116 
ing by leaps and bounds, but it needed a 
hall in London and a new garden in place 
of the old garden at Chiswick. The Belgian 
Minister responded for the visitors. 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 
German Higher Schools: the History, Organiza- 
tion and Methods of Secondary Education in 
Germany. JAMES E. RUSSELL, PH. D., Dean 
of Teachers College, Columbia University. 
New York, London and Bombay, Long- 
mans, Green & Co. 1899. 
The magnificent spectacle of German educa- 
tion is something which it is of extreme im- 
portance for our own progress, as well as of 
great interest as an intellectual phenomenon, 
that we should thoroughly understand. Noth- 
ing that has hitherto appeared on the subject is 
to be compared for comprehensiveness of char- 
acter or for vividness of presentation with this 
work of the Dean of the Teachers College of 
New York. If all works on education were as 
interesting as this the science of pedagogy 
would not be the dreary burden which it is now 
to most persons of any spirit or of any feeling 
for logical structure. And if the science of 
pedagogy had more frequently proved attract- 
ive to the better order of writers, who knows 
how much farther advanced the art and prac- 
tice of teaching might have been than it now is? 
Mr. Russell has been European Commissioner 
of the Regents of the University of the State of 
New York, and special agent of the Bureau of 
Education for the study of German schools. He 
has thus had unusual opportunities for carry- 
ing out his investigations ; school officials, high 
and low, have given him generously of their 
time, and have put him in the way of compre- 
hending the spirit and the ideals of their educa- 
tional system. The five years that he has de- 
voted to the subject have been put to good use, 
and their product is a book of an unusual de- 
gree of value. We can only touch upon a few 
of the more striking characteristics of the Ger- 
man system of education as here depicted. 
Of first importance, and far more striking 
than anything that is said in regard to the sys- 
tem of instruction, is the preparation to which 
the German teacher must be subjected before 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8. Von. X. No. 239. 
he can enter upon his career. It should be 
premised that there are no exceptions in Ger- 
many, and that these regulations must be com- 
plied with by absolutely every one who pro- 
poses to become a teacher in a higher school. 
After his nine years’ course in a gymnasium 
the candidate for this profession enters the 
University, where his studies can nominally be 
completed in three years, but where, as matter 
of fact, he is sure to spend from four to five 
years of hard work. He then presents himself 
for the State examination, the sole test of a can- 
didate’s preparation for any professional career, 
which neither the degree of Doctor of Philos- 
ophy nor any other scholarly distinction can 
enable him to dispense with. The examining 
board (consisting chiefly of university profes- 
sors) he must satisfy (1) of his proficiency in 
pedagogy and philosophy, including psychol- 
ogy, logic and ethics ; (2) of his familiarity with 
the German language and literature ; (8) of his 
acquaintance with the doctrines of religion, and 
(4) of his thorough knowledge of the special 
subjects which he expects to teach. These lat- 
ter subjects must be at least four in number, two 
major and two minor, and he must never pre- 
sume to teach any subject in which he has not 
received a certificate, nor to any extent beyond 
that corresponding to the grade of his certifi- 
cate—first, second or third. (There are certain 
restrictions limiting his combination of sub- 
jects ; for example, with any grade of French 
or English, he must have at least third grade 
Latin, and if one of his majors is religion the 
accompanying one must be Hebrew.) As a gen- 
eral thing, the future teacher does not take 
the degree of Ph. D. at his university ; that isa 
luxury costing from one to two hundred dol- 
lars, besides the time spent in the preparation 
of a thesis; and the Staats-Examen is regarded as. 
more of a distinction than that leading to the 
degree, besides being, in any case, obligatory. 
The application for examination is itself a seri- 
ous affair. There is a fee of thirty marks to 
be paid for each examination ; then there are 
certificates and testimonials to be furnished of 
the candidate’s whole course of preparation, 
showing precisely what he has done and what 
his standing has been during his whole school 
life from the age of nine years; then there is 
