Charities. Public charities for the benefit of the working classes and others are quite numerous. There are hospitals and societies, twenty charitable institutions to help the ignorant and vicious, temperance societies, and in fact philanthropic institutions too numerous to men. tion. (XV, sup.)

Schools for special classes.-Among the schools for special classes is the school for the deaf and dumb at Manilla, which was also open to the blind until recently, but now the blind to the number of 400 are taught in special institutions supported by the state. The instruction for this class is both theoretical and practical, comprising preparatory and primary courses, and special attention is paid to Slöjd training.

Instrumental music and singing and trades suited to their condition are also taught. There are eighteen schools for deaf mutes, four of them state institutions, six established by communities, and the others free schools with scholarships established by the government. A normal department for teachers of this class is attached to the Manilla school. The course of study is two years in duration, and pupils are taught by the articulation method. (XVIII, pp. 29, 33, 37, 40.)

The Society for the Education of Idiots has established seventeen schools for this class since 1866, all supported by the state, and with women in charge. The course of study covers object lessons, religious instruction, reading, writing, dictation, singing, gymnastics, domestic economy, and skilled handiwork; for girls, spinning, weaving, lace-making, rug. making, and knitting; for boys, work in the garden, cabinet-making, wood-carving, and other suitable occupations. (XVIII, pp. 37, 40.)

Classed among the institutions for special classes are orphan asylums, those under the auspices of the Masonic fraternity and of the society "Pro Patria" being especially mentioned. An orphan asylum in Stockholm places its children in the country to be brought up among the agricultural classes. Special institutions for abandoned children are not reported in Sweden. (XXVI, p. 232, 161.)

X.-HISTORICAL STATEMENT.

The people's schools in Sweden, as in Germany, may be said to be a creation of the Reformation, although prior to that there were cloister schools taught by the Catholic priests, while mendicant friars wandered about from place to place teaching the church commandments, but omitting all instruction in reading and writing. During the sixteenth century Catholicism was crowded out, and Protestantism took its place as the religion of the country. The Protestant Kings, Gustavus Vasa, Charles IX, and Gustavus Adolphus, vied with each other in trying to educate the people, and it is stated that in 1637 there were few children of the peasant class who were unable to read and write. In 1640 Queen Christina, aided by her counsellors, established a school or pedagogie in every city belonging to the Swedish Crown. The lowest class was an

"ABC" class, but at a later date these schools were metamorphosed into the grade of burgher schools. Forty-six years later King Charles IX commanded his chaplains to see that all children were taught to read, and by ecclesiastical law of 1686 promulgated an order that no person should marry unless he could repeat Luther's catechism and had partaken of the Lord's Supper. As a result of this law, the peasantry endeavored to establish schools and called upon the government for aid through state subsidies. The government not having the necessary funds at disposal, and the peasants being too poor to carry on the schools themselves, the ambulatory school was considered the best substitute for the desired stationary school, and it was until a century and a half later that an organization of the schools took place. The ambulatory school of that date is thus described: The teachers were ignorant and frequently unfitted for the position. The schools were held in the peasants' huts, with the domestic affairs carried on in the same room. The "master," as he was called, sat at one end of the table with the "A B C" children near him on benches without backs. The older pupils sat farther away, with their books on their laps, while only the few who were learning to reckon and to write were allowed to sit at the "master's" table. The text-books consisted of the primer, the smaller and larger catechism, and singing books. When any pupil was competent to read in these books he was supposed to no longer require instruction. In 1786 efforts were made to improve upon this class of schools, and governors of provinces and the church consistory were called upon to establish regular schools, to build schoolhouses, to arrange for the payment of teachers, etc. But unfortunately these plans failed of fruition, for during the eighteenth century not more than 165 stationary schools were established. The first earnest efforts towards an improvement in educational matters were observed in 1820, when the consistory and clergy were ordered to examine into the teacher's fitness for the position occupied, so that no persons of bad reputation should be allowed to instruct children. In 1824 a new order established schools according to the Bell-Lancaster system, and forbade any persons holding the position of sexton (who is the teacher in rural districts) unless familiar with that system. The associations established at Stockholm and Göteborg for the extension of this monitorial system aided in this matter by the funds which they were able to accumulate. Normal schools were established at Stockholm and Lund for the preparation of teachers, a greater uniformity in methods of instruction was brought about, and the general deportment of teachers was improved upon. Still the school was only a private institution, and the attendance of children was left entirely to the parents, so that at that date the percentage of attendance of pupils of school age was very low.

