As a fitting climax to the school system comes the university, with its four departments of law, science, medicine, and literature. It dates from an institution of antiquity founded by the Tokugawa government and was remodeled after the restoration in 1868. Since that date its courses have been modified; in 1873 there were added special courses of study in law, chemistry, engineering, polytechnics, and mining; in 1876 it was united with the medical college; in 1885 the law school, which was under the control of the Department of Justice, was merged into the university, and the department of technology was formed with courses in mechanical and civil engineering, applied chemistry, naval architecture, and kindred sciences; in 1886, by means of an imperial ordinance, the university was reorganized as the Imperial University, its curriculum extending over three years in each course, except the four years' course in medicine, and at the same time the school of industrial technology was placed under control of the university. In 1890 the college of agriculture and dendrology was united to the university, and on August 15, 1891, the curriculum of the law school was extended to four years.

The Imperial University has as its object, "the teaching of such arts and sciences as are required for purposes of state and the prosecution of original investigation in those arts and sciences. It consists of the university hall and the colleges. The university hall is established for the purpose of orginal instruction and the colleges for theoretical and practical instruction." Candidates for admission to the colleges must have received certificates of graduation from a higher secondary school or some institution with similar grade of instruction, or they must prove themselves possessed of equal attainments in the examination held before each college. Persons desiring admission to the university hall are required "to present to the president of the university a written application containing the subjects of investigation to be pursued by them." The president appoints a professor or professors "to superintend the pupil's studies, and all scientific investigations carried on by the students must be made under such supervision." These investigations are not to be prolonged over two years. The course of study in the different faculties is very comprehensive. The law course has two divisions, that of law and political economy. In the first year of the law course the students have instruction in general and Roman laws, civil and criminal codes, in English laws of contract and torts, in general French law, the history of German law, and the law of pandects. In the second year, in the civil code, code of criminal procedure, the constitution, public international law, exercises in civil and criminal pleadings, English commercial and property laws, practical exercises in the law of pandects, German private law. In the third year, instruction in the civil code covers the means by which property is acquired, claims, laws of evidence and of persons, administrative laws, exercises in civil and criminal pleadings. The study of

English law includes commercial law, law of procedure and of evidence; the study of French law includes history, civil and administrative laws. The study of German law includes exercises from the pandects and German commercial law. The fourth year extends the studies to the commercial code, judicial organization and code of civil procedure, private international law, jurisprudence, criminal code, history of legal institutions of Japan, exercises in civil and criminal pleadings, English law of equity, French civil and commercial laws, history of French law, German public and administrative laws, and German bankruptcy law. The section of "politics" includes politics, political economy and its history, statistics, history of institutions and of politics, English, French, and German constitutions, administrative, private and public international laws, civil, commercial, and criminal codes, sociology, history of legal institutions in Japan, and laws of administrative justice, The college of medicine includes a course of medicine extending over four years and a course in pharmacy extending over three years. The courses include, among other branches, pathology and medical history, surgery, physiology, hygiene, psychiatry, anatomy and histology, phar-> macology, chemistry, gynæcology, forensic medicine, and dermatology.. While in the law school the average number of hours each week devoted to the different branches is three, in the medical school four appears to be the average. In the college of engineering there are nine courses, each extending over three years. They are civil engineering, mechanical engineering, naval architecture, technology of arms, electrical engineering, architecture, applied chemistry, technology of explosives, mining, and metallurgy. The college of literature also has nine courses, extending through three years, including philosophy, Japanese literature, Chinese literature, Japanese history, history in general, comparative philology, English, German, and French literature. Here, as in the other colleges or faculties, there are professors who are graduates of European or American colleges, and the courses show evidence from the Japanese standpoint of the foreign influences at work throughout these islands. The college of science has seven courses extending over three years, viz, mathematics, astronomy, physics, geology, chemistry, zoology, and botany. The college of agriculture is awaiting additional development, but now has a three years' course in agricul ture, vegetable pathology, entomology and sericulture, zoötechny, political economy, chemistry, meteorology, forestry, and veterinary *medicine.

The university has elective and post-graduate courses, as also regular and subsidiary courses. Changes take place when the needs of the university require, or when new elements are brought in by those persons who have been prosecuting their studies in other countries and have learned of the new developments in different branches of science. There are also scholarships founded by private munificence; one being in memory of Hotakéyama Yoshinari, one of the Japanese best known

to Americans. These scholarships, founded by the zealous scholar who was so powerful an agent in the development of the university from an ancient-language school, are in law and chemistry.

