did. He stated his opinion that--'In order that the teacher

might be thoroughly up to his work, he should not merely be a master of one particular branch of study. He should himself have travelled through the whole circle of knowledge. In philosophy he should have studied Plato and Aristotle, Theophrastus and Plotinus; in Theology the Sacred Scriptures, and after them Origen, Chrysostom, and Basil among the Greek fathers, and Ambrose and Jerome among the Latin fathers; among the poets, Homer and Ovid; in geography, which is very important in the study of history, Pomponins Mela, Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo. He should know what ancient names of rivers, mountains, countries, cities, answer to the modern ones; and the same of trees, animals, instruments, clothes, and, gems, with regard to which it is incredible how ignorant even educated men are. {708} He should take note of little facts about agriculture, architecture, military and culinary arts, mentioned by different authors. He should be able to trace the origin of words, their gradual corruption in the languages of Constantinople, Italy, Spain, and France. Nothing should be beneath his observation which can illustrate history or the meaning of the poets. But you will say what a load you are putting on the back of the poor teacher! It is so; but I burden the one to relieve the many. I want the teacher to have traversed the whole range of knowledge, that it may spare each of his scholars doing it. A diligent and thoroughly competent master might give boys a fair proficiency in both Latin and Greek, in a shorter time and with less labour than the common run of pedagogues take to teach their babble.' On receipt of this ... Colet wrote to Erasmus: ... '"What! I shall not approve!" So you say! What is there of Erasmus's that I do not approve?'"

_F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, chapter 6._

EDUCATION: Ascham and "The Scholemaster."

Roger Ascham, the friend of Lady Jane Grey and the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1515, and died in 1568. "It was partly with the view to the instruction of his own children, that he commenced the 'Schole-master,' the work by which he is most and best known, to which he did not live to set the last hand. He communicated the design and import of the book in a letter to Sturmius, in which he states, that not being able to leave his sons a large fortune, he was resolved to provide them with a preceptor, not one to be hired for a great sum of money, but marked out at home with a homely pen. In the same letter he gives his reasons for employing the English language, the capabilities of which he clearly perceived and candidly acknowledged, a high virtue for a man of that age, who perhaps could have written Latin to his own satisfaction much more easily than his native tongue. But though the benefit of his own offspring might be his ultimate object, the immediate occasion of the work was a conversation at Cecil's, at which Sir Richard Sackville expressed great indignation at the severities practiced at Eton and other great schools, so that boys actually ran away for fear of merciless flagellation. This led to the general subject of school discipline, and the defects in the then established modes of tuition. Ascham coinciding with the sentiments of the company, and proceeding to explain his own views of improvement, Sackville requested him to commit his opinions to paper and the 'Schole-master' was the result. It was not published till 1670. ... We ... quote a few passages, which throw light upon the author's good sense and good nature. To all violent coercion, and extreme punishment, he was decidedly opposed:--'I do agree,' says he, 'with all good school-masters in all these points, to have children brought to good perfectness in learning, to all honesty in manners; to have all faults rightly amended, and every vice severely corrected, but for the order and way that leadeth rightly to these points, we somewhat differ.' 'Love is better than fear, gentleness than beating, to bring up a child rightly in learning.' 'I do assure you there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.'... 'The scholar is commonly beat for the making, when the master were more worthy to be beat for the mending, or rather marring, of the same; the master many times being as ignorant as the child what to say properly and fitly to the matter.' ... This will I say, that even the wisest of your great beaters do as oft punish nature as they do correct faults. Yea many times the better nature is the sorer punished. For if one by quickness of wit take his lesson readily, another by hardness of wit taketh it not so speedily; the first is always commended, the other is commonly punished, when a wise school-master should rather discreetly consider the right disposition of both their natures, and not so much weigh what either of them is able to do, as what either of them is likely to do hereafter. For this I know, not only by reading of books in my study, but also by experience of life abroad in the world, that those which be commonly the wisest, the best learned, and best men also, when they be old, were never commonly the quickest of wit when they were young. Quick wits commonly be apt to take, unapt to keep. Some are more quick to enter speedily than be able to pierce far, even like unto oversharp tools, whose edges be very soon turned.'"

_H. Coleridge, Biographia Borealis, pages 328-330._

EDUCATION: Jesuit Teaching and Schools.

"The education of youth is set forth in the Formula of Approval granted by Paul III. in 1540," to the plans of Ignatius Loyola for the foundation of the Society of Jesus, "as the first duty embraced by the new Institute. ... Although the new religious were not at once able to begin the establishment of colleges, yet the plan of those afterwards founded, was gradually ripening in the sagacious mind of St. Ignatius, who looked to these institutions as calculated to oppose the surest bulwarks against the progress of heresy. The first regular college of the Society was that established at Gandia in 1546, through the zeal of St. Francis Borgia, third General of the Society; and the regulations by which it was governed, and which were embodied in the constitutions, were extended to all the Jesuit colleges afterwards founded. The studies were to include theology, both positive and scholastic, as well as grammar, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. The course of philosophy was to last three years, that of theology four; and the Professors of Philosophy were enjoined to treat their subject in such a way as to dispose the mind for the study of theology, instead of setting up faith and reason in opposition to one another. The theology of St. Thomas, and the philosophy of Aristotle, were to be followed, except on those points where the teaching of the latter was opposed to the Catholic faith."

_A. T. Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, page 708._

"As early as the middle of the sixteenth century ... [the Society of Jesus] had several colleges in France, particularly those of Billom, Mauriac, Rodez, Tournon, and Pamiers. In 1561 it secured a footing in Paris, notwithstanding the resistance of the Parliament, of the university, and of the bishops themselves. A hundred years later it counted nearly fourteen thousand pupils in the province of Paris alone. The college of Clermont, in 1651, enrolled more than two thousand young men. The middle and higher classes assured to the colleges of the society an ever-increasing membership. {709} At the end of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits could inscribe on the roll of honor of their classes a hundred illustrious names, among others those of Condé and Luxembourg, Fléchier and Bossuet, Lamoignon and Séguier, Descartes, Comeille, and Moliere. In 1710 they controlled six hundred and twelve colleges and a large number of universities. They were the real masters of education, and they maintained this educational supremacy till the end of the eighteenth century. Voltaire said of these teachers: 'The Fathers taught me nothing but Latin and nonsense.' But from the seventeenth century, opinions are divided, and the encomiums of Bacon and Descartes must be offset by the severe judgment of Leibnitz. 'In the matter of education, says this great philosopher, 'the Jesuits have remained below mediocrity.' Directly to the contrary, Bacon had written: 'As to whatever relates to the instruction of the young, we must consult the schools of the Jesuits, for there can be nothing that is better done.' ... A permanent and characteristic feature of the educational policy of the Jesuits is, that, during the whole course of their history, they have deliberately neglected and disdained primary instruction. The earth is covered with their Latin colleges; and wherever they have been able, they have put their hands on the institutions for university education; but in no instance have they founded a primary school. Even in their establishment for secondary instruction, they entrust the lower classes to teachers who do not belong to their order, and reserve to themselves the direction of the higher classes."

_G. Compayré, History of Pedagogy, pages 141-143._

See, also, JESUITS: A. D. 1540-1556.

"The Jesuits owed their success partly to the very narrow task which they set themselves, little beyond the teaching of Latin style, and partly to the careful training which they gave their students, a training which often degenerated into mere mechanical exercise. But the mainspring of their influence was the manner in which they worked the dangerous force of emulation. Those pupils who were most distinguished at the end of each month received the rank of prætor, censor, and decurion. The class was divided into two parts, called Romans and Carthaginians, Greeks and Trojans. The students sat opposite each other, the master in the middle, the walls were hung with swords, spears and shields which the contending parties carried off in triumph as the prize of victory. These pupils' contests wasted a great deal of time. The Jesuits established public school festivals, at which the pupils might be exhibited, and the parents flattered. They made their own school books, in which the requirements of good teaching were not so important as the religious objects of the order. They preferred extracts to whole authors; if they could not prune the classics to their fancy they would not read them at all. What judgment are we to pass on the Jesuit teaching as a whole? It deserves praise on two accounts. First, it maintained the dignity of literature in an age which was too liable to be influenced by considerations of practical utility. It maintained the study of Greek in France at a higher level than the University, and resisted the assaults of ignorant parents on the fortress of Hellenism. Secondly, it seriously set itself to understand the nature and character of the individual pupil, and to suit the manner of education to the mind that was to receive it. Whatever may have been the motives of Jesuits in gaining the affections, and securing the devotion of the children under their charge; whether their desire was to develop the individuality which they probed, or to destroy it in its germ, and plant a new nature in its place; it must be admitted that the loving care which they spent upon their charge was a new departure in education, and has become a part of every reasonable system since their time. Here our praise must end. ... They amused the mind instead of strengthening it. They occupied in frivolities such as Latin verses the years which they feared might otherwise be given to reasoning and the acquisition of solid knowledge. ... Celebrated as the Jesuit schools have been, they have owed much more to the fashion which filled them with promising scholars, than to their own excellence in dealing with their material. ... They have never stood the test of modern criticism. They have no place in a rational system of modern education."

