Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/102

 quirements, technical subjects may be taught conjointly with the regular curriculum throughout the whole time. The law provides that there must be at least one Common Middle School in each Prefecture. The actual number is 169, with 2,061 teachers and 49,684 students, being an average of 244 students to each school, and 1 teacher to 24 students. The total annual cost of maintenance is £207,166. Thus each school requires an average outlay of £1,226, of which sum the tax-payers defray £720. A student in a Common Middle School costs the State £2 19s. yearly, and his five years' course represents a local tax of £14 15s. It will be seen, therefore, that when a child has completed its four years in a Common Elementary School and five years in a Common Middle School, its education has cost the public £15 17s. 6d.

Great inducements offer to attend a Common Middle School. Not only does the graduation certificate carry considerable weight as a general qualification, but it also entitles a young man to volunteer for one year's service with the colours, thus escaping two of the three years he would have to serve as an ordinary recruit.

The graduate of a Common Middle School can claim admittance, without examination, to a High School, where he spends three years preparing to pass to a University, or four years studying a special subject, as law, engineering, or medicine. By following the course in a High School, a youth