The Japanese have a large class of special schools, which are so diverse in character that, although many of them naturally group here as a part of the school system, they have been classed for convenience's sake under Supplementary Institutions and under Schools of other Depart

ments.

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND METHODS OF DISCIPLINE.

Methods and management.-The educational system is disciplinary in character, inasmuch as habits of obedience are to be inculcated from the earliest school years. Great stress is laid upon this point in the laws and in the imperial ordinances promulgated from time to time, yet no corporal punishment (such as whipping or binding with ropes or cords) is permitted in the schools. The methods employed in order to bring about the best results in the different grades of schools are not especially designated, but may be gleaned from the following: For the management of school affairs all wards or villages must organize school committees, who are to establish elementary schools for children between 6 and 14 years of age. The committees have general charge of the attendance and of the maintenance and establishment of the schools, and yet the parents and guardians are really reponsible for the attendance of their children. At the end of every year the school committees are to find out whether all such children have been in attendance, and, if not, what valid excuse there is for absence. The attendance must be of at least sixteen weeks each year, and the length of the school session not less than thirty-two weeks. Pupils of both sexes are not to be taught together in the same room, except in elementary schools. In the lower grade elementary schools not more than eighty children and in the higher elementary schools not more than sixty children may be taught by one teacher. School fees are charged or not, as the case may be, the local officials deciding this matter after due investigation of the circumstances. The teachers, who must be of good moral character and over 18 years of age, are with their schools, frequently subject to local inspection, and even to inspection by persons sent direct from the Department of Education. The results of such inspection are sent to the department annually. As far as possible the teachers endeavor to make the instruction practical in character, and their zealous efforts to train the children under their charge are aided many times through the interest manifested by influential people of the neighborhood, and many teachers have devised methods of their own, both for teaching and managing. School reg. isters are kept in many, if not all, elementary and secondary schools, and

in the most populated Kens the inspectors give favorable reports of the manner in which entries are made in these registers.1

Promotion of pupils.-The general trend of education and the adoption of methods of European and American schools would indicate that pupils are promoted from class to class after due examination, but this is not distinctly specified. The laws indicate, however, that parents and guardians of pupils are permitted to attend any and all examinations held in the schools.

Study, recitations, and programmes.-The course of study in elementary schools is outlined by the governors of Fu and Ken, but planned by them according to the standard laid down by the minister in charge of education. If any special modifications are required by local circumstances, then the approval of the minister must first be sought. The text-books are chosen by the local authorities with great care, and the Department of Education assumes responsibility for them by examining them from time to time and informing the governors as to the result of such examination. The Department also compiles and publishes textbooks to serve as models for authors, and it indicates the general principles which should be incorporated in the books to be used for moral teachings. Divers and many have been the regulations outlined as to text-books during the gradual growth of the school system, but the innumerable changes were found to be injurious to the cause of education. In 1886 regulations for the examination and approval of school books and charts were formulated by the Department of Education, and publishers of text-books for elementary, secondary and normal schools requested the Department to examine those which they desired to present to the public. If satisfactory, certificates, good for a term of years, were given upon payment of a fee varying from 10 to 20 yen. All such measures were taken with a view to the encouraging of learned men to compile text-books, and well-qualified men were selected as a

In "Japan," by J. J. Rein, the methods of teaching are thus described: "The school training of the Japanese boy begins on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, on which he receives his first lesson in caligraphy with all the observances of etiquette and solemnity which have always characterized the nation in such matters. Provided with the necessary materials, consisting of an ink box (sumi-ire or suzuri-bako) with a piece of ink (sumi), a brush (fudi) of the thickness of a little finger, an ink dish (suzuri), and usually also a little vessel for holding water, as well as some paper (kami), the new pupil is introduced to his teacher, who makes before him, on a large scale, the simple and more complex signs one after the other, and with unwearied patience and unvarying kindness shows him how to copy them. It is not often that the pupil displays any want of attention or earnestness. When he has made repeatedly the same sign, completely covered the paper with hieroglyphics, and thoroughly mastered one form he goes on to the second, and Thus he gradually acquires, in addition to the easy native syllabic writing, a stock of Chinese word-signs. On the lowest calculation, he must master in six or eight years about a thousand. Quicker pupils under competent teachers learn as many as three or four thousand, and scholars as many as ten thousand and even more."

so on.