NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 100, 4 June 1900, Page 4

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.

The Knowledge reviews Professor Sayce's new uuok " Babylonians and Assyrians. Life and Customs " as follows:—" There is nothing now under the sun," is the ejaculation which rises to the lips after tue most cursory glance at Prof. Sayce's interesting book. Many persons regard letter-writing as a modern invention, and speak as if the correspondence of Cicero and Pliny represented the earliest examples of what is at present very commonly considered a plague. Yet in the volume before us we can read of the private correspondence of a prince who took part in the campaign against Sodom and Gomorrah 1 Moreover, the original documents themselves, written on clay, have been found, and one of them rests in the Museum of, Constantinople! That we should possess the autograph letters of a contemporary of Abraham is, indeed, what Prof. Sayce calls a romance of historical science. Again everybody surely regards the present status of women, with their high school and university training, as at least a consummation on which we moderns have a right to congratulate ourselves. Yet the ladies of Babylon could read and write as well as the men, and the women "were in other respects on an equal footing. One or two letters from the hand of a lady of Babylon show, too, that she took an active part in politics. In the present time of intellectual activity in this country, the chapter dealing with the education of the Babylonians is of especial interest. Girls shared in the education given to their brothers, The instruction imparted was in many respects similar to that which is common in modern schools. Copy-books with head-lines were known ; one of the copies btates " He who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise like the dawn." Heading books were in use. Geography, literature, grammar, spelling, all were taught; aud judging from, the minuteness of some of the cuniform characters, and the magnifying glass which Layard discovered at Nineveh, short-sight was a familiar defect. Considerations of space forbid other example*, but equally interesting ones could lu multiplied indefinitely. Prof. Payee's book is as fascinating as it is scholarly, and we heartily advise our readers to obtain it.