public static void main(String[] args) {
   TaClassb curClass = null;
   SessionFactory sessions;
   Session curSess = null;

   try {
      curClass = new TaClassb("first class", "comment", 0);

      sessions = new Configuration().configure("/hibernate.cfg.xml").buildSessionFactory();
      curSess = sessions.openSession();

      curSess.save(curClass);
      curClass = null;
      curSess.close();
   } catch (HibernateException e) {
      System.out.println("Error thrown during save [" + e.getMessage() + "]");
      
   }
}

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
        "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 2.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-2.0.dtd">

<hibernate-configuration>
   <!-- a SessionFactory instance -->
   <session-factory>
      <!-- properties -->
      <property name="connection.driver_class">org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver</property>
      <property name="connection.url">jdbc:hsqldb:data/TeachersAid</property>
      <property name="connection.username">sa</property>
      <property name="connection.password"></property>
      <property name="dialect">net.sf.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect</property>
      <property name="show_sql">true</property>
      <property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class">net.sf.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider</property>
      <property name="use_outer_join">true</property>
<!-- same results w/ & w/o this property
      <property name="transaction.factory_class">net.sf.hibernate.transaction.JDBCTransactionFactory</property>
-->
      <!-- mapping files -->
      <mapping resource="src/java/com/ccsi/TeachersAid/common/TaClassb.hbm.xml" />
   </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>