The attention given to higher education is re markable. considering the backward eondition of elementary education. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the gain in graduates from the twenty-one Italian universities has been about seven times the corresponding rate of increase of the Italian population. This result is largely due to the fact that public offices must be entered by way of the universities. The State maintains seventeen universities, as follows: Naples, Turin, Rome, Padua, Bologna, Palermo, Genoa, Pisa, Pavia, Catania, Modena, :Messina. Parma, Cagliari, Siena, Sassari, Macerate, which, to gether with the four free universities in Perugia, Camerino, Urbino, and Ferrara. had a total en rollment of 22,475 in 1901. The first nine of these exceeded an enrollment of 1000 each, and Naples had 5144. Besides the foregoing, there are thirteen university institutions. Italy is known internationally for its art institutions, of which there were thirteen Government and thir teen non-Government in 1898, with aggregate enrollments of 2198 and 1688, respectively. There are six Government and a number of private music conservatories. There are also a number of commercial, agricultural, and other industrial schools of academie rank.
For the training of teachers there are about 150 normal schools, the greater part of them being under the control of the Government. The attendance at these in 1899 was 21,488, of whom 20,034 were females. Compared with American or even Northern European standards, the teach ers are underpaid, but their salaries do not com pare unfavorably with those received by other classes of the Italian population. Male teuehers
of a superior degree receive from $200 to $264 a year in the cities. while female teachers of an inferior degree receive from $112 to $130 in the country. The provision of the law that calls for an increase in salary every six years of unin terrupted service is evaded by dismissing teachers before the expiration of that period. Provisions are made for the pensioning of teachers, both the communes and the teachers' salaries being levied upon for the pension fund.
The secondary educational system is divided into two groups—the classical and the technical, the latter having greatly increased in popularity during recent years. There are two kinds of classical schools, the ginnasii and the lied, the former being a five years' course, and reeeiving pupils of the age period ten or eleven to fifteen or sixteen. The latter is only a three years' course. A few of the lieei have recently reformed their curriculum by substituting mathematics and a modern language at the expense of Greek and the sciences. In 1895-96 there were 708 ginnesii, with 59.578 pupils, and 332 licei, with 17,689. The teehnieal instruction is given at technical schools, of which there were 361 in 1895-96, with 37.3f15 pupils, and at technical institutes, of which there were 74 in the same year, with an attendance of 10.274.