thorough, chiefly mental work being done, and little figuring on slates and paper. Singing: Vocal music is practiced quite early and continued through the entire course. Three and four part music is not infre quently found in simple village schools. Geography: This is pursued without a text-book, unless a small atlas may be termed a textbook. This study stands in close relation with history, which branch is begun quite early with home stories and reference to the child's home and environments. All historical knowledge is offered in biographies. Natural history: In form of object lessons natural history is taught without a text-book. The upper grades take up the study of physics and not infrequently also chemistry. These studies are very elementary but are pursued with the aid of simple, and sometimes home-made, apparatus. Gymnastics: Physical exercises are prescribed in the course, and no school is without suitable apparatus for regular exercise. Manual training for boys is not prescribed officially, but private efforts in this direction are greatly encouraged and even subsidized by the government. Industrial education for girls consists in knitting, crocheting, embroidering, sewing, darning, cutting, fitting, and patching, and is found in every school.

VIII.-GRADING AND EXAMINATION OF PUPILS.

The following is an official statement in regard to the progress made in Prussia in grading pupils. The 4,874,347 pupils enrolled in people's schools are found in 34,016 schoolhouses with 75,097 schoolrooms.

Within fourteen years from the issue of the decree which organized the schools anew (January, 1872), notable progress, that is to say, a better grading, has taken place. This progress, though slow, is made apparent by the following columns of figures. Among one hundred schools there were:

There were 26,289 schools graded in two divisions in purely rural dis tricts in 1886; there were 1,187 schools of six, and 290 schools of seven

and more grades, making a total of 1,477 fully graded schools; these had 16,140 classrooms. The proportion of rural or ungraded schools and of city or graded schools is:

Ungraded schools......

Schools with two grades ....

Schools in rural districts
City graded schools.

Per cent.

35.51

18.64

54.15

45.85

100

Hence less than one-half of the Prussian children were enrolled in graded schools; about one-third in entirely ungraded schools.

Privy-Councilor Dr. Schneider, director of the Bureau of People's Schools in the Department of Education in Berlin, attached to these official figures the opinion:

It is an undisputed fact that the ungraded schools, manned as they are with welltrained graduates of normal schools, accomplish very satisfactory results. Skill, endurance, and professional zeal, and last, but not least, the greater physical strength of their teachers, are naturally of beneficial influence. It is well to remember, then, that the graded city school is not under all circumstances, and hence should not, brevi manu, be considered the better school.

There is less of grading in Prussian schools than is commonly expected, and it is omitted purposely, for it is considered detrimental to have an entire class of pupils sifted by means of examinations till they are to all intents and purposes alike in knowledge and skill. There are always two, if not more, classes in one room. As regards examinations of pupils, much less is done in Germany than in this country; competition is considered demoralizing, and promotions are in many instances determined by the teacher's decision. In Saxony and other states of Germany school examinations are held annually and made public. They really consist in a review of what the class was designed to have gone over during the year. Nowhere, except in the upper grades of high schools, are written examinations held. The decision of the teacher is rarely questioned; being a professional man, he is expected to know his business. it would as little occur to a German to question the official acts of the teacher as to question the judgment of his medical adviser.

Discipline.-Ever since the establishment of schools in Germany discipline has been strict. It is based upon the presumption that reverence for elders and obedience to the superiors of the children must be expected, and if wanting must be enforced. There being greater docility on the part of German children, harsh measures are not resorted to as frequently as it is commonly believed. No law exists prohibiting corporal punishment, but it is well understood that extreme cases are met and dealt with severely by the functionaries of the law.

School statistics of Prussia for 1887.

(Latest official report. Total population of the kingdom (census of 1885) 28,318,470).

The people's schools are supplemented in the most ideal manner by a variety of institutions which tend to relieve the schools and make them more effective.

(1) Schools for dullards.-Children who are weak-minded, but not idiots, and who retard the progress of the pupils in the elementary schools, are gathered in special classes, where they are treated with due consideration and educated to become useful members of society. Such schools are found only in industrial centers, however.

(2) Asylums for vagrants.-Poor parents, working in factories, have little chance for watching their children at home; hence Knabenhorte are established, in which the boys spend their unoccupied afternoons and evenings in manual labor, play, singing, and drawing. The fees are nominal. These institutions are private, but have the encouragement of the government.

(3) Continuation schools, which may be either day or evening schools, or, as in some places, Sunday schools. These schools are in fact postgraduate courses, and in many places are obligatory.

