INSTRUCTION
376
The erection of elementary schools is incumbent on the school districts. Compulsory attendance begins with the completion of the sixth year, and continues in Austria generally, till the completion of the fourteenth ; but in Istria, Galicia, and Da.lmatia till the completion of the twelfth (Bukowina, thirteenth) year. Of these schools there are two grades.
In the elementary schools the subjects taught are religion, read- ing, writing, language (Unterriclits-Sprache), arithmetic with elementary geometry, some branches of natural history and physics, geography, history, drawing, singing, gymnastics ; to girls, domestic duties. The cost of erecting and maintaining elementary and burgh schools, and the payment of the teaching staff, are defrayed in different ways in different places ; but the expense always falls ultimately on the communes or the land. In only a few special cases are elementary schools supported by the State.
The following figiu'es show the latest statistics of school attendance, and the number of training colleges :^-
—
Elemen- tary Schools
Teachers
Pupils
Children of School Age
Training Colleges
1895 1896
•
19,277 19,440
69,778 71,601
3,378,832 3,430,456
3,872,695 .3,919,750
87 87
The C4ymnasia and Realschulen are schools whose practical purpose consists especially in the preparation they supply for the universities and technical high schools. The curriculum of the former extends over eight years ; of the latter, over seven. They are, so far as they are public, maintained by the State, by separate provinces, by the larger communes, or (in the case of confessional schools) by ecclesiastical foundations, &c. , eventually with a subvention from the State. Private middle schools are included in the following table ; these are under the same regulations as public schools : —
—
Gymnasia
No.
Realschulen
1 No.
1
1 Teachers
Pupils
Teachers | Pupils
1895. 1896.
. : 181
. : 186
3,746 1 56,152 3,787 1 57,408
80 86
1,610 23,600 1 1,728 ; 24,933 j
In Austria there are right universities maintained by the State, each comprising four faculties — viz. theologj', law, medicine, philosophy. In one (Czernswitz), however, the faculty of medicine, is absent. The following statistics arc for the year 1 896 ; —
