As regards religious instruction, the rule is that the primary school is denominational —public schools are set apart, that is, for children of each of the religions bodies; the clergyman who has the charge of the school is the clergyman of the body to which it is appropriated. Besides the " evangelical establishment, in which Lutherans and Cal vinists are combined, there are the Roman Catholics and the Jews to be provided for; of other sectaries. there are not 10,000 in all Prussia. The Lutherans and Cavinists are combined in the school as in the church. Dissenters are allowed to withdraw their chil dren from the religious instruction, and have it given by their own pastor. Any com mune may establish a mixed school, if it so desire, and if the authorities permit; but, in practice, mixed schools are only to he found where it would be very inconvenient to establish it school for each body. In mixed schools the teacher are chosen proportion ately from each of the two great religious bodies; if there be only one teacher, it is, in some districts at least, customary that he should be alternately a Protestant and a Cath olic. The experiment of mixed schools had a long trial in Prussia, and was found to be unsatisfactory, leading to attempts, or suspected attempts, at proselytism, and to parish squabbling. It hrks the wish of as in deference to the feelings of the people, and to the demands of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. But the denominational system is more in accord with the part which the state assigns to religion in the school. The school, it is said, should be the organ of the church for training children to church-membership; school and church are exiwcted between them to form the child into a man contented with his position in life. Religious teaching must be given by the master for an hour every day. In the Protestant schools the master teaches the Lutheran catechism to Lutheran children; the Heidelberg cate chism to the Reformed children. Scripture history is also taught ; and hymns, from a pre scribed collection, have to be committed to memory. The master is not allowed to expound the catechism; his duty is to see that the children learn it and understand the words in which it is expressed. It is the clergyman who explains its doctrines to the elder chil dren in preparing them for confirmation.
Any one may open a private school of any class in Prussia who can obtain a license for the purpose from the government; but in a city it must be shown that the district in which the school is to be placed is insufficiently supplied with schools; and every private teacher must have passed the two examinations. Private schools are subject at all times to the inspection of the school-councilor, and are hound strictly to follow the regulations established for private schools. The larger towns in Prussia are not yet adequately sup plied with public primary schools; private primary schools are therefore common in such places; in Berlin they educate nearly half the children who are in primary schools.
Of the secondary and higher education in Prussia, a brief and general notice must suffice. It has already been stated that the superintendence of the secondary schools is undertaken by the school-councilor of the province; it is independent of ecclesiastical control. The larger communes and the towns are required to maintain middle schools, giving instruction of a higher order than is given in the elementary schools, a sound German education, and preparing boys for the gymnasia. These must be provided to the satisfaction of the authorities, according to the wants of the population. 'They fire maintained, like the primary schools, by, school-fees, local taxation, and these failing, the state treasury. Seine of the larger towns maintain also secondary schools of a higher class; these are of two kinds—the real-school, and the gymnasium or grammar-school.
In such towns, as stated already, the local management rests with the school-delegacy. There is, besides, a considerable number of real-schools and gymnasia which arc entirely in the hands of the government. None of the real-schools take boarders; very few of the gymnasia do so. The gymnasium is a classical school preparing for the universities. In the real-school, mathematics, scientific studies, and modern languages arc substituted for the.classics, and the instruction is designed to prepare the pupils, as far as possible, for the pursuits of life. The real schools grant certificates to their pupils. The royal real-schools and the gymnasia (other than those maintained by the large towns) are under the management of the provincial school-councilor. Sonic of the older of those gym nasia have endowments, but the money necessary for their support is contributed by the state. Appointments to the schools are made by the school-councilor; he appoints the teachers, or nominates the leet out of which local authorities have to choose, in all the secondary schools. Teachers for all the schools have to pass two examinations. There are boards of examirers, appointed by the provincial government, which conduct the examinations; these boards also examine the students of the gymnasia, to test their fitness for the university. The university in Prussia is a teaching(or rather a lecturing), as well as an examining body, and grants degrees in four faculties—thcoloeY, juris prudence, medicine, and philosophy. There are seven universities within the territory held by Prussia before the war of 1866; in two of these—Breslau and Bonn—there is a Homan Catholic as well as a Protestant institute of theology. The university affairs are administered by a commissioner appointed by the crown; all their regulations arc pre scribed, and all the appointments in them made by the state.
State Education in the United States.
In the United States, the education of the people is out of the sphere of the central government; it ranks among the domestic affairs of the several states, and it is chiefly in the northern states—those front which, before the late war, slavery was excluded—that systematic attempts have been made to promote it. The central government has, how ever, in more than one instance endeavored to assist education in the states, by providing for it endowments. In the states which contain waste lands, it puts aside, in every newly-surveyed township of six miles square, one sq.m, for the support of schools within the township. The state becomes trustee of this land, or of the price obtained for it, which is usually called the township-fund, and pays over the yearly income to the township when it has been settled. The central government, about 1836, had lated in its treasury a considerable balance, the surplus of its income over its expendi ture during several years: this it apportioned pro raid among the states, reserving the right to reclaim it. This right has not been, and is not likely to be exercised; and in most of the Northern states, the income of the " United States deposit-fund" is applied to the support of education. Since 1864. by what is called the "agricultural college act," the central government has made a liberal offer of allotments of land to the states upon certain conditions, for the endowment of one or more institutions in every state, which—whatever tlfe other Instruttitin may attention given to these branches c,f learning related to agriculture and the mechanic arts. Several states are pre paring to avail themselves of this offer.