EDUCATION— SOCIAL CONDITION. 157 



of the Baltic, tlie Sound, and the Kattegat. Of all European countries Norway 

 possesses, not the longest, but the greatest number of cables, necessitated by the 

 countless inlets interrupting the land communication. The lines are carried from 

 islet to islet northwards to the immediate neighbourhood of North Cape. 



Education. — Social Condition. 



Although the relative number of letters received per head of the population is 

 less than in England, France, and Central Europe, general instruction is still 

 highly developed. Attendance at school between the ages of seven and fourteen is 

 obligatory in both states, and each urban commune and rural parish is bound to 

 have at least one primary school, with a master holding a certificate from a 

 Government normal school. These primary establishments are perfectly free, but 

 there are others founded by the State, the communes, and private individuals, in 

 which fees are taken. Both the State and the Protestant Church reserve their 

 right of inspecting the free schools, and the Council of Education, in which the 

 Bishop and Consistory have the upper hand, may compel the parents to send their 

 children to the Government schools if the result of the periodical examinations 

 should seem to justify this course. Parents not sending their children to school 

 are reprimanded or punished. 



Till recently nearly all the Norwegian schools were ambulatory, the sparse 

 population of the hamlets and the great distances across rocks and moors 

 preventing the children from resorting to the village schools, and obliging the 

 teacher to visit them. He made his rounds, stopping successively for a few weeks 

 at some hospitable farmstead, where the children of the neighbourhood gathered 

 to receive him. His arrival was a great event, and when the little ones had 

 mastered their letters they were left in charge of tutors, who continued the work 

 of instruction till his next visit. Thanks to these migratory teachers, a love of 

 study was awakened in the remotest hamlets, and thousands of fixed schools have 

 now been established in which the rudiments of the sciences and music are tau2"ht. 

 Now the itinerary schools are the exception in the south, but they are still 

 necessarily numerous in the northern districts, M-here the people are scattered in 

 isolated groups. The preceptors are often called upon to perform the functions of 

 justices of the peace, and reconcile by conciliatory means the differences arising 

 amongst the peasantry. 



Secondary instruction is also more advanced in Scandinavia than in most other 

 European countries, and many of the intermediate schools far from Stockholm, 

 Christiania, or the University towns of Upsala and Lund, rejoice in the possession 

 of rich libraries, natural-history collections, and laboratories. The literary and 

 scientific movement is very active, and in Sweden alone over a thousand new 

 works are published every year. In 1877 the number of Swedish reviews and 

 periodicals amounted to 296, of which one-third appeared in the capital. In 

 Norway the periodicals rose from 7 in 1851 to 180 in 187G. 



But in tie midst of so many collateral influences it is not easy to determine 



