animals to be found in their country. 6. They have been exercised in expressing their conceptions with exactness, in forming single sentences, and in repeating historical events and descriptions.

3.

In the third period, when the children have completed ten, and have not yet attained twelve years of age, they are instructed from twenty-six to twenty-eight hours a week; and at the termination of this period it is found, 1, that they have enriched their memory with a much greater number of passages from the Bible and religious songs; that they have obtained a connected history of the Bible, and are acquainted with a much greater number of instances which can be applied to common life; and that all this knowledge has been connected with that of the catechism, and a regular system of religious and moral instruction. 2. In arithmetic they have obtained an accurate knowledge of fractions and proportions. They write calligraphically and without much error; they read not only correctly, but also with expression and emphasis; and have learnt by heart some poetry and good pieces of prose, which they repeat with ease and propriety. 4. They sing from music with some ease; and those who are most advanced are chosen to sing in church. 5. In the knowledge of the external world, they have become thoroughly acquainted with their own country. 6. The instruction in the grammatical and logical part of the language has been rather practical than theoretical, but in some manner complete. 7. While in drawing, they have obtained a certain facility, and have been exercised both in copying and in inventing. 8. Geometry has been taught only so far as it depends on the evidence of the senses.

During the fourth period, from the completion of the twelfth to that of the fourteenth year, the children are instructed from twenty-eight to thirty hours weekly; and at its termination they have acquired, 1, a complete knowledge of the religion of their church; are able to comprehend sermons both in their tendency and their separate parts. 2. They are acquainted with all kinds of complicated accounts, and are able to solve algebraic equations of the first degree. 3. They know

how to read books loudly with the due expression-how to use them for the increase of their knowledge, and how to make abstracts from them; they have acquired some facility in compositions which refer to the occurrences of common life, and their penmanship is good even when writing quickly. 4. They know a great number of songs, especially hymns; and, when they have a good ear, are able to make out the tune of a song from its music. 5. They have obtained a general view of the geography and most remarkable productions of the various countries of Europe, and of the other quarters of the globe; so that they have some idea of the extent of the creation and the activity of the human race. 6. They have terminated the knowledge of their native language, being able to express their notions with distinctness, to distinguish the parts of speech, to analyse the sentences and periods; and as they also have become acquainted with the most common poetical measures, they are able to recognise them in the poetry which they read; they have also contracted some acquaintance with a few of the classical authors of their native language. 7. They have been exercised in perspective drawing, either of houses, or objects of domestic economy and models; every one according to the probable use he may be able to make of it in the future business of his life. 8. They have terminated the course of geometry, with different applications of it to common life.

The reader, doubtless, wishes to know whether in every elementary school in Prussia all these branches of instruction are carried to the extent I have mentioned. This is very far from being the case. It has, however, been tried with good effect in a few country-schools, and is strongly insisted on in town-schools. In the latter, it is possible to execute the plan in all its extent; for in them the school-house is commonly large enough to afford three school-rooms, and there are also in general three teachers employed in it. This number of schoolrooms and teachers is required to carry the whole plan to its termination. One teacher cannot by the whole course of his teaching impart a larger amount of knowledge than that which has been noticed as the acquirements of the

I

second period; and even two will find it a hard task to impart to them all that in a complete school is learned in the third period. The success of their attempts will not only depend on their skill, but also on the number of children which they have to instruct.

