universal destruction of man by a deluge? Did he not fear that the whole account would be rejected by foreigners, if it opposed that dogma or tradition of the Egyptians? And did he not, to save the reputation of his prophet, change the numbers so as to accommodate the history to the notions of the Egyptians? I will not, indeed, assert any thing of this kind respecting the design of the corrector; but I may be permitted to offer such a conjecture, since the numbers in the Greek cannot have been written by Moses, unless he contradicted himself. In regard to Methuselah, then, the Greek corrector has either taken the position that others, besides Noah and his family, escaped from the flood; or he has forced upon Moses some Egyptian or Oriental tradition respecting Methuselah himself.

3. According to the Samaritan, Methuselah lived only 653 years after the birth of Lamech, and, of course, died at the age of 720. In this instance, also, the reading has been changed to suit a theory. For, in the six hundred and fifty-third* year from the birth of Lamech, the Samaritan translator placed the beginning of the flood, which he did not wish Wethuselah to survive. 4. Again according to the Samaritan version, Lamech lived 600 years after the birth of Noah, that is, 5 more than are assigned him by the Hebrew. This I consider as another of the same class of corrections. For, according to the Samaritan, the death of Jared and Methuselah, and, by this correction, of Lamech falls into the same year as the flood; so that we may naturally suppose them to have been destroyed by the deluge. Now, if I mistake not, the corrupter of the Samaritan, which, down to the time of Jerome, agreed on this point with the Hebrew, wished to make it appear, that impiety had increased so rapidly after the fifth generation, that of the four progenitors of Noah-his father, grandfather. great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather-Enoch alone, on account of the purity of his life, was snatched away by preternatural death, or, if you please, by translation; while the others lived till they saw the destruction of their descendants and of the whole race, and then perished with them, either because they were so blind and obstinate as to despise the divine threatenings, and refuse to provide for their safety with Noah, or

*From the birth of Lamech to the birth of Noah, were 53 years; from the birth of Noah to the flood, were 600 years. The sum is 653, as above.

because they were unworthy to be received into the ark, and preserved by their son. A fearful idea, and, from its very fearfulness, beautiful, and one upon which the painter, the poet and the orator may work, and excite the feelings. But the interest produced by such an hypothesis is no proof of its correctness, and, of course, no reason for a change of the reading.

5. According to the Samaritan, Lamech was 53 years old, at the birth of Noah. This account differs so widely from the Hebrew and Greek, that the discrepancy cannot be supposed to have resulted from the mistake of a transcriber. For who, through mere inadvertence or haste, could write 53 instead of 188 or 182? Nor are the words or the figures, which express these numbers, more similar in Hebrew, than in our own language. But here, also, we shall see reason to suspect intentional change, and an accommodation, in some respects, of the Samaritan to the Greek. Lamech lived, according to the Greek version, 753 years; according to the Samaritan, 653. Now, in this agreement of tens and units, may we not suspect that the Samaritan corrupter* of the numbers has been guilty of the same thing here as before, in the case of Jared and Methuselah ;—namely, taking away a whole century from the life of Lamech, and leaving the other figures unchanged? He also wished Lamech to be drowned in the deluge, and, for that reason, gave him 600 years after the birth of Noah. These two corrections, of course, fixed the birth of Noah in the fifty-third year of his father's life.

All these discrepancies in the units and tens, so systematic, and so skilfully adjusted as hitherto to have concealed the artifice, must have resulted, not from chance, but from design,— not from the mistakes of transcribers, but from the theories of correctors.

§. 11. Sporadic varieties of reading.

There still remain a few instances of discrepancy of the class which I have called sporadic; in which there has been no intentional change, but the varieties of reading have been introduced accidentally, by mistakes in copying. In these

* I call him a corrupter, without qualification; because, from the passage of Jerome above cited, it that these numappears bers were formerly the same in the Samaritan as are now found in the Hebrew.

cases, each reading has equal weight; and the true one must be determined from the concurrence of other authorities.

1. I refer to this class the discrepancy in the age of Jared. According to the Masoretic Hebrew copies, he begat Enoch at the age of 162; according to the Samaritan, at the age of 62. The addition or omission of the words 1 (and a hundred years) might seem, at first sight, to be referable to the Greek or Samaritan theory, of which I have spoken above. But, in this instance, I think it may more reasonably be attributed to the mistakes of transcribers; because the Hebrew copies themselves are not agreed. For, as Jackson rightly observes,* on the authority of Abraham Echellensis, the Oriental Jews agree, in this case, with the Samaritan; and I myself have an instance to mention to you of the omission of these words in a Hebrew copy, the Cassellan codex. In this, I have seen the words (Gen. 5: 18,) omitted, and written in the margin. By this reckoning, the deluge must have occurred A. M. 1556.

