318 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
The provincial school council, in conjunction with the president 
of the province, manages higher education alone. 
All reports on primary instruction are sent up by the superin- 
tendents of districts to the departmental school councillor, who, in 
conjunction with the prefect of the department, forwards them 
direct to the minister of instruction. The superintendent, though 
an ecclesiastic, is said to act invariably in a bureaucratic, and not 
a clerical spirit. It may easily be supposed that, with all this 
network of reports radiating towards the centre, there is little 
scope left for local action in the matter of the common schools. 
Though the rate-payers furnish the funds, they have little to say 
on their expenditure. The schoolmasters appear to be appointed, 
not by the parish school boards, but in each case by the depart- 
mental school councillor. For some time there was a certain 
liberty left to individual masters and to local feeling in the kind 
of teaching to be given in the schools ; but, in 1854, certain famous 
Regulative , or Minutes of the Bureau of Public Instruction, were 
issued, absolutely defining the subjects and manner of teaching. 
Of these minutes I will speak presently. They gave final extinc- 
tion to anything like local and characteristic life in connection 
with the country schools. 
In large towns they have another board called the Schul-depu- 
tation, or school delegacy, for the collective management of the 
city schools. These bodies were first created in 1808, when, under 
Stein’s advice, every possible means was being adopted for calling 
forth the energies of the nation, and, amongst other things, it was 
thought desirable to awaken municipal life. In Berlin, the school 
delegacy, consisting of chosen members of the town council, have 
the management of all the schools, both higher and primary, 
within the city, except a few which are of an exceptional character. 
But the school delegacy has to report to the provincial council of 
Brandenburg, and Mr Pattison mentions that on one occasion they 
were reproved for too much independence, for having examined 
some candidates as teachers in needle-work without having sought 
the permission of the provincial government. In short, the central 
power has of late evinced much jealousy of the school delegacies, 
and has apparently wished to take back, or neutralise, the dangerous 
concession of 1808. 
