children during one hour's occupation with a familiar subject. Simple addition and multiplication sums were given to two classes of girls, of an average age of 11 years and 11 years and 10 months, and two classes of boys of the average age of 12 years and 2 months, and 13 years and 1 month. After ten minutes' work the sums were taken away from the children; after a pause of ten minutes the work was resumed, the alternation continuing for an hour, so that there were three periods of work. The results were interesting. During the experiment 162 children worked out 135,010 figures, making 6,504 mistakes. It was found that the number of mistakes increased in the different periods and that during the third period the quality of work was at the lowest. The general result showed, according to the investigator, that "children of the ages stated become fatigued in three-quarters of an hour; that the organic material is gradually exhausted; that the power of work gradually diminishes to a certain point during the third quarter of the hour, returning with renewed force at the fourth quarter." The recommendation was made that no school lesson should last longer than three-quarters of an hour, and should be followed by a quarter of an hour's rest. Such a study is of especial benefit at the beginning of the school year. Children are often reprimanded for inattention when they are overfatigued, and are spurred forward when their minds need rest. "Mental overpressure is the usual result. (London Journal of Education.)

In Germany an experiment was tried upon 162 children from 11 to 13 years of age, who were set to work out sums in simple addition and multiplication for ten minutes; then after five minutes' rest, for ten minutes more, and so on for four periods of ten minutes each in all. The result was that the total number of mistakes made was 6,504, the number increasing in the second and third period, but diminishing again in the fourth, which appears to have been better than the second. Regarding this as an experiment upon overpressure, the first thing that suggests itself is, that forty minutes of simple arithmetic, divided into periods of ten minutes each, with an interval of rest between, seems such a small amount of work to produce symptoms of fatigue that one is led to ask whether there may not have been some other cause to account for the deterioration observed? How were the intervals of rest employed? Is it not probable that such frequent interruptions may have produced a feeling of distraction and loss of concentration sufficient in itself to account for the falling off in the quality of the work? Again, 6,504 mistakes gives an average of one mistake per minute for every child; surely work so careless can not have been the cause of much mental pressure. It seems strange, too, on the evidence, that three-quarters of an hour should be proposed as the limit, taking no account, apparently, of the revival of energy in the last ten minutes of the hour. (London Ed. Times.

France. A convention of school physicians in Paris has unanimously recommended to the city school authorities to provide every school with a set of surgical instruments for cases of emergency. Injuries, as they sometimes occur in schools, could then be attended to without delay by the teachers.

Sweden.-Dr. Wertlind, physician in the schools at Gotenburg, Sweden, has weighed the pupils of three girls' schools twice a year since 1870. During his observations, for the period of twenty years, he found that the increase in weight during the three vacation months (June, July, and August) was comparatively greater than during the remaining nine school months. The following table gives the exact average increase in Swedish pounds:

The Prussian Pädagogische Zeitung says:

From this table it is seen that after the eighth year of age the development of girls during the nine school months is not proportional to that which takes place during the three vacation months. Up to 9 years of age the girls are not materially checked in their bodily development, but from that year on the development is checked the more the older the pupils are. We must also, in scanning this table, remember that, as a general thing, the summer is not conducive to an accumulation of flesh and fat; hence these figures are more eloquent than would seem at first. But it does not follow from the facts here presented that it would seem better to keep the pupils out of school. All that follows is that school instruction should be attended by less worry and more cheerful play. If our girls must acquire mental development at the cost of nervous prostration, as is done so frequently, it certainly is too costly an article. (Paed. Ztg.)

Denmark.-A Danish school principal in Copenhagen, Dr. Vahl, publishes the result of his similar observations through a period of nine years. He weighed his pupils twice a year, on April 1 and October 1. His observations are very valuable, since they embraced children of prescholastic age. The remarkable fact was found that during the six summer months the increase in weight was on an average about one-third greater than through the winter months. Here are the figures:

Italy.-Mr. Bodio, director of the Central Statistical Bureau in Rome, has recently published a memorial upon the subject of elementary education in Europe, and particularly in Italy. In this book we find a complete summary of the results of education measured by the number of illiterates in the army during the last fifteen years. "This summary," says Mr. Bodio, "may cause us some mor

tification."