_O. Browning, Introduction to the History of Educational Theories, chapter 8._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. Austria.

"The annual appropriations passed by Parliament allow the minister of public instruction $8,307,774 for all kinds of public educational institutions, elementary and secondary schools, universities, technical and art schools, museums, and philanthropic institutions. Generally, this principle is adhered to by the state, to subsidize the highest institutions of learning most liberally, to share the cost of maintaining secondary schools with church and community, and to leave the burden of maintaining elementary schools almost entirely to the local or communal authorities. ... In the Austrian public schools no distinctions are made with the pupils as regards their religious confessions. The schools are open to all, and are therefore common schools in the sense in which that term is employed with us. In Prussia it is the policy of the Government to separate the pupils of different religious confessions in ... elementary, but not to separate them in secondary schools. In Austria and Hungary, special teachers of religion for the elementary and secondary schools are employed; in Prussia this is done only in secondary schools, while religion is taught by the secular teachers in elementary schools. This is a very vital difference, and shows how much nearer the Austrian schools have come to our ideal of a common school."

_United States Commissioner of Education, Report, 1889-90, pages 465-466._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. Belgium.

"The treaty of Paris, of March 30, 1814, fixed the boundaries of the Netherlands, and united Holland and Belgium. In these new circumstances, the system of public instruction became the subject of much difficulty between the Calvinists of the northern provinces and the Catholics of the southern. The government therefore undertook itself to manage the organization of the system of instruction in its three grades. ... William I. desired to free the Belgians from French influence, and with this object adopted the injudicious measure of attempting to force the Dutch language upon them. He also endeavored to familiarize them with Protestant ideas, and to this end determined to get the care of religious instruction exclusively into the hands of the state. But the clergy were energetic in asserting their rights; the boldness of the Belgian deputies to the States-General increased daily; and the project for a system of public and private instruction which was laid before the second chamber on the 26th November, 1829, was very unfavorably received by the Catholics. The government very honorably confessed its error by repealing the obnoxious ordinances of 1825. But it was too late, and the Belgian provinces were lost to Holland. On the 12th October, 1830, the provisory government repealed all laws restricting the freedom of instruction, and the present system, in which liberty of instruction and governmental aid and supervision are recognized, commenced."

_Public Instruction in Belgium (Barnard's American Journal of Education, volume 8, pages 582-583)._

{710}

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. Denmark.

"Denmark has long been noted for the excellence of her schools. ... The perfection and extension of the system of popular instruction date from the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Bishop Thestrup, of Aalberg, caused 6 parish schools to be established in Copenhagen and when King Frederick IV. (1699-1730) had 240 school-houses built. ... Christian VI. (17301746), ... ordained in 1739 the establishment of common or parish schools in every town and in every larger village. The branches of instruction were to be religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. No one was to be allowed to teach unless he had shown himself qualified to the satisfaction of the clergyman of the parish. .... Many difficulties, however (especially the objections of the landed proprietors, who had their own schools on their estates), hindered the free development of the common school system, and it was not until 1814 that a new and more favorable era was inaugurated by the law of July 29 of that year. According to this law the general control of the schools is in the hands of a minister of public instruction and subordinate superintendents for the several departments of the kingdom."

_Education in Denmark (United States Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, 1877, no. 2), pages 40-41._

"With a population in 1890 of 2,185,157, the pupils enrolled in city and rural schools in Denmark numbered 231,940, or about 10 per cent. of the population receiving the foundation of an education. In 1881 the illiterates to 100 recruits numbered 0.36; in Sweden at that date, the per cent. was 0.39."

_United States Commissioner of Education, Report, 1889-90, page 523._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. England: Oxford and Cambridge.

"Oxford and Cambridge, as establishments for education, consist of two parts--of the University proper, and of the Colleges. The former, original and essential, is founded, controlled, and privileged by public authority, for the advantage of the nation. The latter, accessory and contingent, are created, regulated, and endowed by private munificence, for the interest of certain favored individuals. Time was, when the Colleges did not exist, and the University was there; and were the Colleges again abolished, the University would remain entire. The former, founded solely for education, exists only as it accomplishes the end of its institution; the latter, founded principally for aliment and habitation, would still exist, were all education abandoned within their walls. The University, as a national establishment, is necessarily open to the lieges in general; the Colleges, as private institutions, might universally do, as some have actually done--close their gates upon all, except their foundation members. The Universities and Colleges are thus neither identical, nor vicarious of each other. If the University ceases to perform its functions, it ceases to exist; and the privileges accorded by the nation to the system of public education legally organized in the University, can not, without the consent of the nation--far less without the consent of the academical legislature--be lawfully transferred to the system of private education precariously organized in the Colleges, and over which neither the State nor the University have any control. They have, however, been unlawfully usurped. Through the suspension of the University, and the usurpation of its functions and privileges by the Collegial bodies, there has arisen the second of two systems, diametrically opposite to each other.--The one, in which the University was paramount, is ancient and statutory; the other, in which the Colleges have the ascendant, is recent and illegal.--In the former, all was subservient to public utility, and the interests of science; in the latter, all is sacrificed to private monopoly, and to the convenience of the teacher. ... In the original constitution of Oxford, as in that of all the older Universities of the Parisian model, the business of instruction was not confided to a special body of privileged professors. The University was governed, the University was taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, Master, Doctor, were originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty, and to the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty, for such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself."

_Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, etc.: Education, chapter 4._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. England: The "Great Public Schools."

