several schools, those in Ayr, Stirling, Cupar, and Dundee, in particular, great facilities were afforded for thorough instruction in the subject.

Music, except of the most elementary kind, had not attained the popularity of the sister art; but in some schools, more particularly in the Inverness Academy, the theory of the subject was well taught, and great proficiency was attained by some of the pupils in the art.

Phonography.

The subject of Phonography has been introduced at the High School of Dundee. The department was founded and endowed a few years ago by a Mr. Caird, who gave £100 for the "encouragement of phonographic classes." The master teaches "Pitman's Phonetic Shorthand," and uses as text-books Pitman's Phonographic Teacher, Manual of Phonography, and Reporter's Companion; The Cabinet and Shorthand Magazine are employed as reading books for pupils who are sufficiently advanced to require them.

Results in Reference to Competitive Examinations.

No one can compete for the appointments in the Indian Civil Service until he is seventeen, and, though no subjects are obligatory, a man is expected to pass a good examination in all the ordinary branches of a liberal education. English, classics, mathematics, and French, are the subjects in which the successful candidates generally gain most marks. Last year (1866) 82 per cent. of the whole amount of marks obtained were due to these subjects. But the standard reached in them is very high. Under the head of English is included the history of England and the Constitution, and also the literature and language. The examination in classics and mathematics takes a wider range,-wide enough to do justice to a good Cambridge wrangler or an Oxford first classman; and in French it is also high, but in a lower scale than either of the other subjects. It is clear, therefore, that such a test as this is inapplicable to the Scottish schools, though appointments have been gained, from at least one of the schools, without supplementary aid. But it is unfair that the great majority of them, where a boy's education is completed at sixteen years of age, should be tested by the same standard as that by which the best men at the English universities are tested.

The Competitive Examinations for the Military Service, in like manner, are hardly fair tests for the bulk of the Scottish schools. Candidates present themselves for three grades of examination in that service,for admission into the Military Academy at Woolwich, for admission into the Military College at Sandhurst, and for direct, commissions in the Cavalry, Guards, and Line. The minimum age at which candidates are allowed to compete for the third grade of examination is eighteen, and that at once limits the test to the two first grades. From the schemes of examination for these two competitions it is obvious that the instruction requires to be very special to secure success in them, and it is very doubtful if the general course of school instruction, either in this country

or in England, is well adapted to meet the requirements of these examinations without any supplementary and special training. In the list of honors, however, which we have obtained from most of the important schools visited, five at least claim to have sent successful candidates.

Clerkships in the Home Civil Service may be roughly divided into two classes, (a) for which the subjects of examination are handwriting and orthography, arithmetic, including vulgar and decimal fractions, English composition, geography, English history; (b) for which the exami nation includes the following subjects in addition to those above stated: One (sometimes two) foreign languages, an option being generally given, Euclid or Algebra. In examinations which are not competitive, the examination in language is almost invariably restricted to translation from the language. In competitions, marks are allowed for translation into the language, and, in case of a modern language, for speaking. The standard adopted in marking is such that the candidates, to be successful, must get very nearly half marks for the primary subjects, such as arithmetic, spelling, handwriting, and English composition, while a a third of the maximum in the secondary subjects may be sufficient.

These appointments, however, with very few exceptions, are open only to candidates who are seventeen years of age and upwards. In the various civil departments specified in the Report of the Civil Service Commissioners for 1866, it appears that only about 6 per cent. are open to lads under sixteen years of age. For the examinations for admission to these departments the Scottish schools do supply an adequate education, and candidates gain appointments from them without supplementary aid, but the standard for success in the competitions for the higher departments is too advanced for the great majority of the boys attending the schools in Scotland. When, however, we come to the Competitive Examinations at the Scottish Universities we find that the schools will stand the test. There are bursaries at the Universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrews open to competition, and a few at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and scholars from many of the schools compete successfully for them. In these examinations there is generally no prescribed minimum of age, the standard is of course adjusted to meet the quality of instruction in the schools, and in many of the schools, more particularly in the North, the object of the instruction given is to prepare for success in these examinations. If, then, this be taken as a test of sound and adequate instruction, many of the schools do meet it.

Practically, preparation for the Scottish Universities is the standard at which the schools aim. The average school course is one of six or seven years, and scholars attend from nine or ten to fifteen or sixteen years of age (though many are younger than this, and a few are older), and after that they proceed to the Scottish Universities or go into commercial or other pursuits. At the universities they remain till they are nineteen or twenty, and then go on to the English Universities, or into the Home and Indian Civil services, or into their various professions in this country.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN SWEDEN

AREA-POPULATION-GOVERNMENT.

SWEDEN, excluding Norway, has an area of 167,042 English square miles, on which, on the 31st of December, 1865, there was a population of 4,195,641, of whom 611,373 were inhabitants of towns having a municipal organization. Four-fifths of the population are devoted to agricultural pursuits, but only a small portion are owners of the land which they cultivate, more than one-eighth of the area of the kingdom belonging to the nobility. Mining is a leading department of Swedish industry, iron, copper, lead, and zinc constituting the bulk of the foreign and domestic commerce. Within a few years the manufacture of iron, woolen and cotton cloths, of implements in iron and steel, and other articles of domestic consumption, has greatly increased, and affected the importation of goods from Germany and England.

The government of Sweden, in its executive department, is united with Norway-the conditions of union having been determined upon by the Congress of Vienna, and accepted by the Norwegian Parliament, Nov. 4, 1814. According to the constitution of June 6, 1809, the law of royal succession of Sept. 26, 1810, and the amended regulations for the formation of the Diet, adopted Dec. 8, 1865, the king, who must be a member of the Lutheran Church, has the right to declare war, make peace, and pardon criminals. He nominates to all appointments, both civil and military, concludes treaties, has a right to preside in the Supreme Court of Justice, and has an absolute veto against any decree of the Diet or Parliament.

