Reviews Of New Books.

REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS .

Inaugural Address , delireretl at the Opening of die Maida Hill College , by the Rev . J . M . BEIJ . EW , S . C . L . London : Bridgewater , South Moltonstreet . —The institution , at the opening of which this very admirable address was delivered , is a school for the sons of gentlemen , recently established at Maida Hill for the benefit of the families in that neighbourhood , and intended to supply the same ( or superior ) advantages as the great public

schools of the metropolis , without the drawback which their distance from the Tylmrnian quarter of town would necessarily entail . King ' s College , which lias set a brilliant example to a host of imitators in various parts of the country , would appear to be the model , to a certain extent , upon which the new school has been founded , and the Principal , Bro . the Rev . Chas . S . A . Dickinson , of AVorcestcr College , Oxon , has heen selected from the masters of King ' s College School , to superintend the rising establishment .

Our esteemed Brother , the Rev . J . M . Bellew , whose name is so well and favourably known h y the strenuous efforts he lias made to improve the educational condition , not only of the lower orders , but also of the more wealth y classes of his neighbours and of those under his spiritual charge , has identified himself with this undertaking , and in the address before us expresses his high confidence in the gentlemen who arc about to conduct the seminary , ancl gives us some excellent reasons for looking to a prosperous career for the infant collese .

Tiie subject of education is one which can hardly fail to he of interest to almost every individual ; he who finds himself arrived at the age of manhood , deprived from idleness or want of means and opportunity of the blessings of learning , cannot hut feel how he is distanced in the race of life by those who are its envied possessors ; and cannot fail to draw comparisons between the station filled by men perhaps by nature his inferiors in intellectual calibreand that humbler rank to which his own deficiencies confine

, him . On the other hand , the man whose natural abilities have been strengthened hy judicious educational training is placed in a certain rank from wliich no vicissitudes can displace him—he-is a free citizen of the great republic of letters . Both of these men are desirous that their sons should have this great treasure of education placed within their grasp ; the one in the hope that his hoy may retrieve the blighted fortunes of his own life ; the other trusting that his offspring may emulate or surpass his own

happiest eiforts . In the present day , educational science has taken vast strides ; ancl ivhile ive ivould pay all honour to those venerable academies scattered over the country wliich have been the almm malm of English gentlemen for so many centuries , we think that some seeming innovations introduced into the public schools established in our day are attended with great and evident advantages . It is now a trite observation that hoys at Eton or Rugbare

y admirably taught Greek and Latin , hut are left lvofully ignorant of the English language aiid literature ; this lias been a reproach against the old public schools which has heen harped upon many a time ancl oft ; but we are happy to find that those gentlemen who conduct the studies of the rising generation in more modern gymnasia recognise the imperative necessity of making a boy acquainted with the poets and philosophers of his own native