(4) The state maintains reform schools for boys and girls, asylums for the blind, deaf-mutes, orphans, and idiots-and in fact for all of Nature's

unfortunates. It is not necessary to enter into their organization and management, because they differ little, if at all, from similar institutions in this country. It suffices to say that old nations, like the German, have a considerably larger number of children with defective sense organs than the American; a fact which is readily understood if the natural conditions of life in Europe are considered.

Industrial schools, trade schools, and other similar special institutions, such as agricultural schools, which tend to perfect what the elementary school has begun, should be mentioned here. Besides these supplementary institutions, societies and institutions for scientific purposes aid the work of the schools. Thus, for instance, all classes and kinds of schools of a city stand in close connection with and intimate relation to the management of art academies, museums, zoological and botanical gardens, the astronomical observatory, the library, gymnastic societies, and even the theater; in fact, with every institution which in some degree may be influential in assisting the work in schools.

Plants are ordered for the study of botany at the botanical gardens. Certain hours are fixed at the zoölogical gardens for visits of the classes in zoology; admission is free. Classes in drawing are taken to the art collections and museums, where the teacher of advanced classes gives a lesson monthly. The libraries are open to the pupils on presentation of a membership ticket issued by the rector of the school. Classes in literature go with their teachers to see classic performances in the theaters. The schools having small but very valuable collections, frequently exchange specimens with the curator of the museum, or even make loans. And so to every department of the curriculum some institution outside of the school offers assistance free of charge.

The more one looks about himself in Germany, the more one is impressed with the fact that the whole nation is one great educational institution. Churches have their reserved seats for school children; theaters offer classical performances for students; gardens and parks are open for children; gymnastic halls and apparatus are provided for the use of pupils of the city schools; in fine, all efforts are made to put public instruction upon a national basis, and to make the desire for education contagious.

X.-VARIETY IN SCHOOL ORGANIZATION IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, HUNGARY, AND SWITZERLAND.

From the foregoing it would seem as though the so-called VolksSchule (people's school), or more properly speaking, elementary school, is the main institution of learning for the people. This impression is erroneous. In the cities of Prussia, but more particularly in those of Saxony and other states, the authorities give a wider scope to their elementary schools. Outside of Germany the word Volks Schule has a different meaning and frequently stands for pauper school, while the

Bürger Schule (citizens' school) is a school almost identical with the common school in the United States.

Leipsic and Dresden, in Saxony, have furnished the types of such schools. The citizens' school of Prussia, on the other hand, is very much akin to our American city high school, and must be classed among the secondary schools; hence it is not mentioned in the preceding pages. If we consider the fact that the people's schools of Prussia had 5,173,627 pupils in 1887, while all the middle and high schools (citizens' schools, girls' academies, real-schulen, and gymnasia) had only 357,000 students with about 300,000 in preparatory classes, the preeminence given to the people's schools is fully justified.

Switzerland, though quite independent of Germany politically, industrially, and socially, is in a large degree imitating its two neighbors, Germany and France. The German system of religious instruction and the French system of secular instruction are blended in the Swiss schools. Altogether there is more instability in the Swiss schools than in the German, owing to the fact that each canton manages its own schools. There is no centralization. It is the American mode of selfgovernment in miniature. This is evident from the following.

As regards the object of the public schools there are in the different cantonal school laws two ideas that may be defined as meaning "education in the widest sense" on the one side, and "mere instruction" on the other. Zurich says in its school law of 1832, "the children of all classes of society shall be educated according to the well-defined principles of pedagogy, to be intellectually active, civilly useful, and morally good men and women." Similar definitions are found in the constitutions of Baselland (1835), Zug (1850), Graubünden (1853), Bern (1856), Aargau (1865), Wallis (1873), Appenzell (1875), Schwyz (1877), Nidwal den (1879), Schaffhausen (1879). Obwalden (1876), on the contrary, simply says, "it is the duty of every community to see to it that its children by attending a primary school shall acquire the knowledge for common life." Lucerne (1879) says, "the primary and continuation schools have the object to offer youth a general culture such as life demands." Baselstadt (1880) says, "the primary school has the object to make the children familiar with elementary knowledge." Eleven cantons, among which are Geneva and Freiburg, do not define the ob. ject of the public school at all.

As regards German Austria little need be said to characterize the schools save that they resemble the schools of Germany in organization, mode of maintenance, management, and results. There are agencies at work, however, depending chiefly upon the different degree of culture of the people, differences in the appreciation of public instruction, individual predilections, and tendencies of the ruling men in the government at different times, that cause varieties, changes, and mod. ifications which will in due course of time produce considerable differentiation. At present it can not be said to be very great.