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of Edinburgh, Session 1870 - 71 . 
that the educational system has been created in a bureau. The 
schools grew up in accordance with the ideas of the people ; the 
character of the schools has been modified from time to time by 
public opinion ; till within the last sixteen years the schools varied 
according to the difference of the different provinces ; in short, the 
central Government has only gradually and lately got its grasp on 
that which it found, but did not create. 
The Volksschulen , or people’s schools, in Prussia were in the 
outset a product of the Reformation. The great characteristic of 
Prussian popular education is universality of school attendance 
under legal compulsion. Now, the legal compulsion is of com- 
paratively late introduction. It was only brought in after the 
sending of children to school had long been recognised as a religious 
duty incumbent on all, and had thoroughly become a habit of the 
people. Just as John Knox was the author of the parochial 
school system of Scotland, so Martin Luther was the author of 
the universal school attendance of Germany. The custom dates 
from a circular letter which, in the year 1524, Luther addressed to 
the burgomasters and councillors of all the towns in Germany. It 
was a manly, earnest, powerful appeal, painting in strong colours 
the neglected condition of the children, and urging that schools 
should be provided for them. Luther pleaded that each child 
should go to school for at least two hours a day, giving the rest of 
its time, if absolutely necessary, to work. This letter had a striking 
and permanent effect. The town councils, the landowners, and the 
princes of Germany were stirred up to action ; new schools were 
provided, and the old ones improved all over the country, and the 
people gradually took up the idea and never dropt it, that to send 
their children to school was a plain Christian duty. 
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, in 1716, King 
Frederick William, issuing certain ordinances for the regulation of 
schools, assumes the universal attendance of unconfirmed persons ; 
he merely gives his royal sanction to an existing practice. In 
1763 an Allgememes Landschulreglement, or general regulation for 
country schools, was issued, which for the first time defined the 
age of school attendance, namely, from five to fourteen. Thus the 
law was merely an expression, a ratification, and a definition of 
the custom of the people. 
