Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1166

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NETHERLANDS

ill 1848, secular instruction was separated from religious or sectarian instruction. Elementary education is now regulated by the Primary Instruction Act, passed in 1857, supplemented by an Act of 1878, and again considerably altered by the Act of December 1889. By the last Act public instruction is diminished and a greater share in the education of the youths left to private instruction, which is now supported by the State. According to the regulations of the present Act the cost of public primary instruction is borne jointly by the State and the communes, the State con- tributing to the salaries of the teachers and being responsible for 25 per cent, to the costs of founding or purchasing schools.

The following table is taken from the Government returns

for 1896-97 :—

Institutions

Number

Teaching Staff

Pupils or Students

Universities (public) ^.

4

165

2,936

Classical Schools.

29

428

2,462

Secondary Day and Evening

Schools

39

465

5,695

j Navigation Schools

11

68

709

Middle Class Schools

74

965

8,911

Polytechnicum

1

24

450

Elementary Schools :

Public ....

3,069

15,040

487,774

Private ....

1,414

6,785

220,880

j Infant Schools :

1 Public ....

139

+ 825

25,865

Private ....

896

± 2,635

84,837

1 Leiden, Utrecht, Groningen, Amsterdam. . ,

Besides the schools named in the table, there is a great number of special schools— viz., agricultural (1), horticultural (2), deaf and dumb (3) and blind (1) schools, 1 school for philology, geology, and demography of the East Indies (for the Indian Civil Service), several military schools, a national Academy of Art, a royal school of music, a national normal school for drawing; teachers, several technical schools and normal schools for the training of teachers. Since 1880 there is also a private university, with 110 students in 1S95-96.

1893

1S04 i

1895 £

189G

£

£

On Primarv Education —

The Government spent.

471,433

486,759

495,667

512,233

The Communes spent.

679,523

663,489

678,925

715,878

On Normal Schools were

spent in all

86,852

95,359

99,229

105,875 1

The total expenses for Edu-

c;ation were : —

For the State

728,416

737,250

764,917

791,883

For the Communes

833,500

828,750 i

841,917

873,583

Of the conscripts called out in 1897, 4'0 per cent, could neither read nor write, the percentage being highest in Drentho, 9*6. In 1875 the total percentage was 12 '3. Of the total number of childi-en from 6 to 12 years (school age) on 31 December, 1896, 9 '22 per cent, received no elementary instruction. In 1885 it was 12'70,