The Prussian government has not yet thought it expedient to determine by a law the number of children which are to compose a class and to be taught by one teacher. The reason is obvious. The number determined by the law must have fallen considerably short of that which at present attends a class; and such a law would, of course, have obliged the school communities to erect numerous school-houses, and to provide for the maintenance of many additional teachers. Though the public seems aware of the necessity of a better instruction for the lower classes, and is ready to promote the views of government in this respect, it would doubtless have thought that such large pecuniary demands upon them should not be made at once. Government, therefore, has wisely taken steps to prepare the mind of the public for greater exertions, by showing them by experience that it is very possible to impart a greater and at the same time a much more useful quantity of knowledge to the lower classes. This object it tries to obtain by the erection of seminaries for the education of teachers of the labouring classes. Meanwhile, the number of pupils attending a class is by far too large to enable one teacher so to instruct them as to have the least regard to the individual talents of each child. Dr. Harnisch mentions cases where he found that one teacher had two hundred pupils placed under his care. He says, that in Silesia it is commonly thought that a teacher cannot, with the hope of producing any effect by his instruction, manage a school of more than one hundred children; and he himself thinks that that number ought to be reduced to fifty or sixty. In the town of Bremen the legislature has determined that it shall never exceed twenty-five. That of Winterthur limits the number to thirty, and some other places of Switzerland to forty. This last number has also been adopted in the school, erected in

Berlin some years ago, for the instruction of the middling classes.

Though the Prussian government has shown great activity and care in erecting seminaries for the instruction of teachers for the lower classes, and though at present there are about fifty of such institutions in existence in the whole monarchy, the number of the teachers who annually issue from them is thought to be barely sufficient to satisfy the present demand. At present every teacher, when he leaves the institution, must be immediately employed in a school; although it is found that nearly one third of the young men who receive their education in the seminaries are not fit for teaching in schools for they are either destitute of that energy of character which is so essentially required in every man who has to govern a mass of people, or of that versatility of mind which can enable him to adapt every branch of knowledge to the individual dispositions of the children. Thus it may be said, that the number of good teachers who are annually prepared in the seminaries falls still short of the demand by one-third, and that the required number could only be obtained by the erection of twentyfive other seminaries. But if the opinion of Dr. Harnisch, respecting the number of children to be admitted into one class, is adopted, and the opinion of such an experienced teacher must certainly have great weight,-the number of schools, or classes, must at least be doubled, which would, of course, require that the schools for teachers should increase in the same ratio. The education in Prussia, therefore, can only be said to be placed on a satisfactory footing, when the institutions for training up teachers for the lower class shall have been increased to the number of one hundred and fifty, or about one for eighty thousand individuals of the population. The government is well aware of this circumstance, and is not deterred by the difficulties that are to be overcome in the execution of their extensive plan; its conduct shows that these difficulties excite it to greater efforts and more important improvements.

W. WITTICH, Native of Tilsit, Prussia.

172

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS FOR THE

PEASANTRY.

AT the central schools of the two principal societies for the education of the labouring classes in this country, -the National, and the British and Foreign,-the education is entirely confined to one department-intellectual instruction. This, in the instance of the model school of the British and Foreign School Society in London, is carried on with success on all points to which the monitorial system is applicable,* and in a space of time that is scarcely credible. Although there are no less than between five and six hundred+ children in one room, which, in the time of study, has an appearance of confusion, they are taught by monitors, under the direction of a single master, Mr. Crossley, to whose talent and activity the present high state of the school in this point of view is owing. A year has not elapsed since the introduction of drawing; and already a considerable facility has been obtained by the boys of the upper classes: pencils and paper are not used, but the desks are painted black, and a black line of a foot in depth is painted round the school-room; on these the boys draw with chalk, geometrical figures, birds, animals, machinery, and maps: we were struck by the spirit of some, and the precision of others. The map of the world is so im

*We shall not here discuss the merits of the different modes of teaching the monitorial system, besides its economy, is (we are inclined to think) neither so inefficient as its opponents would represent, nor so good as its supporters would make out. To many things it is wholly inapplicable, but there are others in which it may be used with advantage. Perhaps a school, in which it was used with discretion, in conjunction with simultaneous and private instruction, would be found to be most effective.

+ Although the school is composed of 600 scholars, there were no less than 697 fresh admittances in the course of the past year; from this the reader will be able to gather how short a time it is that the majority of the children remains at school.