$52 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
instruction and examinations ordinance for Realschulen was 
issued by a new liberal government in Berlin, a further im- 
portant step was made in advance to transform the whole 
method of teaching from a theological-historical to a scientific- 
inductive discipline. 
I may here mention that gradually, without in the least in- 
terfering with a thorough conscientious teaching of classics, 
science had entered the Gymnasium or Grammar School, and that 
as the times advanced many of the subjects whicheven at our own 
University are quite optional and are unconsciously discouraged 
were now taught by well qualified teachers with a thoroughness 
worthy of the highest commendation. I fear it will take too 
much time were I to give a full exposition of the new arrange- 
ments instituted by this ordinance, and I can therefore offer only 
a short synopsis of the curriculum still in force at the present 
time, a curriculum that works remarkably well. As the Gymna- 
siums are divided into several kinds, so now are the Realschulen, 
the latter consisting of Realschulen of the first and second class, 
and of the Hohere Biirgerschule. In the Realschule of the first 
class, where the pupils have to remain the same number of years 
as in the Gymnasium or Grammar School, Latin is compulsory, 
and a thorough humanistic and scientific education is given. The 
pupil has all the advantages of both disciplines, the more so as he 
has been constantly reminded that he ought never to repeat or 
adopt the opinions of others without having examined, thought, 
and experimented for himself. However the Abiturienten Ex- 
amination-of a Realschule of the first class has not got the same 
value and privileges as that of a Gymnasium, the student being 
allowed to matriculate at the University only for the study of 
mining, forestry, and civil engineering. Although he has the 
same privileges as the successful candidate at the Gymnasium 
for the army, postal, and finance departments, he is not allowed 
to study philology, science, medicine, or law at the University. 
There is no doubt that such a distinction is very unjust, and this 
was felt by the Prussian Government in 1869, when the Cultus 
Minister (Minister of Education) sent a circular to all the Prus- 
sian Universities requesting their opinion as to the desirability of 
the successful candidates in a Realschule of the first class enjoy- 
ing in future the same privileges as those of the Gymnasium. 
The result was not a favourable one, the greater portion of the 
Universities sending a negative answer, although there is this to 
be said, that if the affirmative were in the minority, that affirm- 
ative was most emphatic. It is very evident that in many in- 
stances nothing but the spirit of conservatism dictated the 
opposition to this proposed concession, for sometimes the answers 
were very illogical. One case will show this conspicuously. One 
faculty of medicine, whilst refusing flatly to have any realistic 
medical students who have been well grounded in biology, com- 
plains bitterly that the students they receive from the humanistic 
institutions, the Gymnasiums, are generally very useless from 
their defective biological training, the Professors having to begin 
