INTRODUCTION.

NOTHING out of England corresponds to or resembles the English Endowed School. "No original, no counterpart, nor copy of it is to be found abroad; and it bears no resemblance to any foreign institution, under whatever denomination, where boys are assembled for the purpose of education." 1

In France education has the centralized and centralizing character of all things French. With the exception of the Military and Veterinary Schools, the Schools of Art and of Mines, all organizations, and instruments for instruction, are under the supreme control of the University at Paris, which is not an institution for instruction, but only for superintendence. It is, in fact, a council with the Minister of Public Instruction at its head. There is no university, properly so called, in France, except that at Strasburg, the capital of Alsace, formerly a German province, and still animated by the German spirit. Instead of Universities, France has Academies; that is, Faculties for Special Sciences. As, for Catholic Theology, at Paris, Lyons, Ait, Bordeaux, Rouen, Toulouse e; for Lutheran Theology, at Strasburg; for reformed or Calvinistic Theology, at Montauban; for Jurisprudence, at Paris, Ait, Dijon, Grenoble, Caen, Poitiers, Rennes, Strasburg, and Toulouse; for Medicine, at Paris, Montpellier, and Strasburg; for Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, at Paris, Caen, Dijon, Grenoble, Toulouse, and Strasburg; for Literature,

1 Quarterly Review, No. 231.

b

at Paris, Toulouse, Strasburg, Dijon, and Besançon. Many French Theological students are also educated at Geneva. For what on the Continent is termed secondary instruction, France has provision by means of three hundred and fiftyeight Colleges, or Gymnasia, of which forty-six are supported by the State, and the others by the cities to which they respectively belong. In the primary Schools, for the instruction of the people, the standard and the practice are as low as can well be conceived. What are called the Romanic nations stand much behind the so-termed Germanic nations in the matter of popular education; and it is not praising France much to say that, in this respect, she has the advantage of Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Guizot, Villemain, Cousin, and other statesmen, under Louis Philippe, made commendable exertions for the enlightenment of their poorer countrymen, but the advent of the Empire appears to have repelled the movement, and now, out of nearly forty millions of inhabitants, only three millions of children attend school.

Education in no country is less a monopoly or a privilege than in Germany. In the Protestant provinces, the children, almost universally-and in the Catholic provinces, in great majority-attend school. Institutions for education are of the most various kind; and at the head of them all are twenty-four universities, with two thousand teachers and twenty thousand students. It cannot be surprising, therefore, if Germany is unrivalled in Classical acquirements, in Scientific Theology, and in Speculative Philosophy.

The intellectual culture of Denmark is of a high order. It has already been vigorously promoted by the Government, which has done all in its power for Art, Science, and general intelligence. The two chief Universities are that at Copenhagen and that at Kiel. At the former there is an average attendance of eleven or twelve hundred students. For a

population of a million and a half, there exist nearly three thousand primary Schools. Recent calamitous events have, however, so changed the aspect of the country, that these estimates are applicable rather to what Denmark was than to what Denmark is.

In Sweden, everybody is able to read, nearly everybody to write, and the knowledge of the Catechism, and of Biblical History, is all but universal. Many of the primary Schools are conducted upon the Lancasterian plan. The two Universities are those of Lund and of Upsala. For a country so comparatively poor as Sweden, the number of educational, of learned, and of scientific institutions, is marvellous.

In Norway, there is but one University, that of Christiania. Learned institutions are not numerous, and scientific culture is not advanced. Popular instruction, however, is widely diffused. Most of the Norwegians can read and write. The children are taught either by their parents or by travelling schoolmasters, the sparseness of the population seldom permitting stationary Schools. Though well-informed, the Norwegians are a singularly bigoted people. They have a rooted antipathy to Roman Catholics, and they altogether forbid the residence of Jews in Norway.

In Holland, the three Universities of Leyden, Utrecht, and Gröningen, have long enjoyed a high reputation. Of preparatory Schools for these Universities there are sixty-eight, besides two institutions at Amsterdam and Deventer, which have nearly all the characteristics of universities. There are Training Schools, Naval Schools, and Schools for Marine Architecture. Schools for a variety of professional branches also abound; Collections and Libraries; and Societies and Unions for the promotion of Science and Art. Though apparently as phlegmatic as their climate is heavy, the Dutch, to their honour, stand pre-eminent in knowledge.

The population of Switzerland consists of three unequal elements-Germanic, French, and Italian, of which the Germanic is predominant. Much, during the last thirty years, has been effected both by individuals and by the State for the moral and intellectual development of Switzerland. The Swiss have even been educational reformers. The fame of Fellenberg's Agricultural School, in the Canton of Berne, has penetrated all countries; and the greatest modern regenerator of education, Pestalozzi, was a Swiss. At Basle a University has long existed; at Zürich and Berne two additional Universities have been established. The Academies at Geneva, Lausanne, and Neufchatel, are equivalent to Universities, though they do not adopt the name; an education at the Academy of Geneva offers advantages of which few English parents are aware.

It was once designed that there should be a grand University for the whole Swiss Confederation. The scheme has not been carried into operation, but a Polytechnic School of the same comprehensive character has been resolved on, and is probably already organized. In the cantons of Switzerland, the people being all soldiers, the expenses of a standing army are saved. Hence the Governments are enabled to spend a larger sum in proportion on the education of the people than can be spared in other European States. In an educational point of view, the Roman Catholic cantons are confessedly and conspicuously inferior to the Protestant. No less, in general culture, the Protestant cantons excel the Roman Catholic. But it is remarkable that while nearly all the Swiss eminent in science have been Protestants, Roman Catholic Switzerland has produced artists, and Italian Switzerland, though an insignificant part of the whole country, has sent forth more sculptors, painters, and architects than all the other cantons combined.