Technical instruction.—The 2 professional technical schools at Åbo and Nikolaistad had 14 teachers and 68 students in 1883-'84, and the polytechnic institute at Helsingfors had 26 professors and teachers, and 128 students, in the first semester of 1885. There were also 7 naval schools with 178 students, and 4 commercial schools with 32 teachers and 160 pupils in the school year 1884-'85.

FRANCE, republic: area, 204,092 square miles; population (December 18, 1881), 37,672,048. Capital, Paris: population, 2,269,023. Minister of public instruction, René Goblet.

Primary instruction.--The following information is taken from the corrected report of Deputy Antonin Dubost, on the budget of the ministry of public instruction for 1885, published in the Revue pedagogique, February 15, 1885.

One of the principal points in the programme of democracy was the establishment of obligatory, fice, and lay instruction, and these separate features had to be incorporated in the laws and realized in practice. It was an immense undertaking, which involved the preparation of teachers and the construction of new school-houses, in order to bring instruction within reach of all; the recasting of programmes and reorganization of all branches of the service of instruction; and the introduction and adoption of new financial measures, to make the new efforts fruitful.

The law of August 9, 1879, was the prelude to this great reorganization, and directed the establishment of a normal school for male and another for female teachers in each department. Then followed the law of June 16, 1881, which established absolute gratuity of instruction in the primary public schools. The law of March 28, 1882, made primary education obligatory and lay; and then came a scries of laws, decrees, decisions, and instructions, establishing hamlet schools; organizing superior primary schools, maternal schools, apprenticeship schools (manual labor schools), normal courses in normal schools and superior primary schools; preparing teachers of manual labor and reorganizing military instruction; establishing scholarships in the superior primary schools; reorganizing the courses for adults; instituting school banks, etc. Finally, on March 18, 1884, a bill was introduced into the Chamber of Deputies reorganizing primary education.

This was the plan of national primary education. Its application can be seen in the comparative figures of different periods which follow:

In 1878-79 there 78 normal schools for males with 3,551 students, and 17 normal schools for females with 691 students; total, 95 normal schools with 4,242 students. In 1883–84 there were 85 normal schools for males with 4,952 students, 5 normal schools for males in course of construction, 57 normal schools for females with 2,487 students, and 17 normal schools for females in course of construction; total, 154 normal schools with 7,439 students.

The appropriation in 1878–79 was 3,902,132.08 fr., and in 1883–84 it was 6,754,350 fr. The increase of public, or state, and the decrease of private schools were as follows:

The number of teachers in the public and private schools was as follows:

In the same years the number of salles d'asile was as follows:

Calling the increase of schools 1,000 since 1883, and counting in the salles d'asile as above, the total number of schools of this grade would be 83,682 schools, with a teaching force of 137,743 persons.

According to the census of 1881, the number of children of school age, six to thirteen years, was 4,586,349.

The number in the different classes of schools was as follows:

This makes a total in 1883 of 6,111,236 children receiving instruction, or 1,524,887 more than the school population between six and thirteen years of age (in 1881). Deducting the number in the salles d'asile, or maternal schools, viz, 679,085, there remain 845,802 children not of school age attending school.

The law of 1882 made primary instruction not only obligatory, but lay; i. e., it intrusted the direction of primary schools only to laymen. The operation of the law may be seen from the following table:

Taking the totals of public and private lay and clerical, we have:

The variation in the number of maternal schools is shown in the following table, as well as their classification into lay and clerical:

The attendance at the primary schools, classified into lay and clerical, public and privato, is as follows:

Taking the sum of the two classes in both the public and private schools, we have the foliowing attendance for the above years:

These figures show an increasing difference in favor of attendance at lay schools.

