Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/488

Rh -I70 increased fron1 14,000 in 187. Besides these there were about 0800 German Catholics, 3000 Freethinkcrs, and more than twenty-live sects represented by from 100 to 500 members. Jaws.-—It is in the towns that the Jewish element is chieﬂy to he found. They belong principally to the mercan- tile class, and are to a very large extent dealers in money. Within jhe last thirty years their wealth has grown to an extraordinary degree. They are increasingly numerous in IIan1burg, Berlin, Frankfort, Breslan, lionigsberg, and Fiirth. Though still, in fact at least, if not also by law, excluded from many public oﬂices, especially from com- mands in the army, they nevertheless are very powerful in Germany, the press being for the most part in their hands. Some towns of the _Ia1-ienwerder and Posen districts con- tain from 20 to 30 per cent. of Jews. By far the greater number are found among the Slavs in the east ; in the west they appear chieﬂy in Hesse, Baden, and Alsace. LA.'GU_GES. The German-speaking nations in their various branches and dialects are found to extend in a compact mass along the shores of the Baltic and of the North Sea, from Memel in the east to a point between Gravelines and Calais near the Straits of Dover. 011 this northern line the Germans come in contact with the Danes who inhabit the northern parts of Schleswig within the limits of the German empire. A line from opposite Sonderburg in the isle of Alsen to Tondern in the west will nearly form the boundary between the two idioms. The German-French frontier traverses Belgium fron1 west to east-, touching the towns of St Omer, Courtrai, and .Iaastricht. Near Eupen, south of Aix-la-Chapelle, it turns southward, and near Arlon southeast as far as the crest of the Vosges mountains, which it follows up to Belfort, traversing there the watershed of the Rhine and the Doubs. In the Swiss territory the line of demarcation passes through Biel, Frciburg, Saanen, Leuk, and Monte Rosa. In the south the Germans come into contact with Rhaeto-Romans and Italians, the former inhabiting the valley of the Vorder-Rhein and the Engadine, while the latter have settled on the southern slopes of the Alps, and are continually advancing up the valley of the Adige. Carinthia and Styria are inhabited by German people, except the valley of the Drave towards Klagenfurt. Their eastern neighbours there are first the Magyars, then the northern Slavs and the Poles. The whole eastern frontier is very much broken, and cannot be described in a few words. Besides detached German colonies in Hungary, the western parts of that country are held by Germans. The river March is the frontier north of the Danube from Pres- burg as far as Briinn, to the north of which the German regions begin near Olmiitz,—the interior of Bohemia and Moravia being occupied by Czechs and Moravians. In the Prussian provinces of Silesia and Posen the eastern parts are mixed territories, the German language progress- ing slowly among the Poles. In Brornberg and Thorn, in the valley of the Vistula, German is prevalent. In Vest Prussia some parts of the interior, and in East Prussia a small region along the Russian frontier, are occupied by Poles (Kassubians in West Prussia, Masurians in East Prussia). The German tongue is also fast invad- ing the Lithuanian territory, and in a short time no people speaking that idiom will be found to the left of the river Memel. The total number of German-speaking people, within the boundaries wherein they constitute the compact mass of the population, may be estimated, if the Dutch and the Flemings be included, at 56 millions. The geographical limits of the German language thus do not quite coincide with the German frontiers. The empire G E R M A N Y [L.L'GUAG E‘. contains about 3; millions of persons who do not make use of German in everyday life, not counting the 290,000 resident foreigners. The non-German languages have their representatives only in Prussia, Saxony, and Alsace-Lorraine. No census since 1861 has given the statistics of the dif- ferent languages spoken in the first -mentioned country; am], in regard to Alsacc—Lorraine also, the figures are based upon estimates only. The following table gives the results of semi-official estimates for 1875 :—- I.ang11nge=. l‘c1'.(m.~'. Pml woo German ............................ .. £39, 100,( I00 921 Polish ............................ .. 2, 60( I, 000 'cndic ........................... .. 1 40,000 - 60' Czech ............................... .. 50, 000 8 Lithuanian ...................... .. 1 50,000 4 Danish ........................... .. ‘ 1 50,000 4 French ............................ 250, 000 6 Total—-1'ativcs .... .. 42, 440, one Foreigners ..., 290,000 From this it will be observed that the Poles form a considerable part of the population,——about 601 percent. in the district of Uppeln, 593 in Poscn, -19'6 in Bromberg, 37'S i11 .l-arienwcrder, 273 in Dantzic, 21'!) in Gumbinnen, 17'1 in Iionig sberg, and 4'3 in Breslau. The 'ends, who inhabit Lusatia, are decreasing in nmnber,—in the Saxon district there were 52,097 in 1871, and in 1875 only 50,737. The Lithuanians are likewise diminishing on the eastern border of East Prussia. Czechs are found only in Silesia on the confines of Bohemia. The ]:‘r¢-nch are represented in Lorraine and Upper Alsace, and on the Belgian frontier. EDUCATION. In point of intellectual culture Germany ranks high. Much is done by the Government for the promotion both of primary and of secondary education ; there are no exact statistics, however, of the educational establishments, or of the expenditure incurred in -connexion with them. In regard to the latter the sums which ﬁgure in the Govermnent budgets are not the only contributions which nmst be con sidered; for in most of the states the several local com- munities provide from their own resources for primary in- struction and for many of the higher schools, while many of the superior institutes have funds of their own not included in the budget. School instruction is obligatory on the whole people, but in many districts there is still a scarcity of teachers and some want of efficient control. The total number of primary schools is estimated at 00.000, and that of pupils at 6,500,000, or 150 pupils to every 1000 inhabitants. Some provinces exhibit a larger pro- portion; in Saxony, Thuringia, Brunswick, Ilhineland, aml Vestphalia there are from 105 to 175 pupils to every 1000 inhabitants. In Bavaria, Posen, East and West Prussia, Brandenburg, on the other hand, there are only from 120 to 130. A good criterion of the school instruction is to be found in the statistics of the annual levies of recruits. The following table shows the number of recruits during the years 1876—78 who were unable to read and write :~ Number of lcvled Recruits [Number of levied R('t'l‘uitS un-i ableto write and read. ' able to write and read. I ' | In (‘erman -In other I.nn- -_ | Rate to 1_0,00(.| Lan'K:¢3‘e. images only. I Timber‘ llccrlms. | 1875-76 130,176 6,368 3.311 237 1876-77 130,939 6,283 2,953 23 2 | 1877-78 134,189 6,292 2,47 0 1 73 It will be seen from the above that the number of illiterate recruits has considerably decreased during the last three years. The ﬁgures given compare very fa:/oui'ably with those of other European countries. In 1872 the number