after lot: a frugal household and a constant
kindly intercourse with parents in humble
life.

The course of study in the normal college
includes, for the first two years, Latin and
French, often English; Geography, History,
Natural History, particularly Field Botany,
and properties of plants; Physical Sciences;
Drawing, Singing, and Chanting; the Violin,
Pianoforte and Organ (for the pupil is
destined to be organist and leader of the choir,
hereafter, in his parish church) together with
the Science of Teaching. (The idea of the
Science of Teaching. As if there could
be any science in it!) Afterwards, the
advanced pupils practise teaching under a
professor on a model class, and are minutely
warned and criticised. They are taught, also,
how to provide for medical emergencies; the
antidotes to poisons, remedies for burns, &c.
In addition to all this, they perform household
work and field work; make beds for
themselves, and beds for vegetables; pump
water and prune trees; ring bells, peel potatoes,
and run of errands. Every year, they
undergo a strict examination. If any then
appear so hopelessly backward that he is not
likely to get a diploma, he is quietly removed,
and no more salt is wasted on
him. Each student, at the end of his third
year, undergoes an examination of two days'
continuance for his diploma. The examination
is as searching as it can be made. According
to their qualifications, candidates
receive a certificate marked 1, or 2, or 3, or
are rejected. Any person not educated at a
normal college may present himself at this
examination, and obtain a diploma if he can.
Those who win diploma 1, are qualified for
any situation. Those with diploma 2 or 3,
must serve for two or three years as assistant
teachers, and must be re-examined, until they
obtain diploma 1. Those with diploma 3, are
obliged to present themselves in the succeeding
year, and if they do not then give satisfaction,
are rejected altogether. Without a
diploma, no person is allowed to teach. There's
despotism for you!

Students, when they are constituted
teachers, always maintain a filial relation
towards their normal college. In cases of
doubt, they apply to it for information; if
they fall back in their attainments, they
return to it to have their minds refreshed.
Thither, they generally send their children.

Teachers' Conferences are held monthly,
on a day, and at a place, previously notified, to
which all teachers are enabled to travel free
of cost. Here, from their scattered village-
schools, and from their towns, the teachers of
a province meet, and shake hands with each
other; they formally discuss practical theories
of teaching; one teaches before the rest, and
when the children are retired, all hold a
debate upon his method; each hears at the
conference, the best improvements in the
science to which his life is devoted, and goes
home strengthened with a consciousness that
he is a member of a great and influential
body in the state. Books, periodicals upon
the history and philosophy of teaching, are
written, read, and largely taken in. Teaching
a science again! Surely this is enough to
make England crack her sides with laughing.
The science of hearing lessons and rapping
knuckles!

The German School object to monitors;
they say it is unwholesome and ridiculous to
put a child to teach a child, even the alphabet.
On this account, the skilled teacher in the
poorer villages has, now and then, more on his
hands than one person can rightly manage.
The Prussians say, they know that; but, of
two evils, they prefer the less.

Well, there you have it; that's the German
school so far as Prussia is concerned! In
Saxony, it's pretty much the same. Every
child is required by law to receive, for eight
years, uninterrupted education there, as in
Prussia, it don't matter where—of any competent
teacher—of the parent, if it be desired,
and if the parent be competent to fulfil such
a trust. But, in the primary schools, all over
Germany, you may see children of paupers,
tinkers, street-porters, sitting, clean, intelligent,
and cheerful, on the same bench with
the children of physicians, land-owners, and
counts. All are attached with a firm faith to
the primary schools; Protestant or Catholic,
rich man or poor, all are impressed with
the sense of their " schulpflichtigkeit," and
thoroughly appreciate the state provision of
a well-conducted education. In Bavaria and
smaller states—even in Austria—the same
feeling exists.

It is the same in Switzerland; there I am
reminded to take note of a circumstance, and
here it is. The Catholic cantons require
education as much as the Protestants, but
they are content with much less. In fact,
that is a general rule, throughout Europe.

In Denmark, education is compulsory. In
Sweden, and Norway, there is only one person
in a thousand unable to read and write. ln
France, parents are not compelled to educate
their children; but M. Guizot has done much
to place education at the parents' door. There
are, in France, seventy-six training-schools,
sixty thousand primary schools under certified
teachers, two hundred school inspectors,
and a Government grant of two million
pounds a year, for the furtherance of National
Education. In Holland, there is a carefully-
devised school system; and, although education
is not made compulsory, there is scarcely
a sound child of twelve years old who cannot
read and write. Catholics, Calvinists, and
Lutherans, sit side by side, and receive
religious teaching in those precepts, which are
the pith of Christianity, and which all followers
of Jesus recognise.

I say no more. Who can wonder that we see
the institutions of our ancestors neglected,
time-honoured customs crumbling underneath