EDUCATION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. The following table presents the statistics of public elementary schools, i. e., schools intended for children of legal school age, generally 6 to 14 years, and supported wholly or in part by public funds. In a few instances the statistics are not strictly limited to these bounds. For France, as will be seen by reference to columns 3 and 4, the enrollment in private elementary schools, which derive nothing from public funds, is included. As these schools are, however, under government inspection they pertain in a certain sense to the public system. For England and Wales and Scotland the enrollment includes pupils in infant schools and classes. Of the number tabulated, for the former 9 per cent. and for the latter 2.42 per cent. were under 5 years of age. In Ireland only those pupils on the rolls who make at least one attendance in the fortnight preceding the government examination are included in the number recognized for the government payments. This number and the total enrollment for the year are both tabulated (see column 5). Private schools not aided by public funds are included in the enrollment for the Netherlands. The latest official statistics from Finland, i. e., for 1889-90, give a very imperfect notion of the actual state of instruction in that country, as they include only organized schools, whereas the larger proportion of the population receive the elements of knowledge through the agency of ambulatory schools. The statistics of these as reported in 1886 are, therefore, given (see column 5). The statistics of Upper Burmah, whose schools have recently been brought under the supervision of English officials, include 8,685 pupils in strictly private schools. For the remaining provinces of India the tabulated statistics include only public primary schools. The reports received show also an attendance in private native schools of elementary grade as follows: Bengal, 77,286; Bombay, 67,123; Lower Burmah, 35,003; North West Provinces and Oudh, 70,061; Mysore, 22,162. Peculiar difficulties are encountered in the attempt to tabulate the current expenditures for elementary education. In some instances these are given in financial reports separate from the educational, and pertaining to a different year. Often the total expenditure for education is given without itemizing, so that the amounts devoted to the elementary schools can not be determined; thus, for example, in Russia in 1891 the school budgets of the different ministers having charge of educational institutions amounted to about $23,000,000, the proportion for elementary education not being separable. In Roumania in 1891 the total budget for the various grades of education was $3,580,921. The total expenditures are not made up in every case solely from public funds, governmental and local, church subsidies and tuition fees being often sources of revenue. In the German-speaking countries tuition fees form only an insignificant item in the total expenditure. In 1888 the principle of free education was established by law in Prussia, and is being carried into effect as rapidly as circumstances permit. In Belgium while subsidized private schools comprise 29 per cent of the enrolled pupils, tuition fees afford about 5.22 per cent of the total elementary school income, the maintenance of forty-nine normal schools being included therein. About 25 per cent of the reported school expenditure for England and Wales was made up from tuition fees, which this year, for the last time, form an appreciable part of the income, the law providing for the remission of fees having gone into operation September, 1891. Scotland has completed a year's experiment in free education. Tuition fees are required in the public schools of the following British colonies represented in the table: Quebec, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Mauritius, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the provinces of India. 1671 |