Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/59

 THE FIRST GERMAN MUNICIPAL EXPOSITION.

DRESDEN, 1903.

IV.

F. EDUCATION.

School equipment and instruction.—The growth of the school system, with increase of number of pupils and teachers, of number of buildings, of complexity of equipment, and of cost, was shown by statistical tables and graphic charts exhibited by Breslau, Chemnitz, Darmstadt, Dresden, Fürth, Hannover, and Worms. School instruction is sometimes free, sometimes more or less expensive. In Dresden, to mention one example, the cost to the municipality is about 50 marks per pupil. The tuition charged is 48 marks per year in the Bürgerschule, and only 7.20 marks in the Bezirksschule. The separation of the social classes in the schools by means of differences of tuition fees is quite customary. For the sake of lightening the burden for a poor family with numerous little ones to be educated, tuition is free for all children of a family, after the second, who are in school at the same time. In the case of the very poor, appeal may be made to the authorities, and the fee is paid by the municipality through the charity bureau. Dresden is said to have the smallest average number of pupils in a class of any of the larger German cities; yet that average in 1901 was forty-one in the Bezirk schools and thirty-three in the Bürger schools. München exhibited views and plans of seven new schools built within the past three or four years. They are all furnished with what might be termed model equipment. One of them, for example, has thirty-two class-rooms with wardrobes, divided into two complete systems, as the sections for boys and for girls are kept quite separate, two gymnasiums with dressing-rooms, two rooms for the kindergarten, two principals' offices, a room for library and conference, two rooms containing the objects used as aids in teaching, a school kitchen, a janitor's 47