After lengthy discussions in regard to educational affairs, the organization of the schools was taken up in 1840-41, and a law was passed

on June 18,1842, which entirely reorganized the school system. As an outcome of that law, the number of stationary schools increased from 165 in 1800 to 786 in 1842, and to 6,448 in 1883. This law was superseded by one of January 20, 1882, which retained, however, many features of the original law. The laws being similar, the main points of that of 1882 are interpolated here. According to that law, every district in the city and every parish in the country was to have at least one stationary school with a trained teacher. Still, in case of a sparse population, several districts were allowed to unite in the establishment of such schools. Each school district was to have a school board, and to pay for its own school buildings. All children of school age were to be enrolled in the schools, and in the principal town of the bishopric normal schools were to be established.

As will be observed, a special feature of the school system is the influence of the church over the school. While every district has its school board, the board is under the control of the church authorities, and merely acts as executive for the consistory. The school inspectors have a sort of counteracting influence, however, and act in a measure for the government. Yet, while the teacher is subordinate to the church authorities, the church's controlling action is such that steady progress in educational affairs is observed.

In 1858, by the addition of certain branches the "småskolor" were made preparatory divisions of elementary grades, and higher people's schools were established at which the teachers were expected to have a higher class of attainment, and the school was to be superior in character to any established before. The government granted subsidies to the different districts to aid in the establishment of these schools. In 1871 the schools, Stockholm excepted, had increased to 7,118, among them 10 higher people's schools, 2,268 stationary schools, 1,164 ambulatory schools, and 2,676 småskolor. The number of teachers' seminaries required by law of 1842 had diminished greatly during this period, as a centralization of such instruction had been determined upon. The above schools had increased in 1883 to 9,794, among them 13 higher people's schools, 6,448 stationary schools, and 3,346 ambulatory schools. The number of pupils of school age was 716,025, and au average of about 73 pupils of school age to each school is observed. According to school regulations every pupil must attend school, or be properly taught at home, and children who are taught at home must come to the school for yearly examination. Instruction is gratuitous, but the parish has the liberty, if additional funds are needed, of demanding a small sum for each child who is not too poor to pay, though this demand is seldom made. Private schools are also under the supervision of the regular board, so that there is perfect correspondence between public and private instruction. (XXII, pp. 707-710; XXIII, pp. 53-54.)