What is a public school in England? "The question is one of considerable difficulty. To some extent, however, the answer has been furnished by the Royal Commission appointed in 1861 to inquire into the nature and application of the endowments and revenues, and into the administration and management of certain specified colleges and schools commonly known as the Public Schools Commission. Nine are named in the Queen's letter of appointment, viz., Eton, Winchester, Westminster, the Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Rugby, and Shrewsbury. The reasons probably which suggested this selection were, that the nine named foundations had in the course of centuries emerged from the mass of endowed grammar-schools, and had made for themselves a position which justified their being placed in a distinct category, and classed as 'public schools.' It will be seen as we proceed that all these nine have certain features in common, distinguishing them from the ordinary grammar-schools which exist in almost every country town in England. Many of these latter are now waking up to the requirements of the new time and following the example of their more illustrious sisters. The most notable examples of this revival are such schools as those at Sherborne, Giggleswick, and Tunbridge Wells, which, while remodelling themselves on the lines laid down by the Public Schools Commissioners, are to some extent providing a training more adapted to the means and requirements of our middle classes in the nineteenth century than can be found at any of the nine public schools. {711} But twenty years ago the movement which has since made such astonishing progress was scarcely felt in quiet country places like these, and the old endowments were allowed to run to waste in a fashion which is now scarcely credible. The same impulse which has put new life into the endowed grammar-schools throughout England has worked even more remarkably in another direction. The Victorian age bids fair to rival the Elizabethan in the number and importance of the new schools which it has founded and will hand on to the coming generation. Marlborough, Haileybury, Uppingham, Rossall, Clifton, Cheltenham, Radley, Malvern, and Wellington College, are nine schools which have taken their place in the first rank. ... In order, then, to get clear ideas on the general question, we must keep these three classes of schools in mind--the nine old foundations recognized in the first instance by the Royal Commission of 1861; the old foundations which have remained local grammar-schools until within the last few years, but are now enlarging their bounds, conforming more or less to the public-school system, and becoming national institutions; and, lastly, the modern foundations which started from the first as public schools, professing to adapt themselves to the new circumstances and requirements of modern English life. The public schools of England fall under one or other of these categories. ... We may now turn to the historic side of the question, dealing first, as is due to their importance, with the nine schools of our first category. The oldest, and in some respects most famous of these, is Winchester School, or, as it was named by its founder William of Wykeham, the College of St. Mary of Winchester, founded in 1382. Its constitution still retains much of the impress left on it by the great Bishop of the greatest Plantagenet King, five centuries ago. Toward the end of the fourteenth century Oxford was already the center of English education, but from the want of grammar-schools boys went up by hundreds untaught in the simplest rudiments of learning, and when there lived in private hostels or lodging-houses, in a vast throng, under no discipline, and exposed to many hardships and temptations. In view of this state of things, William of Wykeham founded his grammar-school at Winchester and his college at Oxford, binding the two together, so that the school might send up properly trained scholars to the university, where they would be received at New College, in a suitable academical home, which should in its turn furnish governors and masters for the school. ... Next in date comes the royal foundation of Eton, or 'The College of the Blessed Mary of Eton, near Windsor.' It was founded by Henry VI., A. D. 1446, upon the model of Winchester, with a collegiate establishment of a provost, ten fellows (reduced to seven in the reign of Edward IV.), seventy scholars, and ten chaplains (now reduced to two; who are called 'conducts'), and a head and lower master, ten lay clerks, and twelve choristers. The provost and fellows are the governing body, who appoint the head master. ... Around this center the great school, numbering now a thousand boys, has gathered, the college, however, still retaining its own separate organization and traditions. Besides the splendid buildings and playing-fields at Eton, the college holds real property of the yearly value of upward of £20,000, and forty' livings ranging from £100 to £1,200 of yearly value. ... The school next in date stands out in sharp contrast to Winchester and Eton. It is St. Paul's School, founded by Dean Colet. ... Shrewsbury School, which follows next in order of seniority, claims a royal foundation, but is in reality the true child of the town's folk. The dissolution of the monasteries destroyed also the seminaries attached to many of them, to the great injury of popular education. This was specially the case in Shropshire, so in 1551 the bailiffs, burgesses, and inhabitants of Shrewsbury and the neighborhood petitioned Edward VI. for a grant of some portion of the estates of the dissolved collegiate churches for the purpose of founding a free school. The King consented, and granted to the petitioners the appropriated tithes of several livings and a charter, but died before the school was organized. It was in abeyance during Mary's reign, but opened in the fourth year of Elizabeth, 1562, by Thomas Aston. ... We have now reached the great group of Elizabethan schools, to which indeed Shrewsbury may also be said to belong, as it was not opened until the Queen had been three years on the throne. The two metropolitan schools of Westminster and Merchant Taylors' were in fact founded in 1560, two years before the opening of Shrewsbury. Westminster as a royal foundation must take precedence. It is a grammar-school attached by the Queen to the collegiate church of St. Peter, commonly called Westminster Abbey, and founded for the free education of forty scholars in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The Queen, with characteristic thriftiness, provided no endowment for her school, leaving the cost of maintenance as a charge on the general revenues of the dean and chapter, which indeed were, then as now, fully competent to sustain the burden. ... Merchant Taylors', the other metropolitan school founded in 1560, owes its origin to Sir Thomas White, a member of the Court of Assistants of the company, and founder of St. John's College, Oxford. It was probably his promise to connect the school with his college which induced the Company to undertake the task. ... Sir Thomas White redeemed his promise by endowing the school with thirty-seven fellowships at St. John's College. ... Rugby, or the free school of Lawrence Sheriff, follows next in order, having been founded in 1567 by Lawrence Sheriff, grocer, and citizen of London. His 'intent' (as the document expressing his wishes is called) declares that his lands in Rugby and Brownsover, and his 'third of a pasture-ground in Gray's Inn Fields, called Conduit Close,' shall be applied to maintain a free grammar school for the children of Rugby and Brownsover, and the places adjoining, and four poor almsmen of the same parishes. These estates, after providing a fair schoolhouse and residences for the master and almsmen, at first produced a rental of only £24 13s. 4d. In due time, however, Conduit Close became a part of central London, and Rugby School the owner of eight acres of houses in and about the present Lamb's Conduit Street. The income of the whole trust property amounts now to about £6,000, of which £255 is expended on the maintenance of the twelve almsmen. ... Harrow School was founded in 1571, four years later than Rugby, by John Lyon, a yeoman of the parish. {712} He was owner of certain small estates in and about Harrow and Barnet, and of others at Paddington and Kilburn. All these he devoted to public purposes, but unfortunately gave the former for the perpetual education of the children and youth of the parish, and the latter for the maintenance and repair of the highways from Harrow and Edgeware to London. The present yearly revenue of the school estates is barely over £1,000, while that of the highway trust is nearly £4,000. But, though the poorest in endowments, Harrow, from its nearness to London, and consequent attractions for the classes who spend a large portion of their year in the metropolis either in attendance in Parliament, or for pleasure, has become the rival of Eton as a fashionable school. ... Last on the list of the nine schools comes the Charterhouse (the Whitefriars of Thackeray's novels). It may be fairly classed with the Elizabethan schools, though actually founded in 1609, after the accession of James I. In that year a substantial yeoman, Thomas Sutton by name, purchased from Lord Suffolk the lately dissolved Charterhouse, by Smithfield, and obtained letters patent empowering him to found a hospital and school on the old site."

_T. Hughes, The Public Schools of England (North American Review, April, 1879)._

EDUCATION: England Fagging.

"In rougher days it was found, that in large schools the stronger and larger boys reduced the smaller and weaker to the condition of Helots. Here the authorities stepped in, and despairing of eradicating the evil, took the power which mere strength had won, and conferred it upon the seniors of the school--the members, that is, of the highest form or forms. As in those days, promotion was pretty much a matter of rotation, everyone who remained his full time at the school, was pretty sure to reach in time the dominant class, and the humblest fag looked forward to the day when he would join the ranks of the ruling aristocracy. Meantime he was no longer at the beck of any stronger or ruder classfellow. His 'master' was in theory, and often in practice, his best protector: he imposed upon him very likely what may be called menial offices--made him carry home his 'Musæ'--field for him at cricket--brush his coat; if we are to believe school myths and traditions, black his shoes, and even take the chill off his sheets. The boy, how-ever, saw the son of a Howard or a Percy similarly employed by his side, and in cheerfully submitting to an ancient custom, he was but following out the tendencies of the age and class to which he belonged. ... The mere abolition of the right of fagging, vague and undefined as were the duties attached to it, would have been a loss rather than a gain to the oppressed as a class. It would merely have substituted for the existing law, imperfect and anomalous as that law might be, the licence of brute force and the dominion of boyish truculence. ... Such was, more or less, the state of things when he to whom English education owes so incalculable a debt, was placed at the head of Rugby School. ... It was hoped that he who braved the anger of his order by his pamphlet on Church Reform--at whose bold and uncompromising language bishops stood aghast and courtly nobles remonstrated in vain--would make short work of ancient saws and mediæval traditions--that a revolution in school life was at hand. And they were not mistaken. ... What he did was to seize on the really valuable part of the existing system--to inspire it with that new life, and those loftier purposes, without which mere institutions, great or small, must, sooner or later, wither away and perish. His first step was to effect an important change in the actual machinery of the school--one which, in itself, amounted to a revolution. The highest form in the school was no longer open to all whom a routine promotion might raise in course of time to its level. Industry and talent as tested by careful examinations (in the additional labour of which he himself bore the heaviest burden), were the only qualifications recognised. The new-modelled 'sixth form' were told, that the privileges and powers which their predecessors had enjoyed for ages were not to be wrested from them; but that they were to be held for the common good, as the badges and instruments of duties and responsibilities, such as anyone with less confidence in those whom he addressed would have hesitated to impose. They were told plainly that without their co-operation there was no hope of keeping in check the evils inherent in a society of boys. Tyranny, falsehood, drinking, party-spirit, coarseness, selfishness--the evil spirits that infest schools--these they heard Sunday after Sunday put in their true light by a majestic voice and a manly presence, with words, accents, and manner which would live in their memory for years; but they were warned that, to exercise such spirits, something more was needed than the watchfulness of masters and the energy of their chief. They themselves must use their large powers, entrusted to them in recognition of the principle, or rather of the fact, that in a large society of boys some must of necessity hold sway, to keep down, in themselves and those about them, principles and practices which are ever ready, like hideous weeds, to choke the growth of all that is fair and noble in such institutions. Dr. Arnold persevered in spite of opposition, obloquy, and misrepresentation. ... But he firmly established his system, and his successors, men differing in training and temperament from himself and from each other, have agreed in cordially sustaining it. His pupils and theirs, men in very different walks of life, filling honourable posts at the universities and public schools, or ruling the millions of India, or working among the blind and toiling multitudes of our great towns, feel daily how much of their usefulness and power they owe to the sense of high trust and high duty which they imbibed at school."

