In Scotland the Parliamentary grants for evening schools are administered by the Scotch Education Department, and are used as in Eng land to supplement locally raised funds. The courses of study cover about the same ground. Gaelic is found on the curriculum, and agricul ture, horticulture, navigation, military drill and s‘vimming may all be learned.
Evening schools also exist in most of the countries of Europe and republics of Latin America ; and in Canada they are specially flourishing.
United States.—The first successful evening schools of the United States began near the middle of the 19th century, although an attempt without permanent results was made in New York in 1834. Boston and other large cities soon followed and evening schools gradually be came a recognized part of the common school system. The aims of the pupils in the evening schools being generally very practical and their minds more mature, the methods and subjects of instruction are varied from those of the day schools. Branches relating to commercial and industrial occupations are naturally preferred. Free evening schools for instruction in drawing exist in some cities and drawing is included in the curriculum of some of the regular schools. Eveninghigh schools have become common and in addition to these extensions of the public school system, various important institutions, such as Cooper Union, New York; the Mary land Institute, Baltimore, and the Drexel Insti tute, Philadelphia, offer evening courses of a highly varied and very valuable character, and of a range resembling that of the day classes.
Free lectures also connect such schools with university extension methods.
The evening schools of the Young Men's Christian Association in the United States, in 1914, had 83,771 students, while the Young Women's Christian Association had 65,129. In the business and commercial schools reporting to the United States Bureau of Education in 1912, there were 134,818 students in evening classes. The evening schools connected with the city school system of the United States reported, in 1912, for cities over 10,000 inhabit ants, a total of 204 cities, 9,476 teachers. Forty \one of these schools were in Massachusetts and il4e remainder were scattered over the other Sta,tes. In 1911 added greatly to tk. efficiency of the State vocational educa tion b extending its help in a very liberal and broad anner to the night schools. The great est num er of night schools are still to be found in he North Atlantic States and the smallest nu ber in the South Central States and Territort s.