Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/134

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118
AUSTRIA
[education.

inhabitants. In Austria Proper the number of births in 1869 was 812,474, of which 419,374 were males and 393,100 females; 699,047 were legitimate, and 113,427 illegitimate, and 17,114 were still-born. The number of deaths among children up to 5 years of age was 281,643 152,294 being males, and 129,349 females. The number of marriages that took place during that year was 208,787, of which 164,018 were between parties neither of whom had been previously married; 8670 between parties both of whom had been previously married; 23,533 between widowers and unmarried females, and 12,566 between widows and unmarried males The total number of deaths during 1869 was 583,995, of which 302,104 were males and 281,891 females. Of these the ages of 28 males and 40 females are given as over 100 years. Violent deaths carried off 5988 males and 1939 females, of whom 1110 males and 265 females had committed suicide, 244 males and 82 females were murdered, and 4 males executed. In Austria Proper there were 738 cities and large towns, 1270 market towns, 52,919 villages, and 2,766,314 inhabited and 121,045 uninhabited houses. In Hungary there were 189 cities and large towns, 769 market-towns, 16,373 villages, and 2,450,213 houses. The cities containing more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1869 were Vienna (833,855), Pesth (201,911), and Prague (157,275). Seven cities contained between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants; 42 between 20,000 and 50,000; and 90 between 10,000 and 20,000.

{{Races. Races. The population of Austria is made up of a number of distinct races, differing from each other in manners, customs, language, and religion, and united together only by living under the same government. The most numerous race is the German, amounting to 9,000,000, and forming 25 per cent, of the entire population. They are found more or less in all the crown-lands, but are most numerous in Lower and Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, and Northern Tyrol. The different Slavonic races number together 16,540,000, or 46 per cent. The principal Slavonic races are,- in the north, the Czechs and Moravians (4,480,000), who, together with the Slovacks in the Western Carpathians (1,940,000), form 18 per cent, of the entire population, and the Poles (2,370,000) and the Ruthens (3,360,000) occupying Galicia; and in the south, the Slovens (1,220,000), the Croats (1,520,000), and the Serbians (1,651,000). The northern Slavonians are found chiefly in Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and the north of Hungary; the southern in Carniola, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and the Military Frontier. The Magyars or Hungarians occupy chiefly Hungary and Transylvania, and number 5,590,000, or 16 per cent, of the whole population. The Rumani or Wallachians number 2,940,000, or over 8 per cent.; the Jews, 1,105,000, or 3 per cent.; the Italians, 515,000, or 1-4 per cent,; and the gipsies, 140,000. The rest consist of Armenians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks, &c.

{{Religion. Austria has always remained strongly attached to the Roman Catholic Church. Her sovereigns, however, have in general resisted the temporal pretensions of the popes, and reserved to themselves certain important rights, such as the imposing of taxes on church property, the nomination of bishops and archbishops, and the option of restricting, or even prohibiting, the circulation of Papal bulls. About two-thirds of the people, or nearly 24,000,000, profess the Roman Catholic religion. If, however, we deduct the kingdom of Hungary and Galicia, where less than one-half of the people are Roman Catholics, the proportion in the rest of the country is much increased. In some parts the proportion to the entire population is as high as 90 to 98 per cent. The Greek Catholics number in Austria Proper 2,342,168 (almost all in Galicia), and in Hungary 1,599,628. The Eastern Greek Church numbers 461,511 adherents in Austria, and 2.589,319 in Hungary. Of the Protestant denominations, the Lutherans are more numerous in the western half of the empire, the Calvinists in the eastern. The numbers are in Austria Proper, Lutherans, 252,327, and Calvinists, 111,935; in Hungary, Lutherans, 1,365,835, Calvinists, 2,143,178. The principal other religions are the Jewish, 1,375,861 (nearly half of them in Galicia); Armenian, 10,133; Unitarian, 55,079 (nearly all in Transylvania). The Catholic Church (including the Greek and Armenian Catholics) has 11 archbishops, 24 suffragan bishops, 2 vicariate bishops, and 1 military bishop, in Austria Proper, and 5 archbishops and 23 bishops in Hungary. Altogether there are about 34,000 ecclesiastics, and 950 convents, with 8500 monks and 5700 nuns. The Oriental Greek Church has, in Austria Proper, 3 bishops (1 in Buckowina and 2 in Dalmatia), and in Hungary, the patriarch of Karlowitz, the archbishop of Herrmannstadt, and 8 bishops, with, in all, 4000 priests, and 40 convents, with 300 monks.

{{Education. Previous to 1848 Austria was very far behind in the Education. matter of education; but since that time great improvements have been effected, and an entire change has taken place. This subject now receives the greatest attention; schools of all kinds have been established throughout the country, improved systems of teaching have been introduced, and instruction is open to all without regard to class or creed at a very small cost, or even gratuitously. It still continues, however, to be in great measure under the control of the priests, and many of the teachers are ecclesiastics. The Roman Catholic religion forms an essential part of the instruction in all schools, except those for special subjects. The Oriental Greek and Protestant Churches have, as a rule, their own common schools, and where this is not the case, they have to send their children to the Catholic schools. The Jews also, in places where they have no special schools, are obliged to send their children to Christian schools.

The various educational institutions may be arranged under four classes (1.) The lower or common schools; (2.) The higher or middle schools; (3.) The universities, academies, and technical schools; (4.) The special schools (for particular branches of science or art). All children from 6 to 12 years of age are bound to attend the common schools. This law, however, would appear to bo not very strictly carried out, for of the number of 2,219,917 children who ought to have been attending the common schools in Austria Proper in 1868, the number given as actually at school is only 1,691,349, or about 76 percent. This percentage, moreover, varies greatly in different parts of the country, being in some, as Tyrol, Salzburg, Moravia, and Upper and Lower Austria, as high as 98 or 100, and in Styria and Carinthia from 93 to 96; in others, as in Carniola, only 56, in the Maritime District 47, Dalmatia 28, Galicia 27, Buckowina 20. The proportion for the whole of Hungary is 88 per cent., and it is higher in the western than in the eastern half of the kingdom. The number of common schools in Austria in 1868 was 15,054, with 32,137 male and 2814 female, teachers, 12,225 of the former being ecclesiastics, and 1036 of the latter nuns; in Hungary the number of schools was over 16,000, and of teachers 28,000. In connection with many of these schools there are training institutions for teachers, industrial schools for girls, and trade and agricultural schools for boys. The middle schools are the gymnasia, real-gymnasia, and real-schools. A complete gymnasium provides for a course of eight years study, divided into two parts of four years each. The lower course not only prepares for the higher, but is also complete in itself for those who do not wish to advance farther. The branches of study include Latin, Greek, and modern languages, geography, history, religion, mathematics, natural history, physics, writing, drawing, singing, and gymnastics. In passing from one class to another the scholars undergo a very searching examination. The real-schools, or middle industrial schools, have been established since 1848, and are designed to impart technical knowledge, and afford a suitable training to; those intending to follow industrial pursuits. They are divided i into two course of three years each, a lower and an upper the former serving not only as a preparation for the latter, but forming also an independent course, fitting for the lower kinds of industrial occupations. The branches taught include geography, history, arithmetic, mathematics, writing, book-keeping, exchange, natural history, technology, drawing, &c. The real-gymnasia area class of institutions intermediate between these two, partaking of the