Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 79.djvu/611

Rh be carried on without any reference to instruction, the scholars are disburdened from every educational responsibility, and the progress of knowledge becomes the only goal. At the same time the number of technical schools on the level of the universities has been increased to twelve, since those of Danzig and Breslau have recently come into existence, and Germany's famous mining schools, forest schools, agricultural schools and veterinary schools show the same signs of flourishing life.

The greatest change, however, in the academic life of the nation has come through the new regulations which link the university with the schools. The American schools have usually left a certain freedom in the choice of studies within a single institution. In the same high school the boy can take a classical course or a more realistic course. Germany has always had separate schools for the different schemes of preparation. The higher schools which engaged the boys to the nineteenth or twentieth year have always been of three types, the Gymnasium which puts the chief emphasis on Latin and Greek, the Real gymnasium which omits the Greek and emphasizes modern languages and the Oberreal gymnasium which has very little Latin but much natural science. They correspond roughly to the American high school and a modest American college or the first two or three years of the best colleges. The tradition allowed only those who had the certificate of the Gymnasium to take up the study of law, medicine, divinity and philology. The university study of natural sciences and of modern languages besides a number of practical callings were the only goals accessible to those who came from the other two types of schools. Long struggles which excited all Germany led to the abolition of this monopoly by classical education. With the year 1902 the great modern school reform began and every year has brought new advance. To-day practically every boy who has passed through a school of any one of the three types finds the doors of the university wide open, whatever profession he may choose. It may be too early to judge whether only advantages will follow in the train of this reform. There are not a few who are afraid that the realistic schooling of the future lawyers and government officers may be a danger for the idealistic character of the national life, and there are many who believe that even the physician needs to read his Plato in school time more than to begin at once with the chemical laboratory. But in any case the great change has brought fresh air into the academic halls. The second great change was the full admission of women. For a long time they had the permission to attend lectures but no academic rights equal to those of men could be acknowledged for the women students until they should bring to the entrance door of the university the same certificate as the boys were expected to bring from their schools. The real advance of the women