JUNE 27, 1884.] 
into a permanent occupation; and with permanent 
occupation comes in at ouce the idea of ownership. 
Ownership of land is the outcome of a settlement 
in permanent homes, and the adoption of a regular 
system of agriculture. This ownership would be of 
the group, the universi of Tacitus, and must be 
common ownership in the strictest sense of the word: 
for the shifting occupation of individuals or house- 
holds (quos mox inter se secundum dignationem par- 
tiuntur) would continue for a while after that of the 
larger groups (agri ab universis in vices occupantur) 
had ceased; and in this interval there would be real 
ownership, because permanency of occupation, on the 
part of these larger groups (wniversi), originally them- 
selves family groups in nature, and probably still so 
in their prevailing character. At last the same causes 
which had called into existence the common owner- 
ship of the larger group would create, in turn, the 
individual ownership of the household. This would 
probably be a very rapid process. Such as it is here 
described, as a probable result of known causes, it is 
precisely what Mr. Seebohm appears to have in mind 
(p. 367) when he says, ‘‘ It is certainly possible that 
during a short period .. . tribal households may have 
expanded into free village communities.”’ If it took 
place at all, it must have been in this period of blank 
between the construction of the limes and the mi- 
grations of the fifth century. 
The free village community is therefore a natural 
and probable connecting link between what we know 
to have existed in the first century, and what we 
know to have existed in the fifth century. That it 
actually existed among the Germans during this epoch, 
we have no direct and positive evidence; but there 
are numerous features of the later system, in the 
community of cultivation, the rights of pre-emption, 
and the traces of occasional re-distribution, which 
are easiest explained as survivals of the village com- 
munity. For a description of these, I need only refer 
to Sir Henry Maine’s ‘ Village communities,’ and 
similar works. 
Of actual cases of village communities, indeed, in 
any country, it is surprising how few we have knowl- 
edge of, considering the large part they have played, 
of late years, in treatises upon early institutions. 
The villages of India are composed of independent 
families, joint or individual. Those of the South 
Slavonians are groups of house communities; the 
Celts never appear to have had any institution of 
this nature; the Greeks and Romans afford no traces 
of them; the German villages, as Mr. Ross has 
proved, were communities of independent proprie- 
tors, although bound together by ties,. which seem 
to indicate a previous condition of collective owner- 
ship; Russia alone affords unquestionable examples 
of the village community of the theory. What is 
common to all of these, and may be fairly pronounced 
a universal institution of the Indo-European race, 
if not of the human race, in its early stages, is the 
family group with collective occupation of land. 
The nature and organization of the group, and the 
later history of its relation to the land, are questions 
into which we have not space to enter. 
SCIENCE. 789 
The obscurity and vagueness in the prevailing ideas 
upon the subject result from not attending to the 
fundamental character of the transition, in early 
society, from the personal structure of society (based 
upon the family relation) to the political organization 
(based upon territory). In the earlier stage we have 
family groups occupying a definite territory: in the 
later stage we may have a definite territory — the 
mark or village circumscription — occupied and owned 
in common by a group of proprietors. These pro- 
prietors may be the family group of the earlier stage, 
or they may have taken in members of different 
origin: in any case, the point of view has shifted, 
and is now territorial instead of personal. This 
condition of things, if it ever existed, is the free 
village community. W. F. ALLEN. 
TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN EUROPE. 
A SECOND and important instalment of the Royal 
commission, appointed in England in 1881 to inquire 
into the subject of technical education, was published 
on May16. The preliminary report presented during 
the session of 1882 dealt exclusively with the condition 
of things in France, where educational development 
has been most remarkable. The percentage of illiterate 
conscripts in 1833 was forty-seven and eight-tenths: 
in 1867 it had fallen to twenty-three, and in 1880 to 
fifteen, per cent. The law of the 16th of June, 1881, 
which came into operation on the 1st of January fol- 
lowing, decreed gratuitous instruction available for 
the working-classes throughout an extended series of 
schools, commencing with the Salles d’asile, which 
are being converted into kindergarten schools, and 
graded upwards to the ‘superior elementary schools,’ 
in which technical instruction is given, and trades 
taught. The commissioners appear to have been 
favorably impressed with what they saw of the handi- 
craft teaching of the Christian brethren in France, 
Belgium, and Ireland. The combination of manual 
with ordinary literary instruction imparted to very 
young children appears to have been first tried in 
1873, at the communal school in the Rue Tournefort, 
with such satisfactory results that schools of the same 
type are being rapidly and extensively established. 
‘“‘Drawing, modelling, and carving are taught as part 
of the curriculum; and lathes, forges, and joiners’ 
benches are as much matters of course as desks and 
blackboards. In the Boulevard de la Villette is the 
apprenticeship school, established some twelve years 
ago by the city of Paris, for boys who have completed 
the ordinary primary-school course, and to whom is 
given what professes to be a very thorough training 
in the theory and practice of numerous handicrafts; 
the pupils especially distinguishing themselves as 
pattern-makers and engine-fitters. Nearly fifty thou- 
sand pounds is said to have been expended on the 
establishment of this institution, and nearly three 
thousand pounds is required for its annual mainte- 
nance.” The abolishing of the old system of apprentice- 
ship is the main object of this institution. The most 
striking examples of primary schools are to be found 
