Which are the States of the Confederation most, or least, advanced in the science and diffusion of education?

Prussia, perhaps, may take the first place: some will contend for Wurtemburg, still more will urge the claims of Saxony, as its rival. Then we may

arrange Baden, Nassau, Weimar, Bavaria, and Austria. Those which are behind in the race are Mecklenburg, the Hanse Towns, Pomerania, some parts of Hanover, and the electorate of Hesse. Good public buildings, for this purpose, are found in almost all the states, but especially in Prussia, Saxony, the Rhenish provinces of Bavaria, Nassau, and Holstein.

Is the system legislative or voluntary?

Though each Country has its own statutes, all agree to make education strictly a business of government. It is as much considered the right of the government to interpose for this end, as to lay a tax and to require military service. It will be a proud right of rulers shall

day for the freeman when the only be recognised as another name for their duty. It would be unjust to the great Diet of Germany, to deny that it conceives its education of the people to be both.

Is attendance compulsory or free?

The question which is most serious in a Country like ours, where there are such varieties of opinion and such oaths of liberty, does not excite any considerable jealousy in this. Its States are generally

without constitutions. The people are accustomed to see every thing done by an Executive. They do not feel themselves competent, or have never been treated as if they were, to build bridges, make roads, or direct canals. They affect not the temerity of forming libraries and museums. Others think for them. Be it religion, be it education,-strangely contrived to be always put into one manifesto by the politician, and into one category by the philosopher, though two things were never more dissimilar, they accept it, and quietly submit. The poor man, any man of humble life, is controlled, beyond doubt, in the education of his family. Education is police. Prussia, which seems to leave an opening for discretion in this case, which only insists, according to law, upon the school attendance of all children if there be not satisfactory proof that this care is attended to at home, really and practically is inflexible. Its code speaks of the infliction of fine, imprisonment, and hard labour, upon the parent, who does not send his family; and upon all masters and guardians who may have the trust of children. It is military muster and parade!

The only exemptions which are allowed from the compulsory attendance can be pleaded, in privilege, by very few. Domestic education is not of child by parent, but by tutor. The private school to which the child may be sent, involves serious expense. This latter institution is under government control

and license. The poor man is left without a choice. It is a great excellence of this system that it is graduated: if the boy be capable, he is passed from the burgher school to the gymnasium, and, if capable still, he is transferred to the university.

How are the schools supported?

The public schools are sometimes possessed of funds; but as these are generally insufficient, they are assisted by the State. These local funds arise either from a former excess of income, or from private liberality. Though called free, every child must pay according to the ability of the parent. The Board receives the money, and the master is pledged a stated salary, irrespective of the receipts from the pupils.

What are the means of obtaining competent schoolmasters?

Prussia possesses sixty normal schools: a few are found in the smaller states, such as Gotha and Oldenburg and there are some even in Mecklenburg and Hanover. *

It may be added, that in different parts of Germany there are schools and asylums expressly for the、 children of prisoners and state-culprits. There is great mercy in the conception of such establishments. A

* Much of the above information has been taken from Works by Dr. Kröger: "Travels through Saxony, Bohemia, and Austria,” 2 vols. "Travels through Germany and Switzerland," 2 vols. "Remarks on the new French Laws on Education."

necessity is upon the government to withdraw such parents from their families: it does all it can to compensate for the disasters which follow the execution of its just decree. Such offspring lie under a social ban which devotes them to vice; a prejudice of scorn has already condemned them; the home is broken up; each avenue of success is shut against them ;— how reasonable, how equitable, as well as beneficent and kind, is such a provision!

The state of education in Hamburg, that great resort, that noble gate to the depths of the Continent, bears certain commercial features, as we might expect; and it is opposed by difficulties which growing regions do not know. From personal enquiries and observations, the following information has been obtained. The proportion of children in schools is not so high as in other parts of Germany, being not more than one in eight. The schools are of two foundations, the parochial and the free. They are very similar. In both are given instructions in reading, writing, drawing, history, geography, the vernacular grammar, and religion. This latter subject of tuition includes the explanation of the historical parts of the Bible, while catechisms, texts, and hymns, are required to be committed to memory. There are twelve free schools in the city and suburbs: they are well organised, and contain 3500 pupils. The parish schools are seventyseven in number, and educate 3550. To the list must be added five testamentary schools, and five

belonging to different churches. There is a Collegiate Institution also, the Johanneum, with Professors of a very respectable rank. The power of the clergy to inspect, and very greatly to control, these establishments, is, perhaps, rather admitted than ordained. It does not seem vigorously exercised. One peculiarity ought to be noticed. The compulsion known in other countries is not sanctioned here. The only binding punishment of ignorance is, that no child can be confirmed who has not been educated consistently with his station. But the consequences of this privation are not light. Most of these remarks will apply to Bremen and Lubeck.

Denmark was not only an early patron of the normal system, a sure criterion that popular education is active and extending,—but the monitorial plan of instruction has made such rapid progress, that from 1819 to 1829, seven schools had increased to two thousand six hundred and forty-six. If the pretension of Holland be just, that one in five of all its inhabitants is at school, Prussia and Saxony must yield to it. Norway is better educated than Sweden, upon a parochial scheme, but less dependent upon the clergy than in the latter kingdom. The term is greater than usual, nearly ten years. It is made obligatory on each parent; and he may be punished even if he prematurely withdraw his child. Switzerland, the hill-country of freedom and independence, has pushed on in the race; but it is only in a few of its