The January number of the Recoider is literally a very **fixt" one—the flatness being caused by the publishers (probably from the impulse of New Year's resolutions) forsaking the obnoxious practice of doubly or triply folding the magazine, and putting it in a sensible wrapper that admits of its being sent out flat. Taking this improveent as an outward and visible sign of ward graces we are nut surprised at finding a treat in the first article: "How to learn the Chinese Language," by the Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, D.D. "Many of the ever-increasing nuniber of those who are wearily and slowly learning the Chinese language will eagerly turn for advice to one to speak on the subject as Dr. Goodrich. The learned Doctor firstcontraste the advantage the child has in the vividness and permanence of mental impressions with the advantage the adult scholar has in mental discipline, and the power of lon; continued and well-directed effort; th plunging into his subject he characterises the universal practice of reading with a teacher for hours together xs profoundly aad fundamentally wrong. The natural method of learning the Chinese language is by talking, just as one would learn to walk by walking, and to swim by swiniming. Again bringing in the child, he says that whether the child has been sitting, walking retiring, waking, rising, dressing, eating, working, playing, doing no mutter what of a thousand things, the sentences have been playing all about him like bees in a hive, He has heard them and repeated them with tireless iteration and in manifold combi tions, till they have become his permanent possession; and, so to speak, they are on deposit, ready to draw out at a moment's The question is wext asked: that granted herein lies the child's success, can the adult imitate the child's method? Dr. Goodrich is certain that he can, The first requirement of the student is a live teacher, one who does not. know English preferred, Get some good friend to give you the Chinese for What is this "This is ample vocabulary to begin with, enough to set you bristling all over with interrogation points, You begin with whatever may be in your room; table, chairs, clock, watch, stone, door, ete. You repeat the names over and over, again and again, after your teacher, imitating him in sound, pitch and a certain peculiar quality of accent, Suppose you begin with the table right in front of you. Play table with your teacher. fell him in sign language, table, table-cloth, above the table, under the table, beside the table, lay on the table, take off from the table, lift up the table, set down the ruble, push the table, pull the table, move the' table, turn. the table, set the table, brush the table, wash the table, wipe the table, round table, square table, ete., etc. Use pantomime freely, and without fear of losing your dignity, There is nothing in the above sentences which you cannot give your teacher without the aid of an interpreter. He will give you buck your sentences, If he is live man, he will also play at_pantomine and give you other phrases, Now, with your teacher, repeat thes phrases over and over, back and forth, up and down, throwing them up like dice, to come down in miscellaneous onfusivn, li your senses b-ing on the alert. Play table say for an hour and a half, You will by this time have earned a recess of fifteen minute The next step is watching and imitating the tencher's writing, followed by another spell at the table lesson" using the vocal bulary you have gained for all it is worth, Phon go out and practise on the first Chinn: man you meet; finishing the day with an hour of Wade, or Mateer, or Baller, Want of space forbids us giving the further steps. We strongly advise every student of the language to get this article, peruse it carefully and carry out the golden rules and wise hints given in it, The next article is a continuation of the Rev. T. W. Jackson's paper on the " Objects, Methods und Results of Higher Education in our Mission Schovls," ud deals with results—specially with those of an evangelistic nature, It is worth noting what Mr. Jackson says about some of the recognised characteristics of Methodism and their application to the unemotional Chinese. He thinks, however, the Chinaman is after all not so entirely destitute of emotion as we are apt to suppose; and if the Chinese Christian does not give that outward evidence of an inward experience which we are accustomed to in the West, the reason is to be found quite as much in the absence of the experience as in actual incapacity for emotional feelings.
By way of a change, we suppose, come the more or less interesting items of collectanes. We wonder from what source the editor procured the first illustration "Deceiving the gods." This story first appeared in the columns of this paper in October, 1891: no doubt it has served a "fill-up" in several periodicals ere it got back to the land ofts birth. In the next original article a Lady Missionary
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.