Germany.-While the German nation has the smallest per cent of illiteracy of any nation in the world, yet neither the Catholic nor the Protestant element has the lowest rate of illiteracy. This belongs to the Jewish element. Of 100 Protestant children 91.63 per cent attend the elementary, 4.87 per cent the middle, 3.25 per cent the high school, and .25 per cent the university. For 100 Catholic children the 4 departments run respectively 97.21, 4.18, 1.48, and .13. While for the Jews the per cent in 100 children is 53.71, 24.40, 21.20, and 1.69. That is, of Catholic and Protestant children about 10 in 100 go beyond the first or elementary grade, while 47 in 100 of the Jewish children go beyond the first grade. These figures apply only to the city of Berlin, however, where the Jews are both numerous and wealthy. This is a most remarkable revelation, and the advantage is with Jewish children, not in Berlin alone, but also throughout the empire. It is said that the same fact holds true in our American schools. Why is it that the Jewish mind aspires to the highest plane in education? It would look as though the higher average of health among the Jewish race leads to a greater measure of mental activity and sustains it. The greater average in wealth also helps to the same end. The study is an interesting one, and a comparison of statistics covering all nations would be desirable.

The following comparative columns are highly instructive, inasmuch as they illustrate the effect of compulsory education in Germany:

The figures represent the ratio of illiteracy found among army recruits. (Centr. Archiv.)

General survey.-A French educational journal contains the following items of information. Some of these statements are not quite correct, compared with statistical information available in the Bureau of Education (see Annual Report of the Commissioner of 1888-89), but it is reasonable to suppose that the figures here presented are obtained by omitting (a) private, (b) secondary instruction: hence they are here reproduced as probably representing public elementary schools only.

I.--SCHOOL POPULATION.

The proportion of the total population that was enrolled in school in the principal countries of the civilized world was as follows:

II. ILLITERACY.

(a) In general.-Russia, Roumania, and Servia, about 80 per cent; AustriaHungary, 42 per cent; Ireland, 21 per cent; France, 15 per cent; Belgium, 15 per cent; Holland, 10 per cent; United States (white), 8 per cent; Scotland, 7 per cent; Switzerland, 2.5 per cent. In Sweden, Denmark, Bavaria, Würtemburg, Saxony it is very rare to find a person that can not read

(b) Can read only.-Germany, 94 percent (evidently too low a figure); England, 91; Austria, 88 (does not agree with statement under "Illiteracy" a); France, 88 per cent; Italy, 74 per cent; Spain, 69 per cent; Russia, 53 per cent.

(c) Cun compute.-Germany, 89 per cent; England, 81 per cent; France, 77 per cent: Austria, 75 per cent; Italy, 53 per cent; Spain, 49 per cent; Russia, 39 per cent.

(d) Know another language than the mother tongue.-Germany, 69 per cent; Austria, 61 per cent; England, 34 per cent; France, 29 per cent; Italy, 28 per cent; Spain, 13 per cent. (These statements are, to say little, very extravagant.)

(e) Have received a classical education.-Germany, 32 per cent; England, 21 per cent; France, 20 per cent; Italy, 17 per cent; Austria, 13 per cent; Spain, 7 per cent; Russia, 2 per cent.

These statements vary but little from similar ones published a year ago. (Revue Pedag.)

10-LANGUAGE STUDY.

Learning languages through self-instruction.-In an age like ours that brings peo ple of foreign tongues into contact so often, an age in which the polyglot litera ture of periodicals and books plays an important rôle, the number of adults who learn foreign languages through self-help is by no means small. Each of these self-made linguists is likely to have his own method and reach the goal he sets for himself in his own inimitable way. But though every road leads to Rome, a sensible pilgrim will want to know several to choose from. For this reason such quiet indefatigable workers may be reminded of the methods of two men who, by means of self-instruction, acquired an unusually great amount of linguistic kowledge and have become famous in this respect-Schliemann and Macaulay. Schliemann, the distinguished German archaeologist, who "first served as a commercial clerk, then, when he became head of a commercial house doing an extended and successful business, learned English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian; later on, modern and ancient Greek: lastly, Latin." He writes of himself in his Ilios: "Then I occupied myself for two years exclusively with ancient Greek literature and, I may say, I read cursorily during this time nearly all the classics, and the Iliad and Odyssey several times. Of Greek grammar I merely learned the declensions and the regular and irregular verbs: but with grammar rules I lost not a minute of my precious time, for when I saw that not a single one of all the boys who had been tortured with tedious grammar rules for more than eight years was able afterwards to write a Greek letter without making hundreds of the coarsest errors, I concluded that the method followed in the high schools was radically wrong. My opinion is that one can gain a thorough knowledge of Greek or any grammar only through practice, i, e., through thoughtful and attentive reading of classic prose, and through memorizing some of its best model pieces. Following the primitive method, I learned ancient Greek, and now can use it like a living language. I fluently write in it, and orally express my thoughts readily and without difficulty on any given subject, provided always I have thoughts to express on that subject. I am familiar with all the rules of grammar, though I rarely know whether the rules I follow in speech and writing are recorded in grammar or not." Schliemann fails to tell us how he read the first Greek work. Doubtless he did it with the aid of a translation, and not with a dictionary.

