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 422 EDUCATION students. The lectures are gratuitous, and the students are not bound to any h'xed term of study. The special educational establishments of Norway comprise asylums for very small children in the towns and Sunday schools (for secular instruction), which are chiefly support- ed through private liberality; the peasants' high schools, copied from the Danish system ; agricultural schools in most of the provinces, supported by the state and the various districts ; nautical schools established by the government in the towns along the coast to educate cap- tains for the commercial marine; a military college for the training of army officers, a naval school, a military high school for the education of engineers and artillery officers, and a school for engineers recently founded by the government. In Denmark popular educa- tion has been provided for and fostered by the government for more than 300 years. The general control of this interest is vested in a minister of public instruction and sub- ordinate superintendents for the several de- partments of the kingdom. Each parish is obliged to furnish good primary-school build- ings, with teachers for the instruction of chil- dren in reading, writing, arithmetic, the Lu- theran catechism, grammar, history, and geog- raphy. There are normal schools for the train- ing of teachers, which add to these primary branches studies in mathematics, the natural sciences, the art of teaching, gymnastics, draw- ing, and music. About six years are devo- ted to 'Secondary instruction, the studies being similar to those of the German gymnasium. In the four lower classes choice of studies is given to students ; in the two higher the instruction is divided into two coordinate divisions, one devoted to philological and historical studies, and the other to mathematics and natural science. Old Norse, Danish, French, English, and history are taught in both divisions. More than TO farmers' high schools (Folkeh&i&koler) have been founded for the purpose of elevating the standard of education among the rural population and making them acquainted with the national history and literature. They are supported by private means, aided by the government. These schools have also been in- troduced into Sweden and Norway, where they have attracted much attention. Superior edu- cation is afforded by the university of Copen- hagen, founded in 1478, which has faculties of theology, law and political science, medicine, philosophy, and mathematics and natural sci- ence. Instruction is given to more than 1,000 students by about 80 professors and docents. In the Netherlands the plan of education is threefold : primary, embracing the elementary schools of various grades, normal schools, even- ing schools, &c. ; secondary,' including the burgher schools, agricultural, polytechnic, and navigation schools, institutions for deaf mutes and blind, schools for nurses, and schools of veterinary surgery; superior, comprising the universities, athenaeums, Latin schools, and gymnasia. There are also schools and acad- emies for the army and navy, prison schools, and infant schools. Educational matters are under the control of the minister of the inte- rior. The 11 provinces are divided into 89 school districts, and these into communes, in each of which there must be a primary school under the charge of a local board ; and each commune of 3,000 persons has a school com- mission. For each district there is an over- seer, who is, chairman of all the commissions within his jurisdiction. At the head of the districts of each province is a provincial inspec- tor, salaried by the state, whose duty it is to superintend all the schools in his province, re- ceive the reports of district overseers, and onco a year to sit in the council of provincial in- spectors under the presidency of the minister for the consideration of the general interests of primary schools throughout the kingdom. Each commune must support a sufficient num- ber of primary schools, or, if it is unable, the province and the state must share equally the expense. Primary schools must be open throughout the year, excepting on holidays. Attendance is not obligatory, but parents are denied aid from charitable institutions if their children have not been instructed in the ele- ments of a popular education. An educational society has been formed, with branches all over the country, whose object is to use all moral means possible to induce parents to send their children to school. It also aims to secure the enactment of a law prohibiting the em- ployment in factories of children below the age of 12. A regular school fee is generally paid in the private and public day schools, but in the case of poor parents an exception is made. About one "half of the children attending schools are instructed free. Numerous schools for adults are maintained. There are both public and private normal schools and normal classes. There are three government normal schools; the course of instruction occupies four years, with from 39 to 44 hours a week. In all the provinces of the Netherlands there is a large number of evening schools, kept partly for the benefit of pupils of the day schools who wish more extended opportunities for study, and partly for the benefit of young persons employed in stores and factories. The plan of instruction in the higher burgher schools embraces the following studies : natural philos- ophy, chemistry, natural history, mathematics, the Dutch, French, English, German, and Ita- lian languages, political economy and statis- tics, bookkeeping, commercial law, knowledge of goods, commercial arithmetic and weights and measures, general history and history of commerce, general and commercial geography, constitution and laws of the Netherlands, his- tory, geography, &c., of India, penmanship, and free-hand drawing. Among the other institutions for secondary instruction are two, one government at Leyden and one muni- cipal at Delft, for the preparation of civil offi-