, if I 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.