far less than the foreign schoolboy, and for this majority the English games are delightful; but for the few hard students with us there is in general nothing but the constitutional, and this is not so good as the foreign gymnastics. For little boys, again, I am inclined to think that the carefully taught gymnastics of a foreign school are better than the lounging shiveringly about, which in my time used often at our great schools to be the portion of those who had not yet come to full age for games.

All the schools I have hitherto described are denominational schools. Before I conclude, I must describe a mixed (simultan) school, or the nearest approach to it to be found. Such a school is the Friedrich-Wilhelms Gymnasium at Cologne. Cologne, as every one knows, is Catholic; up to 1825 it had only one gymnasium, a Catholic one. It has now two Catholic gymnasiums, one with 382 scholars, the other with 281; it has also a Realschule of the first rank, with 601 scholars. Besides these schools it has a Protestant gymnasium, with real classes; as we should say, with a modern school forming part of it. This is the Friedrich-Wilhelms Gymnasium. An old Carmelite college, which had become the property of the municipality, was in 1825 made into a public gymnasium, in order to relieve the overcrowding in the Catholic gymnasium and to provide special accommodation for the Protestants. In 1862 this school was, by the subscriptions of friends, both Catholic and Protestant, provided with real classes up to secunda, the two lowest classes (sexta and quinta) being common to both classical and real scholars. There are, therefore, in fact, three special classes for real scholars; or, as we should say, a modern school of three classes. There are 356 boys in the classical school, and about 100 in the modern school. Of the boys in the classical school 125 only are Protestants, though the school is by foundation evangelisch; 215 are Catholics and 16 are Jews. Nothing could better show how little the 'religious difficulty' practically exists in Prussian schools, than this abundance of Catholic scholars in a Protestant school, where the director and the majority of the 15 masters are Pro

* Cologne is a town of 120,570 inhabitants.

testants. The regular religious instruction of the school is of course Protestant; but the Catholics being in such numbers, a special religious instructor has been provided for them, as, too, there is a special religious instructor provided for the Protestants in the two Catholic gymnasiums. It will be remembered that where the boys not of the confession for which the school is founded are very few in number, the parents have to make private arrangements for their religious instruction, and the school does not provide it. The school-fee is from 18 to 22 thalers a year, according to the form a boy is in.

The property of the school brings in less than 2001. a year. The State contributes about 9001. a year. School-fees produce almost exactly the same sum. first instance the school premises, and now contributes about The municipality gave in the 50l. a year to keep them up. It is a Crown patronage school, but the externa, or property concerns, of this school, as of all the gymnasiums and school endowments of Cologne, are managed by a local Verwaltungsrath, or council of administration. This Verwaltungsrath is thus composed: a representative of the Provincial School Board, the directors of the three gymnasiums, with a lawyer, a financier, an administrator, and two citizens of Cologne; these last five chosen, on the presentation of the Common Council, by the Provincial School Board. For the Studienfonds, which are endowments general for education in Cologne, and not affected to particular institutions, a Catholic ecclesiastic is added to the Verwaltungsrath. These Studienfonds are very considerable, producing close upon 60,000 thalers a year (9,000l.). The Verwaltungsrath has a staff of seven clerks, office-keepers, &c., and both council and staff are paid for their services.

The director was the personage already mentioned, whose nomination to a school* the Education Minister had refused to confirm, because of the nominee's politics. I had much conversation with him, and he struck me as a very able man. He said, and his presence in this Cologne school confirmed it, that the Government found it impossible to treat their * The school was the gymnasium at Bielefeld.