Secondary schools also date from a very early period, the instruction

being first given in cloister schools and by monks. The secondary schools were a creation of the Reformation, as were the lower schools. An ecclesiastical decree of 1571 is looked upon as the first Swedish school law, unless papal letters of an earlier period may be so called. According to this law, each school had a schoolmaster, and if there were too many pupils one of the "hearers" aided him. Religion, Latin, Swedish language, and hymns were taught, but whoever desired to learn Greek and Hebrew had to look out for such instruction himself. Gustavus Adolphus first established gymnasia, and in 1649 Queen Christina, his daughter, promulgated a decree which divided the schools into people's schools and higher schools. The former had as course of study reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, religion, and Latin; the latter were divided into the ethnological, the syntactic, the rhetorical, and the logical classes. The lower classes had class teachers; the upper class, in which Latin was the language spoken, was taught by a rector and assistant rector. The branches were Greek, rhetoric, logic, and arithmetic; history and geography were not taught. The first germ of the burgher school, the precursor of the Real school, was found at that date in the "writing classes," in which were taught catechism, reading, writing, the mother tongue, and arithmetic through the quartanos. This was the basis of the "trivial" school, which is still in existence to-day after two hundred years. The gymnasia of that period had four classes with instruction in doctrinal theology, Hebrew, natural sciences, mathematics, and the basis of the Swedish laws. History and geography were taught later, but only verbally. A decree of King Charles XI, in 1693, added a fifth class to the gymnasia. Church history and moral philosophy were added to the course, and while it was especially speci fied that the trivial school was to fit for practical life, the gymnasia was gradually verging towards a church seminary. The consistory had full control of these schools, and by law of 1724 no one except a resident of the church district could be appointed to a teacher's position. From that date to 1807 a more practical turn was given to the trivial schools; physical training was attempted, physics, anthropology, history, geography, and bookkeeping were added to the course. The school law of 1807 added Swedish statistics and modern languages to the course in the gymnasia, changed the pedagogier of that period into burgher schools, and planned to have a general course of study for the lower classes of gymnasia, burgher, and trivial schools. (XXII, pp. 718-721, VII, pp. 1-17.) This plan was opposed by the church consistory, and a commission was appointed in 1820 through whose efforts new regulations were made which brought out the distinct subdivision of classical and non-classical schools-or those which dealt with the old-classic humanities as apart from those which dealt with

1 In the Middle Ages the trivium, from which the word trivial school is derived, included the studies of grammar, rhetoric, and logic; to-day the term is understood to include the ordinary branches required in practical life.

the encyclopædic realities; but this law failed to meet the requirements of the Real and burgher schools, and again in 1828 another commission was appointed to investigate the whole subject of education. New methods were adopted which sanctioned greater freedom of instruction, introduced optional branches, allowed each student to go to a higher class whenever he showed fitness for such change, grouped all students together in one large room where the teacher could go about from pupil to pupil and suggest as to methods of study, brought about a state of monitorial instruction, the farther advanced helping those less so, and permitted the passing of graduation examinations for the universities. with the classics omitted. The so-called new elementary schools, "Nya elementarskolor," of Stockholm were established on this principle. Even this plan failed to satisfy the learned men of Sweden, and from 1828 to 1845 discussions took place in regard to a revision of methods by which a reuniting of the higher classical schools and gymnasia was accomplished. (xxп, pp. 721-723). On July 16, 1849, a royal decree united the writing classes (burgher schools) and trivial (or Real) schools into an institution in which instruction was given in all branches taught in both; made the gymnasia preparatory schools for the univer sity, and created the "elementar läroverken" which were the means of greatly increasing attendance in the higher grades of schools and in the universities; but this decree brought in a class of pupils unfitted for the higher courses and unable to keep up with them. (XXIV p. 347.) The opposition of the consistory, the lack of system, and the superficial knowledge of too many studies were very perceptible at this period of affairs, and in 1856 when the encyclopædic methods of study were at their height other attempts were made to still improve upon former educational plans, but the new decrees only served to add to the confusion, while those of 1859 simply adhered to the so-called new methods, strengthened the study of the classics, and limited the special studies. From that date gradual changes were made until a new law of November 1, 1878, was promulgated. This law still holds good. But again in 1882 a new commission was appointed to remodel the secondary grade of instruction. The results of the investigations of this commission were presented in 1884, but their antipathy to the classics was so apparent as to awaken opposition among the school officials, and it is doubted whether the proposed reorganization will be carried out. One point specified by the commission was the removal of the secondary schools from the control of the ephor (bishop), and the appointment of a special higher school officer or council, to have direct charge of these schools. This officer was to deal directly with headquarters, and to relieve the ephor and school inspectors under his charge in regard to all points appertaining to school organization, hours of study, programmes, reports to higher school officers, etc. But so much opposition to this plan was engendered, that latest advices would indicate its non-acceptance by the people. (VII, pp. 23, 137, 144-160; xxII, pp. 723-724.)