_Our Public Schools--Their Discipline and Instruction (Fraser's Magazine, volume 1, pages 407--409)._

EDUCATION: England: A. D. 1699-1870. The rise of Elementary Schools.

"The recognition by the English State of its paramount duty in aiding the work of national education is scarcely more than a generation old. The recognition of the further and far more extensive work of supplementing by State aid, or by State agency, all deficiencies in the supply of schools, dates only thirteen years back [to 1870]; while the equally pressing duty of enforcing, by a universal law, the use of the opportunities of education thus supplied, is a matter almost of yesterday. The State has only slowly stepped into its proper place; more slowly in the case of England than in the case of any other of the leading European nations. ... In 1699 the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was founded, and by it various schools were established throughout the country. {713} In 1782 Robert Raikes established his first Sunday school, and in a few years the Union, of which he was the founder, had under its control schools scattered all over the country. But the most extensive efforts made for popular education were those of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster towards the close of the eighteenth century. ... They misconceived and misjudged the extent of the work that had to be accomplished. They became slaves to their system--that which was called the Monitorial system ... and by elevating it to undue importance they did much to discredit the very work in which they were engaged. ... Amongst the Nonconformist followers of Lancaster there arose the British and Foreign School Society; while by those of Bell there was established, on the side representing the Church, the National Society. The former became the recognised agency of the Dissenters, the latter of the Church; and through one or other of these channels State aid, when it first began to flow, was obliged to take its course. ... In 1802 the first Sir Robert Peel passed a Bill which restricted children's labour in factories, and required that reading, writing, and arithmetic should be taught to them during a part of each day. This was the beginning of the factory legislation. ... In 1807 Mr. Whitebread introduced a Bill for the establishment of parochial schools through the agency of local vestries, who were empowered to draw on the rates for the purpose. The House of Commons accepted the Bill, but it was thrown out in the House of Lords. ... The movement for a State recognition of education was pressed more vigorously when the fears and troubles of European war were clearing away. It was in 1816 that Brougham obtained his Select Committee for Inquiring into the Education of the Poor in the Metropolis. ... In 1820 Brougham introduced, on the basis of his previous inquiries, an Education Bill. ... By this Bill the issue between the contending parties in the State, which was henceforward destined to be the chief stumbling-block in the way of a State education, was placed on a clear and well-defined basis. ... The Church was alarmed at anything which seemed to trench upon what she naturally thought to be her appointed task. The Dissenters dreaded what might add to the impregnability of the Church's strongholds. ... When the beginning was actually made it came ... as an almost unnoticed proposal of the Executive. In 1832 the sum of £20,000 for public education was placed in the estimates; it was passed by the Committee of Supply; and the first step was taken on that course from which the State has never since drawn back. No legislation was necessary. ... The next great step was taken in 1839, when the annual vote was increased from £20,000 to £30,000, and when a special department was created to supervise the work. Hitherto grants had been administered by the Treasury to meet a certain amount of local exertion, and in general reliance upon vague assurances as to maintenance of the schools by local promoters. ... The conditions which were soon found to be necessary as securities, either for continuance or for efficiency, were not yet insisted upon. To do this it was necessary to have a Department specially devoted to this work; and the means adopted for creating such a Department was one which had the advantage of requiring no Act of Parliament. By an order in Council a Special Committee of the Privy Council was established, and, in connection with this Committee, a special staff of officers was engaged. The same year saw the appointment of the first inspectors of schools. It was thus that the Education Department was constituted. The plan which the advisers of the Government in this new attempt had most at heart was that of a Normal Training College for teachers. ... But it was surrounded with so much matter for dispute, gathered during a generation of contention, that the proposal all but wrecked the Government of Lord Melbourne. The Church objected to the scheme. ... In the year 1844, after five years of the new administration, it was possible to form some estimate, not only of the solid work accomplished, but of the prospects of the immediate future. ... Between 1839 and 1844, under the action of the Committee of Council, £170,000 of Imperial funds had been distributed to meet £430,000 from local resources. In all, therefore, about one million had been spent in little more than ten years. What solid good had this accomplished? ... According to a careful and elaborate report in the year 1845, only about one in six, even of the children at school, was found able to read the Scriptures with any ease. Even for these the power of reading often left them when they tried a secular book. Of reading with intelligence there was hardly any; and about one-half of the children who came to school left, it was calculated, unable to read. Only about one child in four had mastered, even in the most mechanical way, the art of writing. As regards arithmetic, not two per cent. of the children had advanced as far as the rule of three. ... The teaching of the schools was in the hands of men who had scarcely any training, and who had often turned to the work because all other work had turned away from them. Under them it was conducted upon that monitorial system which was the inheritance from Dr. Bell, the rival of Lancaster. The pupils were set to teach one another. ... The inquiries of the Committee of Council thus gave the death-blow, in public estimation, to the once highly-vaunted monitorial system. But how was it to be replaced? The model of a better state of things was found in the Dutch schools. There a selected number of the older pupils, who intended to enter upon the profession of teachers, were apprenticed, when they had reached the age of thirteen, to the teacher. ... After their apprenticeship they passed to a Training College. ... Accordingly, a new and important start was made by the Department on the 25th of August 1846. ... In 1851 twenty-five Training Colleges had been established; and these had a sure supply of qualified recruits in the 6,000 pupil teachers who were by that time being trained to the work. ... The ten years between 1842 and 1852 saw the Parliamentary grant raised from £40,000 to £160,000 a year, with the certainty of a still further increase as the augmentation grants to teachers and the stipends to pupil teachers grew in number. Nearly 3,800 schools had been built with Parliamentary aid, providing accommodation for no less than 540,000 children. The State had contributed towards this more than £400,000; and a total expenditure had been incurred in providing schools of more than £1,000,000. ... But the system was as yet only tentative; and a mass of thorny religious questions had to be faced before a really national system could be established. {714} ... All parties became convinced that the first step was to inquire into the merits and defects of the existing system, and on the basis of sound information to plan some method of advance. Under this impression it was that the Commission on Public Education, of which the Duke of Newcastle was chairman, was appointed in 1858." The result of the Commission of 1858 was a revision of the educational Code which the Committee of the Privy Council had formulated. The New Code proved unsatisfactory in its working, and every year showed more plainly the necessity of a fully organized system of national education. "Out of the discussions there arose two societies, which fairly expressed two different views. ... The first of these was the Education League, started at Birmingham in 1869. ... Its basis, shortly stated, was that of a compulsory system of school provision, by local authorities through means of local rates; the schools so provided to be at once free and unsectarian. ... In this programme the point which raised most opposition was the unsectarian teaching. It was chiefly to counteract this part of the League's objects that there was formed the Education Union, which urged a universal system based upon the old lines. ... By common consent the time for a settlement was now come. Some guarantee must be taken that the whole edifice should not crumble to pieces; that for local agencies there should be substituted local authorities; and that the State should be supplied with some machinery whereby the gaps in the work might be supplied. It was in this position of opinion that Mr. Forster, as Vice-President, introduced his Education Bill in 1870. ... The measure passed the House of Lords without any material alteration; and finally became Law on the 9th of August 1870."

