EDUCATION 415 labor in general, by those nations in which schools of agriculture, commerce, the arts and trades, and other special schools have received their highest development. The superiority of the Prussian arms has been attributed not only to the military organization and discipline of that country, but also in a large measure to its magnificent system of civil education. On maps showing the distribution of wealth and illiteracy in the United States, the maximum of the former is generally found in those sec- tions where the minimum of the latter exists. And so the wisest statesmen and publicists have found that the best way to diminish the crime and pauperism of a community is to lessen its ignorance. Dr. Wines reported in 1869 that 95 per cent, of the convicts in France were illiterate, 34 per cent, in the English county or borough prisons, 49 per cent, in Bel- gium, 83 per cent, in Switzerland, 40 per cent, in Italy, and 35 to 38 per cent, in the Nether- lands; while in the United States the percent- age is about 22 of the totally ignorant and about 50 of the very deficient. Mr. E. D. Mans- field, in discussing the relation between crime and education (in the report of the United States bureau of education for 1872), con- cludes : " First, that one third of all criminals are totally uneducated, and that four fifths are practically uneducated ; secondly, that the proportion of criminals from the illiterate classes is at least tenfold as great as the pro- portion from those having some education." According to the same authority, about 60 per cent, of paupers in the United States are to- tally ignorant, and about 13 per cent, of illit- erates are paupers. "In other words, the proportion of paupers among the illiterates is 16 times as great as among those of common education." Dr. Jarvis of Massachusetts has shown that an important relation exists be- tween education and health. Dividing the marriages for a given period in England into classes, in the first of which from 20 to 30 per cent, of the women were illiterate and in the second from 60 to 70 per cent., he found that 14-65 per cent, of the children born in the first class died under one year old, and 24' 87 per cent, of those in the second. These and other considerations have recently led to a fuller recognition of the right and duty of the state to provide for public education. Hence in France, Eussia, Italy, Great Britain, the Uni- ted States and other countries, radical reforms in the system of education have been intro- duced or agitated, and the plan of compulsory education for all children of school age has been widely extended and is still undergoing a rapid growth. In Prussia, as early as 1763, a decree of Frederick the Great required parents to send their children to school, a duty which is still enforced by admonitions, reprimands, and fines. Obligatory attendance is a promi- nent feature of the educational system of Aus- tria, Italy, Switzerland (except in the four small cantons of Geneva, Schwytz, Uri, and 283 VOL. vi.~ 27 Unterwalden), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and other European states. The new school law of England simply permits the school boards to enforce attendance of children be- tween the ages of 5 and 13 years; while in France compulsory education is among the reforms agitated. In the United States provi- sion is made for compulsory school attendance in the constitutions of several states. In some states laws to this effect are now in force, while in numerous others the highest officers of public instruction have urged the necessity of such laws. Educators have usually classi- fied general education into three grades, pri- mary, secondary, and superior ; and the schools of all countries have been arranged corre- spondingly. The lines of separation, however, are not drawn with precision, and the classifi- cation varies in different countries. Thus in Europe the primary division embraces the lower grades of schools; the secondary, the colleges, gymnasia, and Realschulen ; and the superior the universities. In the United States, the primary division embraces the lowest grade of schools ; the secondary, the academies and high schools ; and the superior, the higher in- stitutions of learning, such as colleges. Some authorities regard colleges as within the second class, and assume that there is no provision for superior education in this country. Outside of these grades is the special education afforded in all countries by the professional and techni- cal schools. Perhaps a more satisfactory clas- sification would be : 1, elementary schools, in- cluding common schools, evening schools, and schools for the blind, deaf and dumb, and idiots ; 2, middle schools, comprising colleges, gymnasia, realschulen, &c. ; 3, professional and technical schools; 4, universities. The plan of public instruction in Prussia, which also prevails generally throughout the German states, has long been preeminent as the most complete system of national education yet de- veloped. The cardinal features of this system are: 1, the right and duty of the state to es- tablish a sufficient number of elementary schools for all children of school age ; 2, the obligatory attendance of every child between the ages of 7 and 14 years at some elemen- tary school, public or private; 3, the special preparation of teachers, as far as practicable, for every grade of school, with opportunities for professional improvement and promotion, and guaranty of pecuniary aid when sick, in- firm, or aged, and for their families in case of death; 4, a system of inspection, intelligent, frequent, constant, and responsible, reaching every school and every teacher. The superin- tendence over all institutions of instruction, private and public, belongs to the state. For- merly the supervision of the schools in the lower grade was held largely by the clergy, but in 1872 a new school law was passed looking to the entire separation of school and church, and withdrawing the direction of edu- cational matters from the clergy as such, al-