school patronage politically, even so far as the directors or head-masters were concerned. The appointment of the professor and teachers, he declared, it never even entered into the Government's head to treat politically. We went through the school admission-book together, that I might see to what class in society the boys chiefly belonged. We took a class in the middle of the school, and went through this boy by boy, both for the classical school and the modern school. As it happened, the social standing of the real scholars was on the whole somewhat the highest, but there was very little difference. There were a few peasants' children, picked boys from the elementary schools in the neighbourhood, but these were all of them bursars. There were a good many sons of Government officials. But the designation I found attached to by far the greater number of parents' names was Kaufmann, trader.' I heard several lessons, and particularly noticed the English lesson in the third class of the modern school. This lesson was given by a Swiss, who spoke English very well, and who had been, he told me, a teacher of modern languages at Uppingham. I thought here, as I thought when I heard a French lesson at Bonn, that the boys made a good deal more of these modern language lessons in Germany than in England; the Swiss master at Cologne said this impression of mine was quite right. Even in France I thought these lessons better done,-with better methods, better teachers, and more thoroughly learned,— than in England. In Germany they were better than in France. The lessons in the natural sciences, on the other hand, which in France seemed to me inferior to the mathematical lessons, I thought less successfully given in Germany than even in France. But of this matter I am a very incompetent judge, and England, besides, supplied me here with no standard of comparison, for in the English schools, when I knew them, the natural sciences were not taught at all. The classical work in the Cologne gymnasium was much the same that I had seen in other Prussian gymnasiums, and calls for no particular remark.

Dr. Jäger, the director of the united school, well placed, therefore, for judging, and, as I have said, an able man,

assured me it was the universal conviction with those competent to form an opinion, that the Realschulen were not, at present, successful institutions. He declared that the boys in the corresponding forms of the classical school beat the Realschule boys in matters which both do alike, such as history, geography, the mother-tongue, and even French, though to French the Realschule boys devote so far more time than their comrades of the classical school. The reason for this, Dr. Jäger affirms, is that the classical training strengthens a boy's mind so much more.

This is what, as I have already said, the chief school authorities everywhere in France and Germany testify: I quote Dr. Jäger's testimony in particular, because of his ability and because of his double experience. In Switzerland you do not hear the same story, but the regnant Swiss conception of secondary instruction is, in general, not a liberal but a commercial one; not culture and training of the mind, but what will be of immediate palpable utility in some practical calling, is there the chief matter; and this cannot be admitted as the true scope of secondary instruction. Even in Switzerland, too, there is a talk of introducing Latin into the Realschule course, which at present is without it; so impossible is it to follow absolutely the commercial theory of education without finding inconvenience from it. But I reserve my remarks on this question for my conclusion.

CHAPTER XX.

SUPERIOR OR UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTION IN PRUSSIA.

PASSAGE FROM SECONDARY TO SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION-SPECIAL SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES UNIVERSITIES OF PRUSSIA PROPORTION OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO POPULATION GERMAN UNIVERSITIES STATE ESTABLISHMENTS— UNIVERSITY AUTHORITIES-UNIVERSITY TEACHERS-1. FULL PROFESSORS-2. ASSISTANT PRO

FESSORS-3. PRIVATDOCENTEN-STUDENTS—FEES-CERTIFICATES OF ATTENDANCE AT LECTURES- DEGREES- THE STAATSPRÜFUNG — CHARACTER OF THE GERMAN

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.

THE

HE secondary school has essentially for its object a general liberal culture, whether this culture is chiefly pursued through the group of aptitudes which carry us to the humanities, or through the group of aptitudes which carry us to the study of nature. It is a mistake to make the secondary school a direct professional school, though a boy's aims in life and his future profession will naturally determine, in the absence of an overpowering bent, the group of aptitudes he will seek to develope. It is the function of the special school to give a professional direction to what a boy has learnt at the secondary school, at the same time that it makes his knowledge, as far as possible, systematic,-developes it into science. It is the function of the university to develope into science the knowledge a boy brings with him from the secondary school, at the same time that it directs him towards the profession in which his knowledge may most naturally be exercised. Thus, in the university, the idea of science is primary, that of the profession, secondary; in the special school, the idea of the profession is primary, that of science, secondary. Our English special schools have yet to be instituted, and our English universities do not perform the function of a university, as that function is above laid down. Still we have, like Germany,.great and famous universities, and those universities are, as in Germany, in immediate connection with our chief secondary schools. It will be well, therefore, to complete