_R. Craik, The State in its Relation to Education._

The schools to which the provisions of the Act of 1870 extends, and the regulations under which such schools are to be conducted, are defined in the Act as follows: "Every elementary school which is conducted in accordance with the following regulations shall be a public elementary school within the meaning of this Act; and every public elementary school shall be conducted in accordance with the following regulations (a copy of which regulations shall be conspicuously put up in every such school); namely

(1.) It shall not be required, as a condition of any child being admitted into or continuing in the school, that he shall attend or abstain from attending any Sunday school, or any place of religious worship, or that he shall attend any religious observance or any instruction in religious subjects in the school or elsewhere, from which observance or instruction he may be withdrawn by his parent, or that he shall, if withdrawn by his parent, attend the school on any day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which his parent belongs:

(2.) The time or times during which any religious observance is practised or instruction in religious subjects is given at any meeting of the school shall be either at the beginning or at the end or at the beginning and the end of such meeting, and shall be inserted in a time-table to be approved by the Education Department, and to be kept permanently and conspicuously affixed in every school-room; and any scholar may be withdrawn by his parent from such observance or instruction without forfeiting any of the other benefits of the school:

(3.) The school shall be open at all times to the inspection of any of Her Majesty's inspectors, so, however, that it shall be no part of the duties of such inspector to inquire into any instruction in religious subjects given at such school, or to examine any scholar therein in religious knowledge or in any religious subject or book:

(4.) The school shall be conducted in accordance with the conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an annual parliamentary grant."

_J. R. Rigg, National Education, appendix A._

"The new Act retained existing inspected schools, ... it also did away with all denominational classifications of schools and with denominational inspection, treating all inspected schools as equally belonging to a national system of schools and under national inspection, the distinctions as to inspectors and their provinces being henceforth purely geographical. But the new Act no longer required that public elementary schools established by voluntary agency and under voluntary management should have in them any religious character or element whatever, whether as belonging to a Christian Church or denomination, or as connected with a Christian philanthropic society, or as providing for the reading of the Scriptures in the school. It was left open to any party or any person to establish purely voluntary schools if they thought fit. But, furthermore, the Act made provision for an entirely new class of schools, to be established and (in part) supported out of local rates, to be governed by locally-elected School Boards, and to have just such and so much religious instruction given in them as the governing boards might think proper, at times preceding or following the prescribed secular school hours, and under the protection of a time-table Conscience Clause, as in the case of voluntary schools, with this restriction only, that in these schools no catechism or denominational religious formulary of any sort was to be taught. The mode of electing members to the School Boards was to be by what is called the cumulative vote--that is, each elector was to have as many votes as there were candidates, and these votes he could give all to one, or else distribute among the candidates as he liked; and all ratepayers were to be electors. ... The new law ... made a clear separation, in one respect, between voluntary and Board schools. Both were to stand equally in relation to the National Education Department, under the Privy Council; but the voluntary schools were to have nothing to do with local rates or rate aid, nor Local Boards to have any control over voluntary schools."

_J. H. Rigg, National Education, chapter 10._

"To sum up ... in few words what may be set down as the chief characteristics of our English system of Elementary Education, I should say

(1) first, that whilst about 30 per cent. of our school accommodation is under the control of school boards, the cost of maintenance being borne in part by local rates as well as by the Parliamentary grant, fully 70 per cent. is still in the hands of voluntary school-managers, whose subscriptions take the place of the rates levied by school boards.

(2) In case a deficiency in school accommodation is reported in any school district, the Education Department have the power to require that due provision shall be made for the same within a limited time; the 'screw' to be applied to wilful defaulters in a voluntary school district being the threat of a board, and in a school board district the supercession of the existing board by a new board, nominated by the Department, and remunerated out of the local rates.

{715}

(3) Attendance is enforced everywhere by bye-laws, worked either by the school board or by the School Attendance Committee: and although these local authorities are often very remiss in discharging their duties, and the magistrates not seldom culpably lenient in dealing with cases brought before them, there are plenty of districts in which regularity of school attendance has been improved fully 10 per cent. in the past two or three years. ...

(4) The present provision for teachers, and the means in existence for keeping up the supply, are eminently satisfactory. Besides a large but somewhat diminishing body of apprenticed pupil teachers, there is a very considerable and rapidly increasing number of duly qualified assistants, and at their head a large array of certificated teachers, whose ranks are being replenished, chiefly from the Training Colleges, at the rate of about 2,000 a year.

(5) The whole of the work done is examined and judged every year by inspectors and inspectors' assistants organised in districts each superintended by a senior inspector--the total cost of this inspection for the present year being estimated at about £150,000."

_Reverend H. Roe, The English System of Elementary Education (International Health Exhibition, London, 1884: Conference on Education, section A)._

"The result of the work of the Education Department is causing a social revolution in England. If the character of the teaching is too mechanical, if the chief aim of the teacher is to earn as much money as possible for his managers, it must be remembered that this cannot be done without at least giving the pupil the ability to read and write. Of course the schools are not nearly so good as the friends of true education wish. Much remains to be done. ... Free education will shortly be an accomplished fact; the partial absorption of the voluntary schools by the School Boards will necessarily follow, and further facilitate the abolition of what have been the cause of so much evil--result examinations, and 'grant payments.' 'Write "Grant factory" on three-fourths of our schools,' said an educator to me. ... The schools are known as

(1) Voluntary Schools, which have been built, and are partly supported by voluntary subscriptions. These are under denominational control.

(2) Board Schools: viz., schools built and supported by money raised by local taxation, and controlled by elected School Boards.

Out of 4,688,000 pupils in the elementary schools, 2,154,000 are in the schools known as Voluntary, provided by, and under the control of the Church of England; 1,780,000 are in Board Schools; 330,000 attend schools under the British School Society, or other undenominational control; 248,000 are in Roman Catholic schools; and 174,000 belong to Wesleyan schools. The schools here spoken of correspond more nearly than any other in England to the Public School of the United States and Australia; but are in many respects very different, chiefly from the fact that they are provided expressly for the poor, and in many cases are attended by no other class."

_W. C. Grasby, Teaching in Three Continents, chapter 2._

EDUCATION: England: A. D. 1891. Attainment of Free Education.

In 1891, a bill passed Parliament which aims at making the elementary schools of the country free from the payment of fees. The bill as explained in the House of Commons, "proposed to give a grant of 10s. per head to each scholar in average attendance between five and fourteen years of age, and as regarded such children schools would either become wholly free, or would continue to charge a fee reduced by the amount of the grant, according as the fee at present charged did or did not exceed 10s. When a school had become free it would remain free, or when a fee was charged, the fee would remain unaltered unless a change was required for the educational benefit of the locality; and under this arrangement he believed that two-thirds of the elementary schools in England and Wales would become free. There would be no standard limitations, but the grant would be restricted to schools where the compulsory power came in, and as to the younger children, it was proposed that in no case should the fee charged exceed 2d." In a speech made at Birmingham on the free education bill, Mr. Chamberlain discussed the opposition to it made by those who wished to destroy the denominational schools, and who objected to their participation in the proposed extension of public support. "To destroy denominational schools," he said, "was now an impossibility, and nothing was more astonishing than the progress they had made since the Education Act of 1870. He had thought, he said, they would die out with the establishment of Board schools, but he had been mistaken, for in the last twenty-three years they had doubled their accommodation, and more than doubled their subscription list. At the present time they supplied accommodation for two-thirds of the children of England and Wales. That being the case, to destroy voluntary schools--to supply their places with Board schools, as the Daily News cheerfully suggested--would be to involve a capital expenditure of £50,000,000, and £5,000,000 extra yearly in rates, But whether voluntary or denominational schools were good or bad, their continued existence had nothing to do with the question of free education, and ought to be kept quite distinct from it. To make schools free was not to give one penny extra to any denominational endowment. At the present time the fee was a tax, and if the parents did not pay fees they were brought before the magistrates, and if they still did not pay they might be sent to gaol. The only thing the Government proposed to do was not to alter the tax but to alter the incidence. The same amount would be collected; it would be paid by the same people, but it would be collected from the whole nation out of the general taxation." The bill was passed by the Commons July 8, and by the Lords on the 24th of the same month. The free education proposals of the Government are said to have been generally accepted throughout the country by both Board and Voluntary schools.

_Annual Register, 1891, pages 128 and 97, and part 2, page 51._

{716}

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1565-1802. The Jesuits. Port Royal. The Revolution. Napoleon.

