Some say that they are dry, but in all such cases the aridity is subjective. Statistics are the intellectual representations in their most precise form of the phenomena and realities to which they apply. Mr. Ruggles's facts are the foundations of important truths, a report of the circumstances of a great people, a register of their advancement, and the basis of prophecy. His pamphlet is not suitable to be read at a tea-party, and cannot be set to music; but, as Mr. Emerson says that the most important part of education is its provocative element, this little digest answers to that character; it is a provocation to endless thought on important questions, and, as such, it may be a valuable help to the education of the American people.
Higher Schools and Universities in Germany. By Matthew Arnold, D. C. L. London: Macmillan & Co. 12mo, 270 pp. Price, $2.00.
Mr. Arnold was, in 1865, charged by the School Inquiry Commission of Great Britain with the work of investigating the system of education for the middle and upper classes of the principal nations on the Continent. In 1868 he published a volume on "Schools and Universities on the Continent," giving the results of his investigation. The present volume is a reproduction in separate form of that part of the original book which related to the German educational system. The Prussian system is taken as an example of what existed throughout Germany. The higher schools of Prussia are gymnasiums and real-schools. There are subordinate branches of each of these, known respectively as pro-gymnasiums and upper burgher schools. They are essentially the same as the former, with the omission of one or more of the higher classes. Gymnasiums lead to the universities, and therefore afford professional training, while real-schools, leading only to business, present a practical course of studies intended to fit the pupil for the ordinary affairs of life. Sometimes the gymnasium has a department corresponding to the realschool, for the advantage of pupils displaying a peculiar fitness for that class of studies. The gymnasium is the stepping-stone to the university. The certificate of having passed the "leaving examination" of the former is an indispensable card of admission into the latter. The gymnasium and real-school have each six classes. Twenty-eight hours for the lower classes, and thirty for the higher, is the required time, per week, for school-work in the gymnasium. This is distributed among the different studies in varying proportions: Latin gets the most—ten hours—natural sciences get two hours in the highest class, and one in the next; religion gets two hours in the four higher classes, and three hours in the two lower ones. The scholastic term constitutes nine years—one year each for the three lower classes, and two each for the higher. The universities have four faculties each—theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. Philosophy embraces the humanities, or languages and their literatures, the mathematical and the natural sciences. Some universities have a distinct faculty for political economy, others embrace it under the general head of philosophy. All schools, both public and private, are under the control of the state. No one wanting the proper qualifications for a teacher is allowed to set up a private school. Private schools of the higher kind are also discouraged, by the fact that a pupil cannot enter a university without having passed the "leaving examination" of the gymnasium. As is well known, school attendance or efficient private instruction is compulsory on the children of all classes. Catholic schools are maintained for Catholic children, and Protestant for Protestants. A small number of either sect attending a school of the opposite persuasion are not compelled to receive the established religious instruction, but may be provided with instruction of their own sect, at the expense of their parents. In schools where the number of Protestants and Catholics is very nearly equal, an instructor for each sect is appointed. For the government of the schools, the state is divided into eight provinces, and subdivided into twenty-six districts. Each province has a school-board composed of a president and a director, with two or three other members, who are usually a Protestant, a Catholic, and a person practically versed in school matters. Each district has also a school-board constructed
