are placed in the hands of the minister of commerce. The industries of the country and the means of educating those engaged in them in the principles which underlie their successful development are thus closely and officially associated and their interdependence clearly proclaimed. Measured by our standard, the fees are nominal; in some cases, like that of Roubaix (weaving and dyeing), not only are there no fees but all materials are gratuitously supplied. In every instance there are numerous free places for those unable to pay the fees. The abundant supply of preparatory schools, the extended school age, ranging up to fourteen years, and the ample provision for continued evening education, have created a large body of well-prepared students, who are therefore much more numerous than is the case in this country. There is, hence, no difficulty in providing recruits to the higher scientific and technical institutions. This has had two results: first, the supply of a large number of welltrained foremen, managers, and employers; secondly, the creation of a class of competent men as teachers of science and technology. The forethought of continental governments in this respect may be compared, in several very interesting and striking directions, with our own want of prevision. For instance, when this council has required the services of a competent instructor of the chemical, dyeing, and calico-printing classes, it has been found indispensable to engage one who has been trained in a foreign technological institution for that important section of its work; and it is well known that many of our leading firms experience almost insuperable difficulty in finding among our own countrymen that combination of scientific with practical knowledge by which alone they can hope to compete with their continental rivals.

There is no pretense that the fees in any of these institutions can be made to defray their expenses except in rare instances, and where they do so it will be found, as in the case of Muhlhausen, that the schools are in the hands of the manufacturers, and very high fees are charged. It is recognized as a duty by the municipality and the government that the amplest provision should be made and no expense spared to provide the best buildings, the most complete equipment, and the most efficient teaching. It is accepted as an axiom that industrial progress largely depends, and will more and more depend, upon scientific knowledge and artistic skill, and that the race is not so much to the strong as to the well informed and thoroughly trained. If this be true, there is little doubt that the efforts now being made by continental nations are deserving of our most serious attention.

We received information which shows that the danger to our industries by the better-instructed managers of continental manufacturing concerns is by no means imaginary. We are annually importing, principally from Germany and Switzerland, about three million pounds in value of chemical manufactures, coal-tar dyes, colors, and pigments, without reckoning medicinal preparations. There is no sound reason whatever, except the want of high technical training, why all these products might not be made in England, whence the greater portion of the raw material required for their manufacture is obtained. In like manner such branches of manufacture as braids, trimmings, and thread gloves, formerly a considerable business here, together with other articles of trade, have been latterly carried off to the continent, which now largely supplies these goods to our English market.

We were especially struck with the instance of Switzerland, a country laboring under many and great disadvantages. It is obliged to import all its raw materials and export its manufactures under great disabilities of cost of carriage and distance from its sources of supply and sale, yet it succeeds in carrying on a considerable foreign trade, especially in fine chemicals, the creation of which is due entirely to its splendid polytechnic school at Zurich. We were, moreover, impressed with the fact that Switzerland is engaged in a new industry, namely, the manufacture and export of highly educated scientific men. It is recognized that the country is too small to support its increasing population; that its sons must obtain their living elsewhere than in their own land, and that to enable them to do so with success the means of

obtaining the finest scientific training must accordingly be thrown open to every capable Swiss on nominal terms.

There is no district on the continent which can for a moment compare in industrial importance with that of which Manchester is the center. The engineering, textile, and dyeing and printing industries hero immensely transcend in extent and value those carried on in a like area in any foreign country; and yet the means we possess of training those who are to have the management of our great industrial concerns, or those among our working classes who may rightly aspire to positions of trust by reason of natural fitness and aptitude, would certainly not compare with the provisions made in a second-rate German or Swiss manufacturing town.

It has been said that our workshops are the finest technical schools in the world; but to say this and expect it to be taken as a final and sufficient reply to all demands for additional means of technical instruction is to mistake the meaning and object of technical training. By this should properly be understood that education which enables a man to grasp and turn to account those scientific principles upon which our industries depend. Moreover, the conditions of workshop life do not permit of that combination of theoretical study with practical instruction which the technical school is intended to supply.

We do not suggest that the methods of continental countries should be followed in all respects. The conditions of industrial life are not the same here as there, and modifications to suit our own peculiar circumstances and needs are therefore necessary. We are convinced, however, that the advantages of industrial education there enjoyed ought to be placed within the reach of our own countrymen to an equal extent.

At Crefeld, for example, your deputation met three young Englishmen who had been students in the spinning and weaving branch of our technical school in Peter street, and who had come to Crefeld in order to obtain a thorough training in the spinning, weaving, and dyeing of silk. These youths had been detached from home influences, and, at great expense, been sent to a foreign country to learn what ought to have been accessible to them at their own doors-surely a potent argument for the extension of our work in a new and enlarged building.

We submit that Manchester requires the establishment of a technical school of the highest character; that is to say, a building adequate in space and accommodation to the needs of its important engineering, building, textile, and chemical trades, together with a complete staff of competent teachers and an ample equipment for effective practical instruction by means of laboratories, workshop appliances, apparatus, models, and examples.

