The most important question for the good student and reader is not, amidst this multitude of books which no man can number, how much he shall read. The really important questions are, first, what is the quality of what he does read; and, second, what is his manner of reading it. There is an analogy which is more than accidental between physical and mental assimilation and digestion; and, homely as the illustration may seem, it is the most forcible I can use. Let two sit down to a table spread with food; one possessed of a healthy appetite, and knowing something of the nutritious qualities of the various dishes before him; the other cursed with a pampered and capricious appetite, and knowing nothing of the results of chemical and physiological investigation. One shall make a better meal, and go away stronger and better fed, on a dish of oatmeal, than the other on a dinner that has half emptied his pockets. Shall we study physiological chemistry and know all about what is food for the body, and neglect mental chemistry, and be utterly careless as to what nutriment is contained in the food we give our minds? Who can over-estimate the value of good books, those ships of thought, as Bacon so finely calls them, voyaging through the sea of time, and carrying their precious freight so safely!—_Prof. W. P. Atkinson._ THE MOHAMMEDAN UNIVERSITY OF CAIRO. BY BISHOP JOHN F. HURST, D. D., LL.D. Years ago I had taken pains to gain all accessible information concerning the most celebrated, and certainly also the largest, university in the entire Mohammedan world. In 1871 when in Cairo a number of days, through lack of a proper guide and full knowledge of this important institution, I left the city without seeing it. I was determined this time, therefore, to make sure of a visit to it, and to see carefully, with my own eyes, this marvel of the Mohammedan faith. The University is located in a mosque, and is, in fact, the one chief business of the mosque itself. Religion—such as it is—is the fundamental feature of all Moslem education. Not a science is taught in any school of Mohammedanism which does not begin with the Koran, and again come back to it. Whether law or medicine or geometry—in fact, whatever is communicated to the young, the first and ever predominant lesson imparted with it and through it is, that the Koran is the fountain of all science. Very naturally, then, the school is a part of the service of the mosque. This idea is not new. It is an oriental habit. We find proofs even in the Scriptures that the church was God’s first school. In ancient Egypt the temple, the palace, and the school were the perfected trinity in every city, and often the temple and the school were so closely enclosed that no careful observer could tell where one began and the other ended. The same idea re-appears in the arrangements which Charlemagne made for the higher education of the Frankish empire. The school was often located under the palace and in