Ar01500

Prov . G . S . After the election , Bro . Gillies , Prov . G . S . B , performed the ceremony of installing and investing tha officers in a highly impressive manner .

Reviews.

REVIEWS .

The Mectangular Review . London : J . Hogg . No . 2 of this ha \ f-a-crown Quarterly lias reached us . It fully maintains the prestige of the first number . The article " Our Scholastic Institutions . No . I . —The Scholastic Agent , " treats elaborately upon the functions of this important class . It is stated

that : — " The general business of the agent may be divided , and , indeed , divides itself into three well-defined departments : —( 1 ) . The Scholastic , which consists in the introduction of eligible candidates for tutorial appointments to the principals of schools , and to the heads of families ; ( 2 ) . The Recommendation of Schools to parents and

guardians who wish to ensure suitable education and training for their children or their wards ; and ( 3 ) The Transfer of Schools from one principal to another , and the negotiation of Scholastic Partnerships . Of these departments , the first , if only because it is the most extensive , may be taken to be the most Important . The article is an elaborate dissertationentering-

in-, to every detail , and seems thoroughly to exhaust the subject . It certainly gives the Scholastic Agent in an importance to which we had not before assigned to him , having looked upon him as a mere commercial go-between , iu fact , a kind of registry office-keeper . Something higheraccording to the

, article under notice , however , seems to be requisite to ensure success in this " profession . " The article concludes with the following peroration : — "The agent should have the faculty of penetrating the veil behind which men hide their own natures , not only from others , but from themselves ; a peculiar insight , an

intuition of character , fortified by patient induction aud analysis . He must know humanity in its aggregate and in its varieties ; no unwonted combination should take him unaware . He must have the knack of gleaning information ; so far as honour will allow—and even gossip , considering the confidential nature of his profession , may he forgiven to him—he will profit by the statements

and conversation of all his clients . He is a student of character , and he will omit no opportunity of understanding character . In his efforts to arrive at exact information he will make all reasonable allowances for the particular medium through which he receives the several items of which that information was composed . He will know that no man is exactly that which any one other

man finds him to be ; that each man is in fact the aggregate or the average of all men ' s opinion . If , in the prosecution of his necessary inquii'Jes , he do not discourage what , if they were made for lighter ends , might be obnoxious to the charge of triviality , it should be borne in mind that he has no purpose of his own to serve , apart from the best interestsall roundof the mass of his

em-, , ployers . And principals and assistants need no more hesitate to allow him to have a full intelligence of them than the sensible patient would grudge to his doctor the employment of any method whatever of ascertaining his symptoms . Moreover , the agent should have a definite knowledge of the laws and customs which affect educational

covenants of every kind ; so that , upon occasions of dispute , he may be the friendly judge , the trusted referee and arbitrator . Every one of these Dhings , it may bo , aud more , which to mention in detail would be supererogatory , are

known in some degree to his clients ; but it is his peculiarity to have reduced them to form and precision—to have arranged systematically and scientifically what is with them nebulous or incoherent . He offers a superior and approximately all-sufficient skill for tbe solution of questions to which the layman brings only ignorance or an incomplete knowledge which is little better than

ignorance , or a fancied and unsymmefcrical knowledge , which is worse . Finally , the learning which he either has personally or of which he can avail himself , should be , if not exactly co-extensive with the varied erudition with which he will be brought into contact , at least comprehensive enough to estimate breadth and soundness of attainment in every

department of education . An interesting chapter on " Ancient Mottoes " follows , but they cannot claim much on the ground of originality or research , we think we have seen most of them repeatedly . It is with the article " Ereemasonry : its Use and Abuse'' that we have mainly to deal . The author

instating the object of the present enquiry says : — On the present occasion we intend briefly to show how and where Masonic principles are departed from , and what reforms are imperatively called if Masonry is actually to take that standing among , or rather above , human institutions that we have assigned to it * , but for the sake of convenience we will relate them in & few words : — Ethics and / Science of Masonry . —Masonry , then , is a peculiar system of morality , veiled in allegory and

illustrated by symbols , the study of sciences , and the practice of virtue . The Masonic Charges and Symbols impressively inculcate the latter ; their teaching may be said to be summed up in the passage ofthe Chargeat the initiation into the First Degree : — "The three great moral duties to God , your neighbour , and yourself , you are strictly to observe : to God , by holding

Hisname in awe and veneration ; to your neighour , by always acting on the square ; and to yourself , by nob abusing the bounties of Providence , or debasing our profession by intemperance . " Such is the ethical basis of Masonry . As to Science , we have shown in our former article that the figures and symbols of the institution represent not only reliiousbut also physical truths ;•

g , that its members in remote times diligently cultivated astronomy and geometry , which latter science is the foundation of all other sciences : that the Fellow Craft was taugho the principles of architecture and the seven liberal arts ; that , in fact , through many ages the Freemasons were the keepers . and transmitters of scientificknowledge . And , considering the dignity of tbe Order ,

it will easily be understood that it must be one ofthe fundamental principles of Masonry to exercise thegreatest caution and discrimination in the admission of members-Let us now see whether in Masonry , as at present constituted and practised , the principles of its founders are adhered to , and their noble aims likely to be accomplished . " "We find the following remarks upon the Masonic Charities : —

" Masonic Charities .- —But where reform is as urgently needed is in the collection and administration ofthe fluids of the Order , especially of those devoted to charitable and educational purposes ; viz , of those collected for the support of the 3 Iasonic institutions * for boys and girls at AVood Green and Battersea Rise respectively , for the . Aged Freemasons' Institution at Croydon , and for monthly distribution by the Board of