SECTIONS FROM SCHOOL LAW OF ARGOVIA, 1865.

§7. All teachers in the public schools are elected for six years, and must at the end of this term be confirmed in their office for another six years and so on. The confirmation is pronounced by the Council of Education.

§ 15. Teachers whose age and infirmities oblige them to retire from their office, receive an annual allowance, as long as they have no other means of subsistence.

Meritorious teachers who resign for other reasons than age or infirmity, may, if they have not other means of subsistence, receive a grant, the amount of which is determined according to their time of service and to the services performed.

§ 21. With exception of the teachers of needlework, all male and female teachers are bound to join the Hargan Association for securing pensions to school teachers.

This association receives a yearly contribution from the State, the application of which sum is determined by the Educational Council of the Government, after consultation with the association.

§ 22. For the practical improvement of the teachers of the communal schools of each district, conferences have been instituted.

These conferences are directed by a chairman elected by the members. They are held at least four times a year, and attendance is obligatory.

The female needlework teachers also assemble in district conferences, under the presiding of the head governess.

§ 23. Each district conference possesses a lending library of educational works, the purchase, use, and administration of which is managed by the members.

This library is supported by the annual subscriptions of the members of the conference, by the fines paid by them for non-attendance, and by a yearly contribution from the Educational Council.

§ 24. All the teachers in, and inspectors of the public schools in the canton, together with the chairman of the district conferences, constitute the cantonal conference.

The object of this is to promote the scientific activity of the teachers, and to discuss and bring to the knowledge of the school authorities matters relating to the schools.

This conference assembles at least once a year.

§ 39. Compulsory attendance extends eight years, from the age of seven to the end of the fifteenth year; during the first six of which the teachers are to aim at imparting a thorough knowledge of the elementary subjects of instruc tion, whereas the last two years are to comprise a separate course of instruction, in which the practical requirements of life are to be combined with the general subjects of education, and the differences between these requirements, as regards girls and boys, are to be duly attended to.

§ 49. In every school community there must be work schools for girls within the age of compulsory education, and these schools form a part of the communal school, and are subject to the same rules.

§ 50. Every girl is bound from the beginning of her third year at school, and till the end of her school time, to attend the work school, the work in which embraces: knitting, sewing, the repairing of old clothes, and the making of common articles of wearing apparel. The teacher is moreover strictly enjoined to see that the girls acquire habits of cleanliness, order, and economy. Fancy work must not be taught until the scholars have attained proficiency in the more ordinary kinds of work.

§ 59. Every manufacturer who employs children, and who does not send them to the ordinary communal school, is bound, either alone, or in conjunction with other manufacturers, to erect a factory school, under a properly appointed and certified male teacher, and a female teacher for needle-work, which school, all the children in the factory must attend for six months in the year, or in intervals to that extent.

$64. The object of the infant schools is to secure to children who have not yet attained the age fixed for compulsory attendance in school, undisturbed mental and bodily development according to the laws of nature. The principles to be followed will be laid down in the regulations of the Educational Council.

§ 67. Parents and guardians may have their children or wards educated at home or in private schools, provided in the former case they submit to the annual examination in the common school, or in the latter, the schools are subjected to a public examination, and the teachers whether in the family or pri vate school must hold a certificate of qualification.

§ 70. An enumeration of all children within the law of attendance (7 to 15), must be made each year by the communal authority, and must furnish copies to the teacher and the school inspector; and to these lists must be added all children within the prescribed age who remove into the commune after the day of enumeration.

§71. A child registered as in attendance can not be absent for a day or an hour, without permission, or valid reason, which must be stated within one week after the absence.

§ 72. Every teacher must enter in the daily register every absence, and the reasons given for the same; and a list of the absences must be submitted to the Communal School committee at the regular monthly meeting, and a copy sent to the inspector.

§73. Absences, not accounted for within a week, shall be deemed offenses, for which the parents or guardians must be called to account by the school authorities, and punished according to the regulation, viz.: a fine for each half day of from 20 to 60 rappen, and for repeated negligences, by imprisonment. The fines are paid into the communal school treasury.

[Sections 107 to 138 relate to the District School, which receives pupils from the Communal School at the age of eleven years, who are found qualified by examination, and who wish to prepare for the Cantonal Schools.

