Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/103

 obtains exemption from conscription until the age of twenty-eight, when one year as a volunteer frees him from all service with the colours. There are six High Schools with a total attendance of 4,664 students, and the instructors number 351, or 1 to every 13 students. A High-School certificate of graduation entitles its holder to enter a University without examination, and qualifies him for all public posts.

In addition to the schools already enumerated, which may be said to constitute the machinery of general education, there are Special Schools (6) and Technical Schools (74), where instruction is given in agriculture, commerce, mechanics, applied chemistry, navigation, electrical engineering, aquatic productions, art (pictorial and applied), veterinary science, sericulture, and various branches of industry. There are also 17 apprentices' schools, classed under the heading of "elementary," where courses of not less than six months and not more than four years may be taken in dyeing and weaving, embroidery, the making of artificial flowers, tobacco manufacture, sericulture, reeling silk, pottery, lacquer, wood work, metal work, or brewing. On the average, each of these schools has 67 students and 6 teachers, and costs £520 annually, or £7 15s. per student. The tax-payers contribute £355 yearly towards the support of each school, and the expense to the student is about 2s. 6d. per month.

Normal Schools are maintained for the pur-