Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/614

596 the property of tlie city. English and German companies supply the city with gas. A system of underground drainage is at present in process of construction. Internal communication is kept up by means of tramways, omni buses, and cabs. In 1873 there were 54 tram-carriages, 185 omnibuses, and 4424 cabs licensed, served by.10,060 horses.

Berlin is governed by the president of police, by the municipal authorities, and in military matters by the governor and commandant of the city. The police presi dent stands under the minister of the interior, and has the control of all that stands related to the maintenance of public order. The municipal body consists of a burgomaster- in-chief, a burgomaster, a body of town councillors (Stadt- rathe), and a body of town deputies (Stadtverordnete). For municipal purposes the city is divided into 1C town ships and 210 districts. For police purposes the work is divided into six departments, and an extra department for the fire brigade and street cleaning, and the town into six larger and fifty smaller districts. At the head of each larger district is a police captain, at the head of each smaller district a police lieutenant.

With the exception of a few of the higher schools, which are under the direct supervision of the provincial authori ties, the Berlin schools are either under the direct supervi sion of the municipal body or of its committee for school purposes. The schools, public and private, are divided into higher, middle, and elementary. In 1872 there were 24 higher public schools. Of these, 10 were gymnasia or schools for the highest branches of a learned education. In these schools there were 138 classes and 5073 pupils, of whom 2142 were over, and 2931 under, 14 years of age. The second class of high schools, the so-called Kealschulen, give instruction in Latin, but otherwise devote almost exclusive attention to the departments of mathematics, science, history, modern languages, and the requirements of the higher stages of general or commercial life. Of this class of school there were also 10, with 143 classes, 5770 pupils, of whom 1931 were over, and 3839 under, 14 years of age. The remaining 4 high schools were for girls, with 54 classes, 2522 pupils, of whom 529 were over, and 1993 under, 14 years of age. In addition to these public schools there were 7 higher schools for boys, with 55 classes and 2098 pupils, and 36 higher schools for girls, with 243 classes and GG29 pupils. Within the last five years (1875) no new school of this class has been established, but several are in process of erection. Between 1869 and 1873 the city voted about 328,747 sterling for the purchase of sites, and for enlarging and rebuilding schools of this class ; and the sum still required for schools of this class, up to 1877, is 352,500 sterling. The total number of schools of all sorts, higher, middle, and elementary, public and private, in 1872, was 232, with 1072 boys classes, 1009 girls classes, and 4 mixed classes together, 2085 ; attended by 50,316 boys, 44,959 girls- together, 95,275 children, of whom 7309, or 7 35 per cent., were over 14 years of age. The extent to which the schools are used under the law of compulsory educa tion is very difficult to determine. In 1867 there were 103,383 children of the school age, but only 71,814, or 69 5 per cent., were in the schools. Dr Schwabe, by a criticism of these numbers, reduces the percentage of non- attendance to 13 percent., and maintains that even these are not all to be regarded as absolutely without instruc tion. In 1871 it was found that out of every 10,000 per sons of 70 years of age and upwards, there were 1529 who could neither read nor write ; and that out of a like num ber from 60 to 70, there were 860; 50 to 60, 446; 40 to 50, S34; 30 to 40, 158; 25 to 30, 155; 20 to 25, 71; 15 to 20, 58; and from 10 to 15, 48.

The scholastic life of Berlin culminates in its university, which is, of course, not a municipal, but a national institution. It is, with the exception of Bonn, the youngest of the Prussian universities, but the first of them all in in fluence and reputation. It was founded in 1810. Prussia had lost her celebrated university of Halle, when that city was included by Napoleon in his newly created &quot;kingdom of Westphalia.&quot; It was as a weapon of war, as well as a nursery of learning, that Frederick William III., and the great men whose names are identified with its origin, called it into existence, for it was felt that knowledge and religion are the true strength and defence of nations. William v. Humboldt was at that time at the head of the educational department of the kingdom, and men like Fichte and Schleiermacher worked the popular mind. It was opened on the 15th of October 1810. Its first rector was Schmalz ; its first deans of faculty, Schleier macher, Biener, Hufeland, and Fichte. Within the first ten years of its existence it counted among its professors such names as De Wette, Neander, Marheineke ; Savigny, Eichhorn ; Bockh, Bekker, Hegel, Raumer, Wolff, Niebuhr, and Buttmann. Later followed such names as Hengsten- berg and Nitzsch; Homeyer, Bethman-Hollweg, Puchta, Stahl, and Heffter; Schelling, Trendelenburg, Bopp, the brothers Grimm, Zumpt, Carl Hitter ; and at the present time it can boast of such names as Twesten and Dorner ; Gneist and Hinschius ; Langenbeck, Bardeleben, Virchow, and Du Bois-Reymond ; von Ranke, Mommsen, Curtius, Lepsius, Hoffman the chemist, and Kiepert the geographer. Taking ordinary, honorary, and extraordinary professors, licensed lecturers (privatdocenteii), and readers together, its present professorial strength consists of 15 teachers in the faculty of theology, 14 in the faculty of law, 63 in the faculty of medicine, and 96 in the faculty of philosophy together, 188. The number of matriculated and un- matriculatcd attendants on the various lectures averages 3000 in the summer term, and 3500 in the winter. Dur ing the last two or three years, however, the number has been steadily decreasing. Berlin, in point of numbers, still stands at the head of the Prussian universities, but no longer of the German universities, being now outstripped by Leipsic. In addition to its schools and its university, Berlin is rich in institutions for the promotion of learning, science, and the arts. It has a Royal Academy of Sciences, with 46 members, 23 in the class of physics and mathematics, and 23 in the class of philosophy and history. It was founded on the llth of June 1700, and the name of Leibnitz is associated with its foundation. It was raised to the rank of a Royal Academy by Frederick the Great in 1743. Berlin has also a Royal Academy of Arts, consisting of 39 ordin ary members (1875), under the immediate protection of the king, and governed by a director and a senate, com posed of 15 members in the departments of painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving, and 4 members in the section for music. Berlin has also its academy for vocal music, and its royal high school for music in all ita branches, theoretical and applied, and learned bodies and associations of the most various kinds. It has 9 public libraries, at the head of which stands the royal library, with 710,000 volumes and 15,000 manuscripts. In addi tion to these, there are 15 people s libraries established in various parts of the city.

Berlin possesses eight public museums, in addition to the Royal Museums and the National Gallery. The Royal Mu seums are the Old and the New Museums. The former, which stands on the north-east side of the Lustgarten, facing the castle, is the most imposing building in Berlin. It was built in the reign of Frederick William III., from designs by Schinkel. Its portico, supported by 18 colossal Ionic columns, is reached by a wide flight of steps. The museum covers 47,000 square feet of ground, and is 276 