NETHERLANDS 



5686 



NETHERLANDS 



co-education. The Higher Burgher 

 schools vary in length and range of 

 curriculum. A feature in many is 

 the rigorous qualification test 

 before the pupil is advanced a step ; 

 the Dutch boy or girl is educated 

 under an exacting code, and failure 

 reverts with some hardship on the 

 parent. But the admirable result 

 is undeniable that in the Nether- 

 lands education is taken very 

 seriously indeed. 



Schools and Universities 



The old-established gymnasium, 

 or grammar school, found in all 

 large towns, has a higher education 

 status as a gateway one through 

 which more and more women are 

 passing to the universities. Of 

 these, the three historic state uni- 

 versities of Leiden, founded in 

 1575, Groningen, and Utrecht, and 

 the municipal university of Amster- 

 dam, which dates from 1875, 

 have five faculties law, medicine, 

 theology, science and mathematics, 

 literature and philosophy. The 

 free university, Amsterdam, is 

 Carvinist and private, but grants 

 degrees in theology. The famous 

 Technical School, Delft, now enjoys 

 university status, as do the agri- 

 cultural school at Wageningen, and 

 the veterinary school at Utrecht. 

 The universities are non -residential, 

 and students' corps are a feature in 

 their social life. 



HISTORY. More than one date 

 may be given for the beginning of 

 the Netherlands as a nation. The 

 struggle for liberty of conscience 

 and freedom from unjust levies 

 had been going on already for 15 

 years when, on July 29, 1581, 

 Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gelder- 

 land, Brabant, Flanders, and 

 Overijssel formally abjured the 

 sovereignty of Spain. These United 

 Provinces were not finally recog- 

 nized by Spain herself until the 

 treaty of Westphalia, Jan. 30, 1648, 

 by which time Groningen and 

 Drenthe had been included in the 

 confederacy. The period just de- 

 fined is that of the War of Inde- 

 pendence. 



The great figure in this drama of 

 creating a new power and a new 

 kind of power in Europe was 

 William the Silent, prince of 

 Orange. When he appeared upon 

 the scene, a youth at the court of 

 Charles V, all the provinces, both 

 N. and S., had emerged from a 

 state of flux, under their several 

 counts and bishops, as possessions 

 or fiefs of the Spanish crown, in- 

 herited from Burgundy and Aus- 

 tria. Orange, embracing Protes- 

 tantism, headed the revolt in them 

 against the folly and fanaticism of 

 Philip II and his agents, Alva in 

 particular Then followed the cap- 

 tors of Brill in 1572 by the Beggars 



of the Sea, the 

 sieges of Haarlem, 

 A 1 k in a a r, and 

 Leiden, and the 

 other incidents of 

 the struggle de- 

 scribed by Motley. 

 After the as- 

 sassination, i n 

 1584, of Orange, 

 the fight was con- 

 tinued by his two 

 sons as stadt- 

 holders: Maurice, 

 the born soldier, 

 and the poli- 

 tically wiser 

 Frederick Henry 

 (d. 1647). The 

 N. provinces 

 issued from it as 

 the powerful 

 Dutch Republic 

 t he Nether- 

 lands, or Holland, 

 of to-day. The 

 S. provinces re- 

 mained the 

 Spanish Nether- 

 lands, with their 

 later history as 

 modern Belgium. 



_o 



Netherlands. Map indicating distribution of the chief 

 commercial products of the country 



The power of the new republic 

 was a fact long before its enemies 

 acknowledged it. For it the 80 

 years of war were a period of un- 

 paralleled advance, in the empire 

 of the sea, the expansion of com- 

 merce, the exploitation of trade 

 and industries, and in the arts of 

 peace. The Dutch East India Co. 

 was founded in 1602, the West 

 India Co. in 1621. In 1609 was 

 established the Bank of Amster- 

 dam, pre-eminent among such in- 

 stitutions. With the opening of the 

 17th century the Netherlands had 

 already passed from struggle and 

 suffering into its golden age. 



Religious and Political Dissension 

 But there was present in it a 

 canker of religious and political 

 dissension which ate into the rich 

 body. The jealousies of the pro- 

 vinces were complicated by those 

 of the towns. There were rival 

 parties of union and secession, 

 fierce contentions for peace and 

 state rights as against war and 

 central government. The quarrel 

 between Maurice and John van 

 Oldenbarnevelt, resulting in the 

 execution of the latter (1619), 

 signalled the strain of opposing 

 forces, which had weakened the 

 republic from the first, and were to 

 cause its fall in the end. The Nether- 

 lands, by the immense effort of its 

 earliest days, was left like a boy 

 who has outgrown his strength. 



In 1641 Frederick Henry's son, 

 William, married Mary, daughter of 

 Charles I of England. This alliance 

 consolidated the authority of the 

 Orange family, entangled the pro- 

 vinces in the meshes of foreign poli- 

 tics, and during the minority of the 

 third stadtholder William, commer- 

 cial rivalry involved themin thefirst 

 naval war with England (1652-54). 



The third William's troublous 

 minority saw further naval wars, 

 in one of which De Ruyter entered 

 the Thames in 1667, and the forma- 

 tion of the triple alliance between 

 England, the United Provinces, and 

 Sweden. But the prince's tutor, 

 the grand pensionary John de Witt, 

 could not prevent a disastrous 

 renewal of war with France, and 

 he and his brother Cornelis were 

 murdered at The Hague by an 

 Orange mob. Thereupon (1672) 

 William was declared stadtholder. 

 He proved a great general, and 

 1697 brought the peace of Rys- 

 wick. Meanwhile, in 1677, he had 

 married Mary, daughter of James 

 II of England ; in 1689 he, with his 

 wife, mounted his father-in-law's 

 throne, and until his death in 1702 

 he was both William III of Eng- 

 land and the third stadtholder. 



The 18th century was for the 

 Netherlands a period of steady 

 decline. In the war of the Spanish 

 succession (1702-13) the provinces 

 shared Marlborough's victories, but 



Next to its unique physical con- were exhausted in the effort. An 

 ditions, this " fatal flaw " in its interregnum in the stadtholdership 

 constitution is the most significant after the third William's death was 

 fact in Netherlands history. followed in 1733 by the election 



