasions, does the office of a whole word, and represents the his and her of our ancestors." The earliest examples of the constant use of his as a sign of the possessive is to be found in Fabyan's Chronicle (ed. 1542), but the grammarians of the period do not recognise the form. Palsgrave distinctly says that the possessive is formed by adding s or is to the noun, and Ben Jonson says that " nouns in 2,8, sh, g, and ch make in the possessive singular is and the plural es, which distinction not observed brought in the monstrous syntax of the pronoun his joining with a noun betokening a possessive." Till lately it was asserted that this use of his could not be found in very old writers, but Sergeant Manning, in a paper read before the Philological Society, adduced many instances, particularly from the later text of Layamon (thirteenth century), the true genitive being employed in the earlier text. This, of course, would only prove that the two forms existed side by side; and one of our grammarians, Dr. Connon, on such grounds, we suppose, thinks that we owe our possessive augment to both the Saxon es and his. "The two theories," says he, 66 are not contradictory or mutually destructive, but only different from each other."

But the sergeant's facts were challenged by Mr. Furnivall, a wellknown student of our early literature. He proved that the number of cases had been much exaggerated, and he pointed out that transcribers often separated is, es, and other suffixes, and wrote them as distinct words. Even in Robert of Gloucester, who almost always wrote 's or is, we find ys in a few instances separated from the noun, and the prefix y frequently from the participle; e. g., "Aftur Kyng Lud, þer was Kyng ys brother Cassibel." Hence "Modredis hafd" (head)"would run a chance of being written Modred is hafd; and as the writer of the later text of Layamon had a great fancy for aspirates, writing hangel and hart for angel and art, it appears extremely likely that "Modred is hafd" would become "Modred his hafd." Bearing in mind this ingenious explanation of the origin of the his in this text, and that the true genitive is employed in the greater number of cases, it is evident that these examples of the use of his fail to establish the theory that it is the origin of our modern possessive.

Moreover, to use Latham's language :

"1. The expression, the Queen's Majesty, is not capable of being reduced to the Queen his Majesty.

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"2. In the form his itself, the s has precisely the power that it has in father's, &c. Now his cannot be said to arise out of he + his.

"3. Even if the words father his would account for the English word father's, it would not account for the Sanscrit genitive pad-as, of a foot; the Zend dughdhar-s, of a daughter; the Lithuanic dugter-s, the Greek odóvT-os, the Latin dent-is, &c.'

Our genitive plural is not derived from any Anglo-Saxon form. The old termination was a, or ena; eagena, of eyes; worda, of words; and when this was dropped the plural was formed on the model of the singular. In Chaucer's time it was nearly the same as in modern English.

WANDSWORTH BRITISH SCHOOLS.

THESE very useful schools were established in 1821, under the title of "The Wandsworth British Schools for the Education of Children of every Religious Denomination." During the forty-five years of their existence it is estimated that from three to four thousand children have passed through the schools and enjoyed the benefits they were designed to confer. In the course of years, however, the building in which the schools was

held became very dilapidated, not to mention that the situation was far from eligible; and the committee, therefore, under the spirited leadership of G. F. White, Esq., the honorary secretary, resolved to obtain increased and convenient school accommodation by the erection of a new building in a more central position. Their appeal met with a cordial response, and they have built a handsome edifice on a suitable site. The total cost of the ground was £575, and of building, including incidental expenses, about

£2,060. The schools were opened for use in February, 1868, and they have proved to be admirably fitted for their purpose. Superintended by an able and zealous committee, and conducted by competent teachers, there is every ground for anticipating that their value will be appreciated in this populous and thriving district.

CIRCULAR ON THE TEACHING OF MUSIC.

Education Department, Privy Council Offices,

Downing Street, London, S. W., August 10, 1869.

CIRCULAR TO TRAINING COLLEGES.

Rev. Sir, I am directed to enclose, for the information of your Committee, a copy of the answer ordered to be made by my Lords to a Deputation, on behalf of the Tonic Sol-fa College, being an association of persons united for the purpose of promoting the system of musical instruction known as the Tonic Sol-fa Method.