"The Jesuits invaded the province long ruled by the University alone. By that adroit management of men for which they have always been eminent, and by the more liberal spirit of their methods, they outdid in popularity their superannuated rival. Their first school at Paris was established in 1565, and in 1762, two years before their dissolution, they had eighty-six colleges in France. They were followed by the Port Royalists, the Benedictines, the Oratorians. The Port Royal schools [see PORT ROYAL], from which perhaps a powerful influence upon education might have been looked for, restricted this influence by limiting very closely the number of their pupils. Meanwhile the main funds and endowments for public education in France were in the University's hands, and its administration of these was as ineffective as its teaching. ... The University had originally, as sources of revenue, the Post Office and the Messageries, or Office of Public Conveyance; it had long since been obliged to abandon the Post Office to Government, when in 1719 it gave up to the same authority the privilege of the Messageries, receiving in return from the State a yearly revenue of 150,000 livres. For this payment, moreover, it undertook the obligation of making the instruction in all its principal colleges gratuitous. Paid or gratuitous, however, its instruction was quite inadequate to the wants of the time, and when the Jesuits were expelled from France in 1764, their establishments closed, and their services as teachers lost, the void that was left was strikingly apparent, and public attention began to be drawn to it. It is well known how Rousseau among writers, and Turgot among statesmen, busied themselves with schemes of education; but the interest in the subject must have reached the whole body of the community, for the instructions of all three orders of the States General in 1789 are unanimous in demanding the reform of education, and its establishment on a proper footing. Then came the Revolution, and the work of reform soon went swimmingly enough, so far as the abolition of the old schools was concerned. In 1791 the colleges were all placed under the control of the administrative authorities; in 1792 the jurisdiction of the University was abolished; in 1793 the property of the colleges was ordered to be sold, the proceeds to be taken by the State; in September of the same year the suppression of all the great public schools and of all the University faculties was pronounced. For the work of reconstruction Condorcet's memorable plan had in 1792 been submitted to the Committee of Public Instruction appointed by the Legislative Assembly. This plan proposed a secondary school for every 4,000 inhabitants; for each department, a departmental institute, or higher school; nine lycées, schools carrying their studies yet higher than the departmental institute, for the whole of France; and to crown the edifice, a National Society of Sciences and Arts, corresponding in the main with the present institute of France. The whole expense of national instruction was to be borne by the State, and this expense was estimated at 29,000,000 of francs. But 1792 and 1793 were years of furious agitation, when it was easier to destroy than to build. Condorcet perished with the Girondists, and the reconstruction of public education did not begin till after the fall of Robespierre. The decrees of the Convention for establishing the Normal School, the Polytechnic, the School of Mines, and the écoles centrales, and then Daunou's law in 1795, bore, however, many traces of Condorcet's design. Daunou's law established primary schools, central schools, special schools, and at the head of all the Institute of France, this last a memorable and enduring creation, with which the old French Academy became incorporated. By Daunou's law, also, freedom was given to private persons to open schools. The new legislation had many defects. ... The country, too, was not yet settled enough for its education to organise itself successfully. The Normal School speedily broke down; the central schools were established slowly and with difficulty; in the course of the four years of the Directory there were nominally instituted ninety·one of these schools, but they never really worked. More was accomplished by private schools, to which full freedom was given by the new legislation, at the same time that an ample and open field lay before them. They could not, however, suffice for the work, and education was one of the matters for which Napoleon, when he became Consul, had to provide. Foureroy's law, in 1802, took as the basis of its school-system secondary schools, whether established by the communes or by private individuals; the Government undertook to aid these schools by grants for buildings, for scholarships, and for gratuities to the masters; it prescribed Latin, French, geography, history, and mathematics as the instruction to be given in them. They were placed under the superintendence of the prefects. To continue and complete the secondary schools were instituted the lyceums; here the instruction was to be Greek and Latin, rhetoric, logic, literature, moral philosophy, and the elements of the mathematical and physical sciences. The pupils were to be of four kinds: boursiers nationaux, scholars nominated to scholarships by the State; pupils from the secondary schools, admitted as free scholars by competition; paying boarders, and paying day-scholars."

_M. Arnold, Schools and Universities on the Continent, chapter 1._

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1833-1889. The present System of Public Instruction.

"The question of the education of youth is one of those in which the struggle between the Catholic Church and the civil power has been, and still is, hottest. It is also one of those in which France, which for a long time had remained far in the rear, has made most efforts, and achieved most progress in these latter years. ... Napoleon I. conceived education as a means of disciplining minds and wills and moulding them into conformity with the political system which he had put in force; accordingly he gave the University the monopoly of public education. Apart from the official system of teaching, no competition was allowed except that specially authorised, regulated, and controlled by the State itself. Religious instruction found a place in the official programmes, and members of the clergy were even called on to supply it, but this instruction itself, and these priests themselves, were under the authority of the State. Hence two results: on the one hand the speedy impoverishment of University education, ... on the other hand, the incessant agitation of all those who were prevented by the special organisation given to the University from expounding their ideas or the faith that was in them from the professorial chair. This agitation was begun and carried on by the Catholic Church itself, as soon as it felt more at liberty to let its ambitions be discerned. {717} On this point the Church met with the support of a good number of Liberals, and it is in a great measure to its initiative that are due the three important laws of 1833, 1850, and 1875, which have respectively given to France freedom of primary education, of secondary education, and finally that of higher education; which have given, that is to say, the right to everyone, under certain conditions of capacity and character, to open private schools in competition with the three orders of public schools. But the Church did not stop there. Hardly had it insured liberty to its educational institutions--a liberty by which all citizens might profit alike, but of which its own strong organisation and powerful resources enabled it more easily to take advantage--hardly was this result obtained than the Church tried to lay hands on the University itself, and to make its doctrines paramount there. ... Thence arose a movement hostile to the enterprises of the Church, which has found expression since 1880 in a series of laws which Excluded her little by little from the positions she had won, and only left to her, as to all other citizens, the liberty to teach apart from, and concurrently with, the State. The right to confer degrees has been given back to the State alone; the privilege of the 'letter of obedience' has been abolished; religious teaching has been excluded from the primary schools; and after having 'laicized,' as the French phrase is, the curriculum, the effort was persistently made to 'laicize' the staff. .... From the University point of view, the territory of France is divided into seventeen academies, the chief towns of which are Paris, Douai, Caen, Rennes, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Aix, Grenoble, Chambéry, Lyons, Besançon, Nancy, Dijon, Clermont, and Algiers. Each academy has a rector at its head, who, under the authority of the Minister of Public Instruction, is charged with the material administration of higher and secondary education, and with the methods of primary instruction in his district. The administration of this last belongs to the prefect of each department, assisted by an academy-inspector. In each of these three successive stages--department, academy, and central administration--is placed a council, possessing administrative and disciplinary powers. The Departmental Council of Public Instruction, which comprises six officials ... forms a disciplinary council for primary education, either public or free (i. e., State or private). This council sees to the application of programmes, lays down rules, and appoints one or more delegates in each canton to superintend primary schools. The Academic Council ... performs similar functions with regard to secondary and higher education. The Higher Council of Public Instruction sits at Paris. It comprises forty-four elected representatives of the three educational orders, nine University officials, and four 'free' schoolmasters appointed by the Minister, and is the disciplinary court of appeal for the two preceding councils. ... Such is the framework, administrative as well as judicial, in which education, whether public or free, lives and moves. ... Since 1882 Primary Education has been compulsory for all children of both sexes, from the age of six to the end of the thirteenth year, unless before reaching the latter age they have been able to pass an examination, and to gain the certificate of primary studies. To satisfy the law, the child's name must be entered at a public or private school; he may, however, continue to receive instruction at home, but in this case, after he has reached the age of eight, he must be examined every year before a State board. ... At the age of thirteen the child is set free from further teaching, whatever may be the results of the education he has received. ... In public schools the course of instruction does not include, as we have said, religious teaching; but one day in the week the school must take a holiday, to allow parents to provide such teaching for their children, if they wish to do so. The school building cannot be used for that purpose. In private schools religious instruction may be given, but this is optional. The programme of primary education includes: moral and civic instruction; reading, writing, French, geography and history (particularly those of France); general notions of law and science; the elements of drawing, modelling, and music; and gymnastics. No person of either sex can become a teacher, either public or private, unless he possesses the 'certificate of capacity for primary instruction' given by a State board. For the future--putting aside certain temporary arrangements--no member of a religious community will be eligible for the post of master in a public school. ... As a general rule, every commune is compelled to maintain a public school, and, if it has more than 500 inhabitants, a second school for girls only. ... The sum total of the State's expenses for primary education in 1887 is as high as eighty-five million francs (£3,400,000), and that without mentioning grants for school buildings, whereas in 1877 the sum total was only twelve millions (£480,000). ... From 1877 to 1886, the number of public schools rose from 61,000 to 66,500; that of the pupils from 4,200,000 to 4,500,000, with 96,600 masters and mistresses; that of training schools for male teachers from 79 to 89, of training schools for female teachers from 18 to 77, with 5,400 pupils (3,500 of them women), and 1,200 masters. As to the results a single fact will suffice. In these ten years, before the generations newly called to military service have been able to profit fully by the new state of things, the proportion of illiterate recruits (which is annually made out directly after the lots are drawn) has already fallen from 15 to 11 per cent."