In this case we cannot determine with so much certainty as in the preceding cases. The Masoretic reading, of 162 years, is, however, more probably correct. For, in the first place, Josephus agrees with it. In the passage before mentioned, where he has not been corrupted, he says that the build.ng of the temple was commenced 3102 years after the creation, and 1440 after the deluge. Thus he counts 16 whole centuries before the flood, while, as we have seen, there would be but 15, if this hundred years were left out. Again, to say nothing of the later Chaldee and Arabic versions, which exhibit the same reading, Onkelos, the Syriac and Jerome confirm the Masoretic reading. Thirdly, the Cassellan codex is here, in a manner, self-condemned; for, though it had given to Jared 62 years before, and 800 after the birth of Enoch, it still makes the sum of his age 962.

2. According to the Hebrew, Lamech was 182 years old at the birth of Noah; but according to the Greek, he was 188. In this one place—where it is deserted by its almost constant supporter, Jackson, who thought he was following the authority of Josephus-the Greek is perhaps more worthy of credit than

*

Chronological Antiquities, T. I. pp. 51, 52.

See 8 of this article, and Josephus Antiq. B. VIII. ch. III. § 1.

anywhere else. In regard to Jackson's authority, it cannot be denied that Josephus, Antiq. B. I. ch. III. § 4, places the birth of Noah in Lamech's 182d year. But that whole passage has been so vitiated by transcribers, that it cannot be safely relied on, even when, as in this case, it agrees with the Hebrew. But in B. VIII. ch. III., which transcribers seem to have left unaltered, in dating the building of the temple 3102 years from the creation, and 1440 from the flood, he evidently supposes from the creation to the deluge, an interval of 1662 years, six more than the Masoretic copies give. Now, of these six years no account can be given, unless we suppose that in his Hebrew copy, instead of 182, he found 188 years. Perhaps he found both numbers in the Hebrew copies, and forgetfully wrote 182 in one place, and 188 in another. But, however this question may be settled, his evidence is of great weight. For, where he unquestionably follows the Hebrew chronology, he still gives 188 years to Lamech before the birth of Noah, thus proving, beyond a doubt, that this was the reading in some of the Hebrew copies of his time.

But, again leaving out of the question the later Chaldee and Arabic, the Masoretic text and the number 182 are supported by Onkelos, the Syriac, Jerome, and, what is of still more consequence, the Samaritan in the time of Jerome. And though Jackson has silently neglected the striking testimony of Jerome in other places, on questions of greater importance, he must have the credit of having introduced it here. I have also still another witness in favor of the Masoretic reading; namely, the Ethiopian translator, who, as we have seen above, found the number 182 in the Septuagint itself.

In this case, though the authorities for the Hebrew are more numerous, and worthy of no small credit, yet, as Josephus favors the other reading, I shall give no positive decision, but, for once, avail myself of a privilege, by no means unworthy of a critic, the privilege of doubting.

3. Lamech is said, by the Hebrew, to have lived, after the birth of Noah, 595 years, by the Greek, 565; consequently, his whole age is, according to the former, 777, according to the latter, 753.

But in this instance, as no ancient version coincides with the Greek, except those whose evidence is excluded; as Josephus himself - even in that chapter of which the principal part has been remodelled by transcribers to make it conform to the

Septuagint differing from the Greek, makes the whole age of Lamech, 777; and, finally, as the Ethiopian translated from the Greek itself the numbers 182, 595 and 777, there can be no doubt that the Hebrew reading is the correct one.

ARTICLE VI.

THE COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM OF NEW ENGLAND, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE RECENT IMPROVEMENTS ADOPTED IN MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT.

By Rev. Emerson Davis, Westfield, Mass.

"THE first colonists of Massachusetts and Connecticut, from which the other New England states derived their origin, were some of those men of learning, who were led to expatriate themselves by the joint impulse of promoting education, and of enjoying their religious opinions undisturbed." There were among them many learned and pious men; they were choice spirits, sifted from the best men of England at the close of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth. Many of them were trained in the cloisters of Oxford and Cambridge, and they united the learning of the best scholars of the age, with the piety and zeal of martyrs. It is said that the first founders of the Royal Society cherished for a time the purpose of coming to America, and of devoting themselves exclusively to the pursuit of science. Two of their number finally removed to the wilderness, and carried on a correspondence with the society at home.

Such men, coming to this country for such purposes, felt the necessity of making provisions for the education of all the children. The Puritans looked more mildly on death than on ignorance; and this feeling passed down from sire to son, and has not yet ceased to animate many of their descendants. It is believed that the first provision, that was ever made by law for general education, was made in the Old Bay State. In 1636, only 16 years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a law was passed relative to the founding of Harvard College. "In 1642 a law was enacted requiring the selectmen of every