The experience of foreign countries shows conclusively that such a school can not be made self-supporting; that, on the contrary, the lower its fees, if safeguarded by suitable entrance examinations, the more service it can render to the community. With a view of bringing the school within the reach of the working classes, numerous competitive scholarships, extending over two or three years, are necessary, by which may be provided the outlay for fees and books, and, in some measure, the loss in wages.

An institution of such magnitude can not, with any security for its effective working and development, be left to depend on private resources or on uncertain means of income; and it would therefore, perhaps, be most suitably supported from public funds, such as those now available under the technical instruction act, 1889, and the customs and excise act, 1890. As a matter of course, adequate representation under such conditions would be provided.

J. H. REYNOLDS,
Secretary of Committec.

Manchester, July 18, 1891.

CHAPTER VI.

TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND.1

CONTENTS.

Introduction.-I: Historical Review.-II: Statistics of Normal Schools; (A) Germany (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg, Baden, Hessia, and other German states); (B) Austria; (C) Hungary; (D) Switzerland; summary of statistics and comparison; some interesting items.-III: Rules and Regulations of Prussian Normal Schools; (1) Requirements for admission; (2) Present management; (3) Course of study with principles of guidance; (4) Detailed course in history and literature.—IV: Professional Study of German Teachers; (4) History of education; (B) Psychology; (C) Theory of education.-V: Teachers Training in Switzerland.-VI: Symposium of Opinions of Distinguished Educators on the Normal School Question in Germany.— VII: Personal Observations; (1) Buildings; (2) A visit to a preparatory school; (3) A visit to a normal school; (4) A language lesson; (5) Another visit to a Prussian normal school. SOURCES OF INFORMATION." Allgemeine Bestimmungen,” vom 15ten October, 1872, für Preussen-C. A. Wentzel: "Die Prüfungsordnungen”—Julius Gartner: "Ueber Organisation der Bildungs-Anstalten für Lehrer in Oesterreich”—J. Kaufmann-Hartenstein: "Zur Lehrerbildungsfrage”—Edwin Wilke: "Diesterweg und die Lehrerbildung" — Wilhelm Kreiz same title-Dr. W. Rein: "Paedagogische Studien”—Dr. Schneider: "Volksschulwesen und Lehrerbildung”—Ostermann & Wegner: "Lehrbuch der Paedagogik”—Grob: “Jahrbuch des Unterrichtswesens in der Schweiz." TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, AND SWITZERLAND.

INTRODUCTION.

How to prepare the teachers for their profession, or (if the reader is disinclined to admit that there is a teaching profession) their occupation, is undoubtedly one of the most important educational questions. The elevation of the common school depends upon it; indeed, the degree of general and professional culture of teachers determines the degree of culture of the vast majority of the young, and even of the entire people. This causal connection between the general culture of a nation and the instructors of its children, stamps the question under discussion a state question, a question of policy as momentous as the establishment and maintenance of schools themselves.

True it is that the facilities for acquiring knowledge, after school age is passed, are abundant; all the agencies of modern life, the press,

'By Dr. L. R. Klemm, specialist in German education.

public business, and rapid communication make knowledge easily accessible; but the discipline which school alone gives, life can not furnish.

1

If, then, we bear in mind that the elementary school is not merely a "knowledge shop," an institution for the acquisition of the elements of knowledge, but a place where the young are to be trained to become "intellectually active, civilly useful, and morally good men and women," we shall see how important is the question of proper preparation of teachers. The value of a school is always in exact proportion to that of the teacher, hence the elevation of his intellectual and moral culture is necessarily the first step to be taken in reforming or improving the schools. To the recognition of this self-evident truth we owe the establishment of special institutions for the preparation of elementary school teachers.

Naturally, in looking about among the nations of the civilized world to ascertain what had been done in this direction, the attention of the French authorities was directed to Germany, or, properly speaking, to the German-speaking nations. During the administration of M. Guizot the French minister of public education, M. Cousin, visited several states of Germany, and reported to his superiors upon the condition and organization of schools in that country, particularly in Prussia. A large part of his report was devoted to the Prussian training schools for elementary teachers. He translated the name Schullehrer-seminarien by the term Ecoles normales primaires. The fact that similar institutions in the States of New York and Massachusetts were called normal schools (literally model, or proper schools) proves that Cousin's report was read by the educational authorities in this country when they established such schools. Of Horace Mann, the secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, the notable reformer of American schools, we know that he inspected the German schools, and held them up as models to be followed. Likewise, in England the German teachers' training schools were taken as models for similar institutions through the influence of Matthew Arnold and Joseph Payne; only here they were called "teachers' training colleges." Thus we see that the civilized nations assiduously studied and imitated the German system of professional training of teachers.

Says Dr. Ed. S. Joynes, professor of modern languages in the University of South Carolina:

Germany has now become the schoolmistress of the world. The distinctive qualities of the German mind-industry, patience, microscopic precision, combined with high ideality, depth of insight, with height and breadth of view and thorough intellectual consciousness-have made the Germans first in every department of research and scholarship. As investigators and teachers they are unrivaled. Their schools, seminaries, and universities are the foremost in the world. In almost every department of pure or applied science they lead-in some without competitors. In the regions of abstract thought or of pure scholarship, their preeminence is still more decided. All the civilized world goes to school to Germany.

School laws of several Swiss cantons.