_A. Lebon and P. Pelet, France as it is, chapter 5._

"In 1872, after the dreadful disaster of the war, Monsieur Thiers, President of the Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale, and Monsieur Jules Simon, Minister of Public Instruction, felt that what was most important for the nation was a new system of public instruction, and they set themselves the task of determining the basis on which this new system was to be established. In September, 1882, Monsieur Jules Simon issued a memorable circular calling the attention of all the most distinguished leaders of thought to some proposed plans. He did not long remain in power, but in his retirement he wrote a book entitled: 'Réforme de l'Enseignement Secondaire.' Monsieur Bréal, who was commissioned to visit the schools of Germany, soon after published another book which aroused new enthusiasm in France. ... From that day a complete educational reform was decided on. {718} In 1872 we had at the Ministeré de l'Instruction Publique three distinguished men: Monsieur Dumont for the Enseignement Supérieur, one from whom we hoped much and whose early death we had to mourn in 1884; Monsieur Zévort for the Enseignement Secondaire, who also died ere the good seed which he had sown had sprung up and borne fruit (1887); and Monsieur Buisson to whose wisdom, zeal, and energy we owe most of the work of the Enseignement Primaire. At their side, of maturer years than they, stood Monsieur Gréard, Recteur de l'Académie de Paris. ... All the educationists of the first French Revolution had insisted on the solidarity of the three orders of education; maintaining that it was not possible to separate one from another, and that there ought to be a close correspondence between them. This principle lies at the root of the whole system of French national instruction. Having established this principle, the four leaders called upon all classes of teachers to work with them, and professors who had devoted their life to the promotion of superior instruction brought their experience and their powers of organization to bear upon schools for all classes, from the richest to the poorest. ... But to reform and to reconstruct a system of instruction is not a small task. It is not easy to change at once the old methods, to give a new spirit to the masters, to teach those who think that what had been sufficient for them need not be altered and is sufficient forever. However, we must say that as soon as the French teachers heard of the great changes which were about to take place, they were all anxious to rise to the demands made on them, and were eager for advice and help. Lectures on pedagogy and psychology were given to them by the highest professors of philosophy, and these lessons were so much appreciated that the attention of the University of France was called to the necessity for creating at the Sorbonne a special course of lectures on pedagogy. Eleven hundred masters and mistresses attended them the first year that they were inaugurated; from that time till now their number has always been increasing. Now we have at the Sorbonne a Chaire Magistrale and Conférences for the training of masters and professors; and the faculties at Lyons, Bordeaux, Nancy, and Montpellier have followed the example given at the Sorbonne, Paris. ... In 1878, the Musée Pedagogique was founded; in 1882, began the publication of the Revue Pedagogique and the Revue Internationale de l'Enseignement. Four large volumes of the Dictionnaire de Pédagogie, each containing about 3,000 closely printed pages, have also come out under the editorship of Monsieur Buisson, all the work of zealous teachers and educationists. In 1879 normal schools were opened. Then in 1880 primary schools, and in 1882 we may say that the Ecoles Maternelles and the Ecoles Enfantines were created, so different are they from the infant schools or the Salles d'Asile; in 1883 a new examination was established for the Professorat and the Direction des Ecoles Normales, as well as for the inspectors of primary instruction; and in July, 1889, the law about public and private teaching was promulgated, perhaps one of the most important that has ever been passed by the Republic."

_Mme. Th. Armagnac, The Educational Renaissance of France (Education, September, 1890)._

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1890-1891. Statistics.

The whole number of pupils registered in the primary, elementary and superior schools, public and private, of France and Algiers (excluding the "écoles maternelles") for the school-year 1890-91, was 5,593,883; of which 4,384,905 were in public schools (3,760,601, "laïque," and 624,304 "congréganiste"), and 1,208,978 in private schools (151,412 "laïques," and 1,057,566 "congréganiste"). Of 36,484 communes, 35,503 possessed a public school, and 875 were joined for school purposes with another commune. The male teachers employed in the elementary and superior public schools numbered 28,657; female teachers, 24,273; total 52,930.

_Ministère de l'Instruction publique, Résumé des états de situation de l'enseignement primaire pour l'année scolaire 1890-1891._

EDUCATION: Ireland.

"The present system of National Education in Ireland was founded in 1831. In this year grants of public money for the education of the poor were entrusted to the lord-lieutenant in order that they might be applied to the education of the people. This education was to be given to children of every religious belief, and to be superintended by commissioners appointed for the purpose. The great principle on which the system was founded was that of 'united secular and separate religious instruction.' No child should be required to attend any religious instruction which should be contrary to the wishes of his or her parents or guardians. Times were to be set apart during which children were to have such religious instruction as their parents might think proper. It was to be the duty of the Commissioners to see that these principles were carried out and not infringed on in any way. They had also power to give or refuse money to those who applied for aid to build schools. Schools are 'vested' and 'non-vested.' Vested schools are those built by the Board of National Education; non-vested schools are the ordinary schools, and are managed by those who built them. If a committee of persons build a school, it is looked on by the Board as the 'patron.' If a landowner or private person builds a school, he is regarded as the patron if he has no committee. The patron, whether landlord or committee, has power to appoint or dismiss a manager, who corresponds with the Board. The manager is also responsible for the due or thorough observance of the laws and rules. Teachers are paid by him after he certifies that the laws have been kept, and gives the attendance for each quarter. When an individual is patron, he may appoint himself manager and thus fill both offices. ... The teachers are paid by salaries and by results fees. The Boards of Guardians have power to contribute to these results fees. Some unions do so and are called 'contributory.' School managers in Ireland are nearly always clerics of some denomination. There are sometimes, but very rarely, lay managers. ... From the census returns of 1881 it appears that but fifty-nine per cent. of the people of Ireland are able to read and write, The greater number of national schools through Ireland are what are called 'unmixed,' that is, attended by children of one denomination only. The rest of the schools are called 'mixed,' that is, attended by children of different forms of religion. The percentage of schools that show a 'mixed' attendance tends to become smaller each year. ... There are also twenty-nine 'model' schools in different parts of Ireland. These schools are managed directly by the Board of National Education. ... {719} According to the report of the Commissioners of National Education for 1890, the 'percentage of average attendance to the average number of children on the rolls of the schools was but 59.0,' and the percentage of school attendance to the estimated population of school age in Ireland would be less than 50. Different reasons might be given for this small percentage of attendance. The chief reasons are, first, attendance at school not being compulsory, and next, education not being free. ... The pence paid for school fees in Ireland may seem, to many people, a small matter. But in a country like Ireland, where little money circulates, and a number of the people are very poor, school pence are often not easily found every week. In 1890, £104,550 4s. and 8d. was paid in school fees, being an average of 4s. 32¾d. per unit of average attendance."

_The Irish Peasant; by a Guardian of the Poor, chapter 8._

EDUCATION: Norway.

"In 1739 the schools throughout the country were regulated by a royal ordinance, but this paid so little regard to the economical and physical condition of Norway that it had to be altered and modified as early as 1741. Compulsory instruction, however, had thus been adopted, securing to every child in the country instruction in the Christian doctrine and in reading, and this coercion was retained in all later laws. ... Many portions of the country are intersected by high mountains and deep fiords, so that a small population is scattered over a surface of several miles. In such localities the law has established 'ambulatory schools,' whose teachers travel from one farm to another, living with the different peasants. Although this kind of instruction has often been most incomplete and the teachers very mediocre, still educational coercion has everywhere been in force, and Christian instruction everywhere provided for the children. These 'ambulatory schools' formerly existed in large numbers, but with the increase of wealth and population, and the growing interest taken in education, their number has gradually diminished, and that of fixed circle-schools augmented in the same proportion."

