An exhibition is to be held in the Imperial Library at Constantinople of Turkish writing, bookbinding, and illumination, for which prizes are to be given.
One of the most important scholastic reforms now in progress in Turkey is that relating to the study of the Arabic language. As now conducted, this study absorbs years in a desultory way which might be applied to the acquisition of other branches of knowledge. With the view to abridge the course of study without impairing its quality, the Sultan has determined on founding a special medresseh for teaching Arabic on a scientific basis, and for this purpose has purchased from the funds of the civil list the property of the Guedik Pasha Theatre at Constantinople.
The long lost and often found commentary on the “Atharva-veda” seems at last on its way to publication. The whole of the commentary has not yet been found, but two-thirds of it are now in the hands of the pandits of Poona, who will prepare a critical publication of both text and commentary. The text of the “Atharva-veda” was published in the early days of Vedic scholarship by Roth and Whitney, and the latter scholar has lately published a very useful index.
We are enabled to state, says the Athenæum, that a popular edition of Her Majesty's recent work, “More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands,” is in the press, and will be ready for publication in the course of a few weeks. The new edition will contain all the woodcut illustrations which appeared in the original edition, together with wood-engravings of the portraits, and will be uniform with the popular edition of the Queen's previous work, “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands.”
Mr. Alexander Del Mar, according to the Academy, formerly Director of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States, whose History of the Precious Metals was published in 1880, has in the press a work on The History of Money from the Earliest Times to the Middle Ages, upon which he has been occupied for many years past. It will shortly be published by Messrs. Bell & Sons.