THE CLASSICAL QUESTION IN GERMANY. 303 



and the enormous increase in suicides during the last few years is one 

 of the saddest and most striking phenomena of German society, high 



and low. 



That there is an over-production in the professional fields nearly 

 all German thinkers agree. How can it be helped ? The Government 

 has lately called the attention of parents and teachers to the fact that 

 the higher administrative positions in the civil service are all provided 

 for, and that all vacancies for years to come can be filled from the 

 present candidates. The opponents of the real schools now come for- 

 ward and say : " We can help the matter very easily. Shut out real- 

 school graduates from the philosophical faculty and there will be room 

 enough for the surplus students of law and medicine to find careers." 

 Some professors voted for exclusion because they thought that the 

 shutting out of real-school students would meet this rajndly-growing 

 evil of over-production in professional spheres. 



We think enough has been advanced to prove 1. That the Berlin 

 report has little bearing on the question we are discussing in this 

 country as to the respective merits of classical and modern training, 

 for the simple fact that it was on an altogether different point. 2. 

 That as to the particular subject, in regard to which it was prepared, 

 it can lay no claim to be considered final, because it was made prema- 

 turely, at a time when the institution judged could, by the very nature 

 of the case, have had no fair trial, and because it was made by preju- 

 diced parties without sufficient investigation, and influenced by con- 

 siderations which should have had nothing to do with the decision. 



As a matter of fact, the opinion seems to be quite general in Ger- 

 many that the real schools are bound to go forward to new struggles 

 and to new conquests. They have lost none of the ground which 

 they have ever won ; they are gaining new ground every day. It is a 

 mere question of time when the medical schools will be opened to 

 them, and some even dare hope that the law schools must yield also. 

 They may suffer temporary reverses, but they are sure to win in the 

 long run. One significant fact may be noted, which is beginning to 

 tell in their favor. The men in Germany who have made the deepest 

 and longest studies in the science of education are assuming a more 

 favorable attitude toward the real schools. 



The writer recently visited Professor Masius, who holds a chair 

 of Pedagogics in the University of Leipsic. He ~vas for years the 

 director of a gymnasium, then of a real school of the first rank, and 

 then for years a member of the Ministry for Public Instruction in 

 Saxony. On being asked what his position on the question of real 

 school vs. the gymnasium is, he replied : " If you mean to ask me, 

 whether the real-school graduates I get in my work are the equals of 

 the gymnasium graduates, I should say, no ! If you mean whether 

 our real schools, as they are, afford as good a liberal training as the 

 gymnasia, I should say, no ! If you mean whether a real-school, as fully 