Lord Macaulay, the great English historian, learned modern languages in like manner. "When I want to learn a language," he wrote from Calcutta in 1836, “I always begin with the Bible, which I can read without a dictionary (Macaulay knew the English New Testament by heart). In the course of a few days I know the patch words (prepositions and conjunctions), and the commonest syntactical rules, and come into possession of a pretty large vocabulary. Then I attack some good classic work. Thus I learned Spanish and Portuguese, and a similar method I shall some day employ in learning German." A year later he wrote: "On my way home I intend to learn German. I am told that is a difficult language, but I do not believe that there is any language which I can not master in four months.

working 10 hours daily." And a few months later: "When I arrive in England I mean to have mastered German. In my leisure hours I have broken the ice by reading Luther's translation of the New Testament half through, and I am now quickly making my way through Schiller's history of the Thirty Year's War. Schiller's style pleases me very much. His history is rich in very correct and profound thoughts, expressed in so simple and pleasing a language that only blockheads can think him superficial.

The prodigious knowledge of languages of a Macaulay or Schliemann are usually explained by the supposition that they possessed an extraordinary licgnistic talent. However, that may be a fallacy. If we consider that these linguistic genuises were always persons who permitted themselves no other recreation and pleasure than reading, and consequently employed every available moment in reading, we shall look upon the wonderful results mentioned rather as a feat of enormous diligence and incessant practice. What Macaulay, outside of his professional and literary activity read, is truly fabulous. It seems as though he had read every English book published; the bad and unimportant books once, classic works repeatedly, and the historians (both English and foreign) incessantly. Hence the English saying: "A book which has not been read by anybody, save Macaulay."

On his way home from India he read Schiller's and Goethe's complete works, Müller's Swiss History, some works of Tieck and Lessing, as well as the works of other less noted German authors. In a letter to his sister he writes: "I have during the entire voyage read with grand enjoyment, having devoured Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, and English; folios, quarto, octavo, and other volumes." And to a friend he wrote more in detail: "I have read with a truly voracious appetite the Iliad and the Odyssey, Virgil, Horace, Caesar's Memoirs, Bacon's De Augmentis, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, Don Quixote, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of Rome, Mill's India, all the 70 volumes of Voltaire, Sismondi's History of France, and the seven thick folio volumes of the Biographia Brittanica." Critical and aesthetic views, together with notes upon the impressions some of these works had made upon him, or upon the rising or sinking of an author in his estimation after having read him, form the conclusion of his letter.

Concerning the manner of his reading, he says "I do not read any longer as I read in college, but like a man of the world. If I come across a word I do not know I pass it unless it be that its sen e is essential for the comprehension of the sentence."

Bulwer-Lytton, the romance writer, dramatist, and politician, expresses himself in a school oration concerning regular work as preferable to inborn linguistic talent by saying: "Only he can really accomplish much who does not attempt too much at one time. I have traveled much, have occupied much of my time with politics and other public and private business, and besides, have written more than 60 volumes, some on subjects which required much study and searching investigation. And now, how much time do you believe, my young hearers, I spent in study on an average, that is, in reading and writing? Three hours a day, and when Parliament is in session, even less. But during these hours my heart and soul are enlisted. It is therefore not necessary, that in order to accomplish much intellectual work, one should attempt to do much at a time; but it is absolutely essential that he work regularly and every day. If once a week you pour a whole tub full of water on a stone, no impression is made, but if you continually let a drop fall on it, the proverb tells you that the stone will be worn away.'

From the foregoing we may take two lessons: (a) Do not base the study of a foreign language upon a grammar (with vocabulary, rules, etc.), but upon a work written in the respective language. (b) Work regularly and daily.

To use the same method with adults and young people would, however, not seem advisable. The school method must needs be different from the method of the adult "autodidact," self-teacher. The pupil is young and has a teacher who stimulates him; the autodidact has a mature mind and learns without a teacher and without stimulants. He who stands between the two as a link, is the student of the upper classes of secondary schools, the young man of 16 to 20 years of age. This youth is ripening in judgment and character and may, or ought to be led to treat himself as the autodidact does. When he enters life or a university he will be the better enabled to cope with difficulties, the more he has learned to help and teach himself. The joy of learning" this wonderful stimulus must not be quenched by too much assistance. (After SchweizLehrerztg.)