,
if
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py

WOR KMEN ABROAD.

118
floor is about 7/. 10s., of the ground floor about
| 6/. 10s. For much worse accommodation other
artisans have to pay 8/. Throughout Prussia the
homes of the artisans are generally very poor. Of
late years rents have greatly risen. Something is
being done to improve matters by the aid of Build-
ing Societies. In Sweden, where timber is cheap
and land is plentiful, the traveller sees neat little
cottages, each with its garden. Many of the mine
proprietors offer to their workmen the privilege
of buying their houses by easy instalments. In
Russia many of the mill-owners have built for
their workpeople large houses constructed on
sanitary principles and divided into three classes—
houses for married couples, for unmarried men,
and for unmarried women. In the United States
the working classes are (with the exception of
New York) well housed, but rents are high, and
in Philadelphia for an eight-room house with water
and gas, rents vary from 21/. to 4é/. There are
very strict sanitary and other rules; for instance,
every tenement house must be provided with a fixed
fire-escape. In New York all sanitary considera-
tions are set at defiance. It was estimated in 1865
that one-half of the inhabitants lived in tenement
houses, and that an average of twenty-one and a
half persons lived in each house. It is recorded
that while in nine months 31,262 private houses and
hotels gave a mortality of 4803, the tenement houses
sent 11,571 persons to the grave in the same period.

This paper must close with a few remarks upon
the primary education of workmen abroad. In
Prussia, and most of the German States, primary
education is compulsory, and the result is that,
after making allowance for those who are ineapaci-
tated from attendance at school by illness or other
causes, only fourteen per cent. of the children are
absent from the Prussian schools. The Prussian
Industrial Code provides that wherever apprentices
are employed, those who still require religious and
school instruction shall continue to receive it, and
be allowed time for the purpose. In Saxony it
has been found that compulsory attendance up to
fourteen is not sufficient, inasmuch as a child
leaving school at that age forgets much which he
has learnt. An attempt to meet this difficulty has
been made by opening Sunday schools in which
apprentices may receive instruction in drawing,
arithmetic, physics, chemistry, and their own lan-
guage; but as the attendance is not compulsory
the experiment has failed.
have been more successful.

The evening schools
In Switzerland, as in
Prussia, school attendance is ordered by law, but
the advantages of education are so well understood,
that it is very rarely necessary to inflict a penalty
for disobeying the law. The pupils are bound to
remain until they are sixteen, but provided they
have made satisfactory progress the Legislature is

less exacting after they are twelve, and the hours |
There is thus a)
gradual transition from the life of the scholar to)

of schooling are diminished.

the life of the workman. Many of the schools are
endowed by the communes, and in most of the
cantons primary education is given free. Even
where school fees are demanded, they are so small

as not be felt. At Berne the fee is only 10d. a|

year; in Basle, however, it is 9s. 7d. The
primary schools are stepping-stones to the ‘‘ Repe-
tition” or evening and Sunday schools, which are
open to young apprentices and workmen to perfect
the knowledge that they have acquired previously.
Where these schools are not aided by private
munificenee, the State undertakes their support.
There are also many industrial (that is technical)
schools in which the subjects taught vary with the
trades of the localities in which they are situate. For
instance, at Chaux de Fonds there is a school
devoted exclusively to teaching the art of watch-
making: the pupils residing in the establishment
pay ll. per month. Education made great progress
in France under the Empire. Even M. Jules
Simon, an enemy of the late régime, admitted this.
He stated that the first Empire devoted a budget
of 160/. to education, the Restoration one of 2000/.,
the Monarchy of July one of 200,000/., and the
Second Empire one of 720,000/. The French
system may be said to deal with the child almost
from its birth. There is the créche or manger, at
which children in arms are received from 5.30 a.m.
to 8.30 p.m. for 2d. a day. The mother brings
her child in the morning on going to work, and
returns to suckle it at meal-times. Then come
the Salles d’Asile, institutions for children of
both sexes of from two to seven years. They
generally offer teaching gratis, and the city of
Paris paid in one year nearly 40,0002. for their
support. In 1866 there were 432,141 children at

these Salles. The next step is the Ecole Primaire, |

at which the child receives ordinary instruction,
which is given gratis to those who cannot afford
to pay. Finally, there are the schools at which
technical education is given, the Zcoles des Arts et
Metiers, the chief of which are at Chalons, Angers,
and Aix. The Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers
at Paris is an institution at which all persons can
attend lectures on science applied to industry, a
privilege of which Parisians have largely availed
themselves. Altogether, it must be admitted, that the
chief and most civilized countries of Europe have,
as regards popular education, passed England by a
long way. It is not surprising that the promoters
of the new Social Movement should have included
in their Seven Points the establishment by Goyern-
ment of technical schools. The lack of them causes
British workmen to be increasingly beaten every
year by “ Workmen Abroad.” —Epwarp SPENDER.