Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/365

 CHURCH AND EDUCATION. 329

5. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs. — General Van Mulken, appointed minister ad interim, Dec. 11, 1870.

6. The Ministry of Marine. — Captain L. G. Broex, appointed June 4, 1868.

7. The Ministry of War. — General Van Mulken, appointed June 4, 1868.

Each of the above ministers has a salary of 12,000 guilders, or 1,000/. per annum. "Whenever the sovereign presides over the deliberations of the ministry, the meeting is called a Cabinet Council, and the privilege to be present at it is given to princes of the royal family nominated for the purpose. There is also a State Council — Raad van State — of 14 members, nominated by the Government, which the sovereign may consult on extraordinary occasions.

Church, and Education.

According to the terms of the Constitution, entire liberty of con- science and complete social equality is granted to the members of all religious confessions. The royal family, and a majority of the inhabi- tants, belong to the Reformed Church; but the Roman Catholics are not far inferior in numbers. In the last census returns the number of Calvinists, or members of the Reformed Church, is given as 1 ,942,387 ; of Lutherans, 64,539 ; of Roman Catholics, 1,234,486 ; of Greek Catholics, 32 ; of divers other Christian denominations, 48,960; and of Jews, 63,890. The government of the Reformed Church is Presby- terian ; while the Roman Catholics are under an archbishop, of Utrecht, and four bishops, of Harlem, Breda, Roermond, and Herso- genbosh. The salaries of several British Presbytei'ian ministers, settled in the Netherlands, and whose churches are incorporated with the Dutch Reformed Church, are paid out of the public funds.

Education is spreading throughout the kingdom, though as yet it has not reached the lower classes of the population. Official returns state that in 15,777 marriages that took place in North Holland — province containing the capital — between the years 1864-67, there were 541 in Avhich the man, 1,774 in which the woman, and 503 in which neither the man nor the woman could write. It is calculated that among the strictly rurai population of the kingdom, one-fourth of the grown-up men, and one-third of the women, can neither read nor write. However, the education of the rising generation is provided for by a non-denominational Primary Instruction Law, passed in 1857. Under its working, there were, in January, 1867, according to government returns, 2,572 public schools, with 6,373 schoolmasters, and 284 schoolmistresses, and 1,069 private schools, with 2,212 schoolmasters, and 1,396 schoolmistresses. At the same