Sections 139 to 149 relates to the Cantonal Schools, viz.: the Gymnasium, and the Industrial Schools; the former fits pupils for the University, or the professional schools of theology, law and medicine; and the latter, for the Federal Polytechnic School at Zurich.]

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN SPAIN.

INTRODUCTION.

THE KINGDOM Of Spain occupies the larger portion of the great Iberian Peninsula. Its length is about 560 miles, with an average breadth of 380 miles. The coast-line on the Atlantic is 605 miles, and on the Mediterranean 712-a total of 1,307 miles. The area, including the Canary and Balearic Isles (Majorca, Minorca), comprises 143,508 English square miles, with a population in 1864 of 16,287,675. To these must be added its colonies in America, Asia, Africa, Oceanica, with a population of about 5,000,000. The country has great variety of soil, well watered, and well adapted to the cultivation of the great agricultural staples, as well as the heatloving fruits-corn, and wine, and oil, cotton, wheat, flax, oats, coffee, sugar, cocoa, oranges,—every thing which domestic consumption and a foreign commerce could ask. Water power and water communication abound, affording every facility for manufacturing enterprise. All the elements of national prosperity seem to existexcept a stable and liberal government and a comprehensive system of national education.

An important step towards the organization of a liberal government was taken in the Constitution drawn up by a Cortes Constituyenter, elected by universal suffrage in January, 1869, and proclaimed June 6, 1869. Sections 35 to 37 decree: "All powers emanate from the nation. The form of government of the Spanish nation is the monarchy. The power to make laws resides in the Cortes. The king sanctions and promulgates the laws. The executive power resides in the king, who exercises it by means of his ministers. The tribunals exercise the judicial power. Questions of local interest to the population belong to the Ayuntamientos and Provincial Assemblies." There are provisions both novel and salutary in this constitution. The members, both of the Senate and the Congress, who together compose the Cortes, represent the whole nation and not exclusively the electors who nominate them, and from whom they can not receive any special mandate. The elements of an efficient system of public schools already exist, as will be seen in the following article.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT.

The history of systematic education in Spain begins with the dominion of the Romans, who imposed upon this country their own intellectual training so completely, that Strabo could say, that no difference could be discerned between a Roman and an Iberian youth. The principal branches then taught in the schools, were grammar, rhetoric, agriculture, and jurisprudence; while later, under the emperors, a general encyclopædiac direction was given to the course. How high a standard was reached, even in this remote province, the names of Quintilian, Martial, Lucan, the two Senecas, Columella, Silius Italicus and Florus, all Spaniards, bear witness.

During the invasion, and under the rule of the northern barbarians (the Vandals, Sueves, and Visigoths), the light of learning, kept alive now by the Christian church alone, was almost extinguished; it began slowly to re-kindle under the Gothic kings, but its development was closed by the irruption of the Moors in 711. Once firmly established, however, the invaders made more than amends by their own efforts in behalf of learning, particularly at the court of the Caliphs of Cordova, and under Abderrahman III, and Alhakim. During the reign of these princes, an efficient organization was given to instruction; scholarships were founded for the poor, special schools were opened for girls, and so great was the attendance on schools of some kind, that it was said that every person in Andalusia could read and write. A University flourished at Cordova, which stood among the first in Europe. The branches most studied were medicine, mathematics, natural science, astronomy, grammar, and law, and among the Jews, the Hebrew of the Old Scriptures.

During the struggles of the Christians and the Moors, few learned men were found outside of the cloisters; but with the triumph of the church came a revived love for letters, which was fostered by the influence of the Paris University and its graduates, by the discussions between the Nominalists and Realists, and the formation of the Dominican order. To these agencies must be added the impulse given by the University at Salamanca, and the efforts of Alphonso X. This monarch, surnamed the Wise, in the Las Sicte Partidas, a remarkable code, compiled for the governance of Spain between the years 1256 and 1265, devotes a chapter to the estab lishment and conduct of great public schools (Etudios Generales), and granted special privileges to the University of Salamanca, to which he gave the first formal charter and endowment in 1554, and opened Latin and Arabic Schools, both in Seville and Burjos, in the same year. This monarch provided for a translation of the Scriptures into the Spanish language from the Vulgate, which implied and facilitated the existence of popular schools.

A decline came with the increase of luxury which followed the influx of the gold of the New World. Soon after this, education came under the control of the Society of Jesus, and was conducted by its members in