The Parliament consists of two Chambers, both elective, but representing different interests. The First Chamber, or Upper House, consists of 119 members, who are elected for a term of nine years, and serve without pay, and represent the 24 lan, or government districts or counties, and the municipal corporations. The member must have landed property to the taxable value of $20,000, or an annual income of $1,200. The Second Chamber, or Lower House, consists of 185 members, 52 of whom are elected by the towns, and 133 by the rural districts. All natives of Sweden over 21 years, having landed property to the value of $300, or an annual income of $230, are electors; and all natives, aged 25, having the same pecuniary qualification, and professing the Protestant faith, are eligible as candidates.

The king is assisted in the administration of affairs by a Council of State, consisting of ten members, seven of whom are responsible Ministers. The Ministries are:-(1,) Justice. (2,) Foreign Affairs. (3,) Finances; (4,) Interior; (5,) Marine; (6,) War; (7,) Education, including Ecclesiastical Affairs.

The established religion is Lutheran, organized into 1 arch-diocese (Upsala), and 11 bishoprics, which include 2,500 parishes. None but Lutherans could be employed in the public service down to 1869, when an act of religious liberty was passed, mainly through the efforts of Prof. P. J. Silgestrorm.

GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSTITUTIONS.

The Institutions which together comprise the system of Public Instruction in Sweden, although not in organic connection with each other, may be classified and will be treated as follows:-I. The Popular School (Folkskola), including the Preparatory, Stationary, and Itinerating Schools, with which may be classed the various Improvement Schools, such as those held on Sunday and in the evening; part of the elementary Special Schools of various character, such as the lower trade, farming, forest, and smelting schools; and part of the educational institutions for the blind, the deaf and dumb, the asylums for orphan and neglected children, and the so-called Krippen. II. Schools of the middle grade, in Sweden termed Elementary Schools, such as the gymnasiums and real-schools of Germany, with which must be classed the so-called elementary technical schools, farming, mining, forest, and commercial schools, together with the military school at Carlberg for the training of officers of the line, and the naval school (Flottansskola) at Stockholm. To these may be added several institutions, generally private, imparting higher instruction to women. III. Universities, with which are to be classed the Carolinian Institute at Stockholm, which is a medical school, the Technological Institute, and the higher mining school connected with it, the higher agricultural schools at Ulltuna and Alnarp, the higher military institution at Marieberg, together with the State seminary for female teachers at Stockholm.

central State authorities The Popular Schools, the Carolinska Institutet, be

The institutions of education have their (Staatsbehörden) in the different Ministries. Elementary Schools, the Universities, and the long to the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs; the town trade-schools (Fachschulen) partly to the Ministry of the Interior, partly to the Ministry of Finance, and the military schools to the Ministry of War. In the Ecklesiastik-departementet are two sections, each consisting of a socalled executive secretary, (Expeditionssecretär) with a staff of clerks. One of these has control of the Popular Schools, the other of the Elementary Schools. These bureaux have charge of all matters relating to education that come before the Ministry. The Universities are under the charge of the so-called chancellor service (Kanzleramt) of this buThe Minister of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs is supreme.

reau.

I. THE POPULAR SCHOOLS.

1. Historical.-The system of popular schools in Sweden is as old as the Reformation, since here, as in other countries, Protestantism and popular instruction went hand in hand. But the Swedes were never, not even in the Middle Ages, in the low condition of the gleba adscripti in the feudal countries of Europe. The habit of independent ownership produced in the peasant a sentiment of personal independence and love of country which often made itself felt in successful uprisings against foreign or domestic oppression. The moral education of the people, thus transmitted from father to son, had therefore a firm foundation. Christianity, in the early form of Catholicism, had softened somewhat the hard Viking spirit, but had done little for intellectual training. Schools existed in the monasteries, where the monks taught boys memorizing lessons, writing, music, and the catechism, and the nuns instructed girls in their religious duties and in housekeeping; but the literary instruction, which was imparted to nobles and peasants alike, rarely went beyond the rudiments. The Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries were the most important establishments, but they aimed not so much at general intelligence as the training of a few for the priesthood. At a later period came the begging friars (Franciscans and Dominicans), a class of itinerating teachers, who painfully gained their support by soliciting alms, and teaching in families the dogmas and ordinances of the church, or rather the most common formulas of prayers and confessions: This instruction, limited as it was, at last completely absorbed the already decaying monastery schools.

The only text-book was the so-called Saxon Catechism of Charlemagne. The art of printing was introduced into Sweden in the year 1482, when Bishop Hans Brask set up the first paper factory, and caused the Holy Scriptures and various books of devotion to be printed. With the Reformation came the strongly-enforced duty of the independent perusal and study of the Bible; and the first Protestant kings, particularly Gustavus Vasa, Charles IX, and Gustavus Adolphus, were zealous patrons of popular instruction. It is claimed that Charles IX, when Duke of Wärmland, founded many popular schools there, with such success that as early as 1637 there was hardly a peasant child within his domains who could not read and write. Queen Christina, under the lead of Chancellor Oxenstierna, in 1640, with the approval of the council and the states of the kingdom (Riksens Stander) attempted to found schools in every city in the Swedish dominions, in which reading, writing, and ciphering should be taught to all children. These schools, called Pædagogien, were the germs of the Popular Schools, whose first class was in the A B C, but whose highest was a lower classical school.

In the sixteenth century there were very few stationary schools, except in the Bishopric of Lund, where, at the time of the introduction of the Reformation into Denmark, under whose sovereignty this province then