Your Committee will observe that the answer imposes no necessity for any change in the preparation of your students, but is confined to promising that the examination papers on music shall be framed to suit candidates equally well whether they have been trained on the Tonic Sol-fa or on the ordinary system.

Your obedient servant,

R. R. W. LINGEN.

Sir,-Adverting to the Memorial which you placed in the hands of the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, on behalf of a Deputation which waited upon him in June last, I am directed by my Lords to inform you that, for the purposes of musical instruction in elementary schools and Training Colleges, their Lordships are prepared to accept the Tonic Sol-fa Method, and the Tonic Sol-fa Notation, upon the same terms as shall, from time to time, be applicable to the ordinary method and notation.

The Music paper set in the December examinations to the candidates for Teachers' certificates will be so arranged that questions can be answered by pupils who have been instructed under the Tonic Sol-fa, as well as under the ordinary system of notation.

You will not need to be reminded that the Committee of Council, in offering to examine candidates instructed according to different systems upon equal terms, expresses no opinion respecting the comparative merits of those systems, and that their Lordships would have to disavow any statement whereby the approval, or authority, of the Committee of Council might be attempted to be signified in favour of any particular system among those which have been adopted upon a sufficient scale to justify official recognition. Your obedient servant,

John Curwen, Esq.,

Tonic Sol-fa School, Plaistow, E.

R. R. W. LINGEN.

It has been officially announced that teachers may select Music as an extra subject under Mr. Corry's Minute.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION FOR 1868-9.

FROM the Report presented to Parliament we learn that the number of schools, i. e., of departments under separate head teachers (in Great Britain) receiving annual grants, was 14,824; of scholars present on the day of inspection, 1,485,051; of certificated teachers, 13,387; of assistants, 1,279; and of pupil-teachers, 13,187: being an increase in the number of schools of 943; of scholars present at the examination, 132,679; of head teachers, of 774; of assistants, of 76; and of pupil-teachers, of -1,668. The average annual pecuniary emoluments of certificated masters were in 1867 about £89, in 1868 about £91.

At a time when some influential supporters of Government education desire to do away with the necessity of employing certificated teachers, it is gratifying to find that the inspectors speak in almost unqualified terms of the superiority of trained masters and mistresses. Mr. Bellairs says, "There are some who wish to get rid of the necessity of the certificate, in the notion that, by reiterated inspections, the inefficient teachers would become efficient. Whatever may be done, I sincerely hope the certificate may be preserved even with it, the difficulty of maintaining a proper standard of efficiency is very great; without it, it would be impossible. The certificate represents an amount of knowledge and professional skill in its possessor which enables an inspector, at the time of inspection, to take up his position upon a known quantity, and from that to determine upon the quality of the subjects into which he has to investigate; without it, he would be liable to constant mistakes, would have to spend on the day of inspection a considerable portion of that time in ascertaining the mental attainments of the teacher, which ought to be spent in investigating the school-keeping, methods of teaching, and general intelligence of the children. There is nothing, in my opinion, which proves more strongly the low state of public education in England in regard to elementary education, than the frequent arguments used to prove that a lower standard of attainments for teachers than that required for the certificate would suffice for our primary schools."

A fair opportunity has now been afforded of testing the value of the minute of 20th February, 1867, and we find that it has caused considerable attention to be devoted to the higher subjects. The grants in the past year amounted to £13,235.

Mr. Byrne says, "The minute has been acted on in my district, and with the happiest result, in many of such schools as are fortunate enough to possess the prescribed complement of teachers. The subject chosen is usually geography, sometimes English history, very rarely either composition or the higher rules of arithmetic. Wherever the minute is in operation I have observed an increase of intelligence in the elder scholars, a keener interest in their work on their part, and on that of their teachers, an accession of popularity to the school, without any trace of deterioration in the elementary attainments. It is on this account the more to be regretted that the acceptance of the grant should be accompanied by