Prussia and the German System of Education. 7 



rare. Students stay two years, rarely four. They com- 

 pose educational and scientific treatises, and criticise them 

 in special conferences. They take classes in the Gymnasia 

 or study the methods of certain teachers and practice un- 

 der them. 



The Grammar schools are exclusively designed to pre- 

 pare the sons of citizens for the pursuits of common life. 

 Admission takes place at the ninth year, and presumes 

 facility in reading German and Roman print, knowledge 

 of the parts of speech, a readable and clear hand-writing, 

 fair spelling, knowledge of the four fundamental rules of 

 Arithmetic and acquaintance with the narratives of the 

 old and the new Testament. After six years, the pupil is 

 expected to write good German, to translate correctly 

 from other tongues, to understand thoroughly the Latin 

 grammar, and read well Cesar and Ovid ; to pronounce 

 correctly English and French and write them freely from 

 dictation ; to know the outlines of general history, the 

 most important events of Greek and Roman history, and 

 especially that of Germany and Prussia since the Thirty 

 years war. He must be acquainted with the most import- 

 ant conditions of the earth's surface, with the topical and 

 political geography of Europe and especially with that of 

 Germany and Prussia; with the elements of Mathematical 

 Geography, the chief botanical, zoological and mineralo- 

 gical systems, the physiology and anatomy of the plants 

 and animals especially valuable in commerce and the arts, 

 the general properties of bodies, the laws of heat, the 

 elements of Chemistry, Geometry, Stereometry, Plane 

 Trigonometry, Equations, Logarithms, and Progressions. 



There are countries in Germany in which the school 

 system is even more rigidly enforced than in Prussia. 

 Wurtemberg, for instance, with its University, its primary 

 schools established in every hamlet, its compulsory educa- 

 tion of children from the 6th to 14th year, has given 



