Organizadoss.—With every respect which is due to tradition and habit the question must be raised: Which are the chief conditions guaranteeing the actual working of such sys tem of schooling, in fact on what ground, in the face of so much variety in aims and forms, is the term applicable? In a country which has no central bureau of education, no board ruling over college entrance require ments, in which none of the 26 federal states interferes to the slightest degree with the in ternal affairs of other states, such as happen to be matters of public instruction, it is indeed surprising to find an almost universal accept ance of at least the main principles which have been referred to in this article. The most exhaustive cause (explanation) is found in the leveling influence of the German university idea. All standardization is derived from the latter. This refers to the training of the nation's teaching staff as well as to the spirit in which the individual governmental authori ties conceive their duty of administration, namely, as in inseparable conjunction with their duty toward all educational institutions of the nation.
Some of the chief functions of the govern mental authorities are to produce the best pos sible conditions for the training of the teaching staff, to assist those who have obtained th6 efacultas in keeping in touch with the larger world of research in spite of their having entered upon the narrow routine work of school instruction. This is partly accomplished by providing scholarships at fair intervals for at tending extension courses at the universities or even by giving leave of absence for a semester's sojourn in a foreign country, especially Greece, Italy, England and Prance. An essential func tion of the state is to secure for its teacher a maximum of material independence including the case of voluntary retirement, good sized pension, generally 75 or 85 per cent of his regular salary, relieves him of the fear of having to spend his old age in poverty . . . he does not need to curry favor with his supe riors, much less with the citizens of the com munity, and in case of sickness or other mis fortunes he does not have to use up his strength to the point of exhaustion from fear that he may lose his position)) (United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 24, 1913, )(A com parison of Public Education in Germany and in the United States, by George Kerschensteiner. Director of the Schools of Munich-Bavaria)) page 9). Naturally a system with a teaching staff drawn from the high plane of academie aspirations must be expected to have produced at certain times teachers who felt aloof from the youth and its still undeveloped taste for learning. There is, however, a noticeable change in recent years, partly due again to the faithful carrying out of the suggestions laid down in the Regulations of 1892 mentioned above. (There is a constant decrease of the former distance between teacher and youth, and a constant increase of mutual appreciation be tween both teacher and youth)) ('Unterrichts und Erziehungswesen Gross-Berlins,' ed. by Wilhelm Muench, Berlin, 1912, page 109). A further task of the highest central bodies (indi vidual federal officials) directing the educational affairs of the nation consists in the co-operation with the intermediate authorities as are for instance in Prussia the "Provipcial-Schul-Kol legian* (provincial school boards), in Ba varia the ((Oberste Schulrat" (supreme school council), in Wiirttemburg the "Oberschulrat" (superior council), etc. In these committees
will be found professional educators, profes sors of universities and institutes of technology, directors and rectors of schools and also lay representatives (as in the case of the Hamburg board). Regulations, issued by the Kultur Ministerium of Prussia, are the result invari ably of current reports crystallizing into sug gestions and thus clearly emerging from the sphere of the schools themselves, i.e., not re sulting from some high-handed official above but originating from below. Other determining factors are: discussion of school matters during conventions of directors (head-masters) and at the time of the debate on the educational bud get in the House of Representatives (Abgeord neten-Haus). A large percentage of the de partmental staff of the Kulturministerium has had a first-hand experience in school teaching and administration, thus guaranteeing a fair representation of the average needs of the schools, i.e., a reliable body of school-experts in whose midst proposed innovations are bound to receive due attention. The rules issued re cently concerning the teaching of modern lan guages were drafted by a committee composed of the best-known modern language teachers of the country, which establishes one of the many evidences of co-operation between the government and school experts. As long as government officialdom thus adequately ex presses the will of the people, i.e., through representation by experts who themselves are in close touch with the needs of the nation, a more direct participation on the side of the people in the solution of educational problems seems unnecessary. "School questions as such never come directly to the people and accord ingly the people are for the most part accus tomed to accept the educational program that emanates from the government" (quoted from Kerschensteiner pamphlet). The frequent quo tations by foreign observers of scathing criti cism by Germans themselves and offered to pub lic discussion even by such conservative men as the late Friedrich Paulsen should only prove the wide range of public attention given to the problems of education in spite of the seeming acquiescence of the people referred to by Ker schensteiner. Matters of this kind have to be studied from a much wider angle, and the de scription of any national system of education will fail unless it approaches it as the natural outgrowth of national character and national needs. With tradition and the forces of growth kept alive and effective, the German system of education, especially in its most significant form, i.e., within the realm of schools of the higher order, seems to be successfully approach ing the ideal of education as formulated in Commissioner P. P. Claxton's definition: "Ed ucation, to be worth while, must be broadly vocational. It must deal with citizenship. All a man does or thinks should lead to citizenship. Life and the interpretation of life must go hand in hand." Bibliography.—
Da. K. O. BEirruirc., Amerika Institut Berlin, Department of Edu