A similar movement occurs in the maternal schools, as appears from the following statement of attendance:

Superior primary instruction.-The law of 1833 established this grade of instruction, and in 1850 there were 436 institutions, with 27,159 students. The law of March 15, 1850, interrupted the development of this branch of instruction by abolishing the division of primary education into elementary and superior, so that by 1870 what were called elective studies were being taught in only 264 schools to about 4,000 students. Superior primary instruction was re-established by the law of March 10, 1878, and was definitely reorganized by a decree of January 15, 1881. The total mnuber of establishments in 1884 was 570, of which 145 were public superior primary schools for boys, and 47 for girls; 25 were private schools for boys, and 29 for girls; while there were 324 complementary courses, public and private, 228 of which were for boys and 96 were for girls. Thus there were 398 schools and courses for boys, and 172 for girls. The teaching force numbered 3,688, of which number 2,070 were regular teachers, and 1,618 were special and auxiliary teachers (for modern languages, drawing, gymnastics, manual work, etc.). The students numbered 30,140. In 1884

the sum of 774,000 francs was appropriated by the Government for scholarships in this grade, which contributed to the support of 949 students in 158 schools.

The public courses for adults in 1876-'77 were 21,973 for men and 5,036 for women, with 487,297 men and 98,758 women in attendance. The private courses numbered 160 for men and 248 for women, with an attendance of 12,746 men and 6,952 women. Total, 27,009 public and 408 private courses, with an attendance of 586,055 and 19,698 persons respectively. In 1882-'83 the public courses were 24,230 for men and 5,459 for women, with 410,375 men and 74,274 women in attendance; while the private courses were 191 for men and 99 for women, with 10,996 men and 3,846 women in attendance. Total, 29,689 public and 290 private courses, with 484,649 and 14,842 persons in attendance respectively.

The number of public libraries was 19,234 in 1877 and 28,845 in 1883, containing 3,160,823 volumes, and the pedagogical libraries numbered 2,500 with 663,878 volumes. The law of March 28, 1882, compelled the establishment of school banks in all the communes. During 1883 such banks existed in 19,436 communes, and their receipts were 4,254,176 fr., disbursements 2,630,528 fr., leaving a balance in bank of 1,623,648 fr. Illiteracy. In 1871 the proportion of recruits who could read was 83 per cent.; in 1882 it was 86.9 per cent. In 1870 the proportion of persons who could sign their names to the acte de mariage was 66.8 per cent.; in 1881 it was 86 per cent.

Expenditure for primary instruction.-The government expenditure may be divided into two parts, the amount placed at the disposal of the communes for building school-houses, and the regular annual appropriation. The increase in the latter since 1870 is shown in the following figures: in 1870 it was 8,751,700 fr.; in 1875, 16,542,605 fr.; in 1880, 28,383,454 fr.; in 1882, 62,440,066 fr.; in 1883, 84,235,516 fr.; in 1885, 97,280,405 fr.

But these state appropriations formed only a part of the money actually devoted to primary education. There were besides large sums derived from bequests, the communes and departments, gifts, and, before 1881, the school fees payable by the families. The latter source of income was abolished by the law of June 16, 1981, which made primary instruction free. The total amount recorded as devoted to public primary instruction, and the sources from which it was derived, in 1870 and 1884, are shown in the following statement:

1870..

From gifts and bequests.

From the communes

From families (school fees)

From the departments.
From the state

Total

1884.

From gifts and bequests...

From the communes..

From the departments..

From the state....

From disbursements by school banks in each commune, about ...............

Total.....

Francs. 1,000,000

17, 127, 143

19, 169, 476 4,944, 319 8,751, 700

50, 992, 638

668,000 26,887, 283

14,992, 700

94, 258, 515 4,500,000

141,306, 498

The estimated expenditures for private instruction in the same years were 10,198,527 fr. and 23,551,083 fr. respectively. In 1870 the average cost of education for each pupil of the primary schools was 12 fr. 36 c. ($2.38), and in 1884 it was 26 fr. 70 c. ($5.15). The annual expenditures for primary instruction will be increased by 48,026,400 fr. very soon, to enable the law authorizing the construction of schoolhouses to go into effect, and by a further amount of 81,066,500 fr., to carry out the new organization of primary education and provide for the new scale of salaries.