1. The Gymnasium, or classical school, consisting on account of its size of two schools, containing between them about 1300 pupils.

2. The Realgymnasium, or semi-classical school, containing 900 boys.

3. The Realschule, or modern and scientific school, with 1100 boys.

All these schools are what we should call "first grade," ie. they keep their pupils till the age of nineteen and upwards, and send them direct either to the university or to the Polytechnic, a scientific institution of university rank.

Below these schools is the Burger schule, a "second grade," "middle-class," or "commercial" school, with about 1100 boys.

For girls there are two high schools of equal rank, each with 400 or 500 pupils, and there is a "Burger schule" for girls with about 1000, built near and exactly similar to that for boys.

Disregarding for the present other special

The Endowed Schools Commission reckoned that there were available for higher education in England not less than 10 or more than 20 per thousand.* There are few English towns. where the minimum is reached, none I think where the number rises anywhere near the maximum. In Stuttgart the number actually in the higher schools, omitting those in universities and technical institutions, is 52 per thousand. These figures bring out at once the leading difference between English and German

* They recommended ultimate provision for 16, and immediate provision for 10 per thousand.-Report, vol. i. p. 99. was in 1868.

This

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higher education. In England it is the luxury of the few, in Germany it can be got by all who want it. In an English town nearly all the children are in the elementary schools, if they are at school at all;* in a German town half of them are in the higher schools.

The reasons for this difference are, firstly, perhaps, the more general appreciation of a good education among the people themselves; secondly, the lowness of the fees-three guineas being the highest fee at Stuttgart for resident natives; and, thirdly, the advantages offered by the State in the shape of shortened military service to those who pass beyond a certain point in the schools.

From English experience one would expect the competition for pupils between the three upper schools to be very severe, each school

* Mr. Sneyd Kinnersley, H.M.'s Inspector for the Chester district, in his report for 1882, says that 17,143 out of the 20,000 children in Birkenhead ought to be in the elementary schools (¿.c. six-sevenths).

trying to offer special advantages and arranging to teach everything. Each school does indeed offer special advantages, each of its own kind, but the course of studies is rigidly fixed by the State. This, and the fact that the head masters' salaries do not depend on the number of their pupils, may perhaps account for the absence of all rivalry. The schools never advertise, or use any of those extraneous aids to publicity which seem to be a necessity with us. Masters take boarders who attend their own school or another quite indifferently.

I now propose to describe somewhat in detail the organization and work of these three typical schools, giving a brief description of such institutions as are supplementary to them, concluding with a few comparisons between German schools and our own, and with suggestions for the improvement of the latter.

II.

THE population of the kingdom of Wurtemburg is 1,800,000. Except Stuttgart, there is no town in the country which reaches a population of 35,000, so that, although well supplied with schools, most of them are comparatively small and will not bear comparison with those of the capital which it is proposed to describe. Before doing so, however, it may be desirable to give a few educational statistics relating to the whole kingdom. They are compiled from an official report for the year 1882, and relate to boys only.

There are 164 higher schools, containing 15,893 pupils. Of these schools 92, although sometimes bearing different names, correspond either to the Gymnasium or Real Gymnasium, or