_G. Gade, Report on the Educational System of Norway (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, July, 1871)._

"School attendance is compulsory for at least 12 weeks each year for all children in the country districts from 8 years of age to confirmation, and from 7 years to confirmation in the towns. According to the law of 1889, which in a measure only emphasizes preceding laws, each school is to have the necessary furnishings and all indispensable school material. The Norwegians are so intent upon giving instruction to all children that in case of poverty of the parents the authorities furnish text-books and the necessary clothing, so that school privileges may be accorded to all of school age."

_U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1889-90, page 513._

EDUCATION: Prussia: A. D. 1809. Education and the liberation movement.

"The most important era in the history of public instruction in Prussia, as well as in other parts of Germany, opens with the efforts put forth by the king and people, to rescue the kingdom from the yoke of Napoleon in 1809. In that year the army was remodeled and every citizen converted into a soldier; landed property was declared free of feudal service; restrictions on freedom of trade were abolished, and the whole state was reorganized. Great reliance was placed on infusing a German spirit into the people by giving them freer access to improved institutions of education from the common school to the university. Under the councils of Hardenberg, Humboldt, Stein, Altenstein, these reforms and improvements were projected, carried on, and perfected in less than a single generation. The movement in behalf of popular schools commenced by inviting C. A. Zeller, of Wirtemberg, to Prussia. Zeller was a young theologian, who had studied under Pestalozzi in Switzerland, and was thoroughly imbued with the method and spirit of his master. On his return he had convened the school teachers of Wirtemberg in barns, for want of better accommodations being allowed him, and inspired them with a zeal for Pestalozzi's methods, and for a better education of the whole people. On removing to Prussia he first took charge of the seminary at Koenigsberg, soon after founded the seminary at Karalene, and went about into different provinces meeting with teachers, holding conferences, visiting schools, and inspiring school officers with the right spirit. The next step taken was to send a number of young men, mostly theologians, to Pestalozzi's institution at Ifferten, to acquire his method, and on their return to place them in new, or reorganized teachers' seminaries. To these new agents in school improvement were joined a large body of zealous teachers, and patriotic and enlightened citizens, who, in ways and methods of their own, labored incessantly to confirm the Prussian state, by forming new organs for its internal life, and new means of protection from foreign foes. They proved themselves truly educators of the people. Although the government thus not only encouraged, but directly aided in the introduction of the methods of Pestalozzi into the public schools of Prussia, still the school board in the different provinces sustained and encouraged those who approved and taught on different systems. ... Music, which was one of Pestalozzi's great instruments of culture, was made the vehicle of patriotic songs, and through them the heart of all Germany was moved to bitter hatred of the conqueror who had desolated her fields and homes, and humbled the pride of her monarchy. All these efforts for the improvement of elementary education, accompanied by expensive modifications in the establishments of secondary and superior education, were made when the treasury was impoverished, and taxes the most exorbitant in amount were levied on every province and commune of the kingdom."

_H. Barnard, National Education in Europe, pages 83-84._

For this notable educational work begun in Prussia in 1809, and which gave a new character to the nation, "the Providential man appeared in Humboldt, as great a master of the science and art of education as Scharnhorst was a master of the organisation of war. Not only was he himself, as a scholar and an investigator, on a level with the very first of his age, not only had he lived with precisely those masters of literature, Schiller and Goethe, who were most deliberate in their self-culture, and have therefore left behind most instruction on the higher parts of education, but he had been specially intimate with F. A. Wolf. It is not generally known in England that Wolf was not merely the greatest philologer but also the greatest teacher and educationist of his time. ... Formed by such teachers, and supported by a more intense belief in culture than almost any man of his time, Humboldt began his work in April, 1809. {720} In primary education Fichte had already pointed to Pestalozzi as the best guide. One of that reformer's disciples, C. A. Zeller, was summoned to Königsberg to found a normal school, while the reformer himself, in his weekly educational journal, cheered fallen Prussia by his panegyric, and wrote enthusiastically to Nicolovius pronouncing him and his friends the salt and leaven of the earth that would soon leaven the whole mass. It is related that in the many difficulties which Zeller not unnaturally had to contend with, the King's genuine benevolence, interest in practical improvement, and strong family feeling, were of decisive use. ... The reform of the Gymnasia was also highly successful. Süvern here was among the most active of those who worked under Humboldt's direction. In deference to the authority of Wolf the classics preserved their traditional position of honour, and particular importance was attached to Greek. ... But it was on the highest department of education that Humboldt left his mark most visibly. He founded the University of Berlin; he gave to Europe a new seat of learning, which has ever since stood on an equality with the very greatest of those of which Europe boasted before. We are not indeed to suppose that the idea of such a University sprang up for the first time at this moment, or in the brain of Humboldt. Among all the losses which befell Prussia by the Peace of Tilsit none was felt more bitterly than the loss of the University of Halle, where Wolf himself had made his fame. Immediately after the blow fell, two of the Professors of Halle made their way to Memel and laid before the King a proposal to establish a High School at Berlin. This was on August 22nd, 1807. ... On September 4th came an Order of Cabinet, in which it was declared to be one of the most important objects to compensate the loss of Halle. It was added that neither of the two Universities which remained to Prussia, those of Königsberg and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, could be made to supply the place of Halle, Königsberg being too remote from the seat of Government and Frankfurt not sufficiently provided with means. At Berlin a University could best, and at least expense, be established. Accordingly all funds which had hitherto gone to Halle were to go for the future to Berlin, and assurances were to be given to the expelled Professors which might prevent their talents being lost to the country. A University is not founded in a day, and accordingly while Stein held office the design did not pass beyond the stage of discussion. ... Humboldt sent in his Report on May 12, 1809, and on August 16th followed the Order of Cabinet assigning to the new University, along with the Academies of Science and Art, an annual dotation of 150,000 thalers, and the Palace of Prince Henry as its residence. During the rest of his term of office Humboldt was occupied in negotiations with eminent men of science all over Germany, whose services he hoped to procure. He was certainly not unsuccessful. He secured Fichte for Philosophy; Schleiermacher, De Wette, and Marheineke for Theology; Savigny and Schmalz for Jurisprudence; Friedländer, Kohlrausch, Hufeland, and Reil for Medicine; Wolf, Buttmann, Böckh, Heindorf, and Spalding for the Study of Antiquity; Niebuhr and Rühs for History; Tralles for Mathematics (Gauss refused the invitation). The University was opened at Michaelmas of 1810, and as the first result of it the first volume of Niebuhr's Roman History, opening so vast a field of historical speculation, was published in 1811. ... Altogether in that period of German history the relations of literature, or rather culture in general, to politics are remarkable and exceptional. There had been a most extraordinary intellectual movement, a great outpouring of genius, and yet this had taken place not, as according to some current theories it ought to have done, in the bosom of political liberty, but in a country where liberty was unknown. And as it was not the effect, so the new literature did not seem disposed to become the cause, of liberty. Not only was it careless of internal liberty, but it was actually indifferent to national independence. The golden age of German literature is the very period when Germany was conquered by France. ... So far literature and culture seemed a doubtful benefit, and might almost be compared to some pernicious drug, which should have the power to make men forget their country and their duties. Not unreasonably did Friedrich Perthes console himself for the disasters of Germany by reflecting that at least they had brought to an end 'the paper time,' the fool's paradise of a life made up of nothing more substantial than literature. In Humboldt's reform we have the compensation for all this. Here while on the one hand we see the grand spectacle of a nation in the last extremity refusing to part with the treasures of its higher life, on the other hand that higher life is no longer unnaturally divorced from political life. It is prized as one of the bulwarks of the State, as a kind of spiritual weapon by which the enemy may be resisted. And in the new and public-spirited generation of thinkers, of which Fichte and Sehleiermacher were the principal representatives, culture returns to politics the honour that has been done to it. ... In Humboldt and his great achievements of 1809, 1810, meet and are reconciled the two views of life which found their most extreme representatives in Goethe and Stein."

_J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein,