Geography carefully studied.

the school was most carefully kept, the machines not in use. being covered up with oilskins and locked, to prevent damage by mischief from careless youngsters." Let me reiterate this was written thirteen years ago of a school in a town of, say, 10,000 inhabitants.

It is in the midst of such industrial activity in all the villages round that Reichenberg lies, and its own schools are, besides the Volksschulen, an Obergymnasium, a Gymnasium, an Unterrealschule, a Lehrbildungsschule, a Höhere Handelsschule-that is a commercial school-a weaving school, and a Royal and Imperial Technical School.

And in addition to these institutions, the town possesses an extremely handsome new North Bohemian Trade Museum, a building about the size of the well-known Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford. To this Trade Museum I shall refer later on.

Fully and properly to describe the work being done in this town would require a dozen experts, a good linguist, a good descriptive writer, and a shorthand reporter to take down the words of professors and artisan teachers.

Let me take first of all the Town High Commercial School and Merchants' Continuation School. This I found located in the spacious top floors of a plainly handsome girls' and boys' school. The rooms were, as always, smart and clean, and to assist the work there was a counting-house with all types of European moneys for the lads to see and handle, copying presses, and sets of books for bookkeeping, studies in exchange, &c.

There is also a good conference room for the Professors and a small library, a small laboratory with microscopes to test the genuineness of wares, a small natural history collection, and a chemical collection of minerals and earth colours, and metals, and textiles; not large, but well selected, useful, and interesting.

Geography was especially cared for, the telegraph and rail and sea routes being shown on maps and charts.

The school has two two classes of scholars-ordinary and occasional. The first go through the whole course, the second take special subjects; not more than thirty-five to forty at the outside are allowed to a class.

Pupils are taken who possess certificates of having passed the fourth class of a secondary school, i.e., Gymnasium, RealGymnasium, or Realschule; or the third class of a Bürgerschule, that would be the eighth school class; or the preparation class of a high commercial school.

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The fees are 120 gulden, say £10, yearly (in the preparatory class half this sum); a fee of 5 gulden, or 8s., for materials, and an entrance fee of 1 gulden. Occasional students, however, pay more, viz., 180 gulden.

The fee for practical work in the chemical and wares laboratory is 10 gulden.

Only scholars who gain the mark "excellent" can be freed from these fees. Half or a part may be remitted to poor but worthy scholars.

This school is one of those which are privileged to confer on students who complete the course with satisfactory results remission from all but one year's military service with the colours. All students who pass through the third year's course with good results are permitted to serve in the army as volunteers, paying their own expenses. The State, however, makes a grant to cover these expenses in the case of students who not only complete the third year's course but gain a leaving certificate with the mark "excellent." It will be understood that the chance of gaining the important remission acts as a powerful incentive to industry.

The scholars are qualified to obtain positions not only in warehouses, factories, banks, and savings banks, but in the public services connected with the post, customs, railways, and thus enjoy the same opportunities as pupils from an Oberrealschule or Obergymnasium.

The pupiis pay visits to factories and counting-houses to get a glimpse into the actual working of business houses, and are able thus better to judge of the value of the work being done in the school.

Special attention is given to handwriting. The aim of the school is to give the student the power of thinking, to train his memory, and to enable him to decide rightly but promptly in difficulties.

The time table of the school is worked out as follows. The classes include a preparatory class, and three higher classes, each being, as usual, of a year's duration.

Importance of good writing.

History of

commerce.

I need not go through the whole of these subjects and explain the fashion of teaching them. Here, as in the other schools I have described, there is a specific "aim" in each subject. In book-keeping the practical work is the writing out of several months' business; the scholars are divided into different branches of business, and work out the transactions of the different houses represented. Commerce, exchange, commercial law are gone into, and under the head of geography, in each year a different part of the world is studied, with its commerce and colonies, sea and land routes, products, both natural and artistic. In history special attention is given to the developments of trade among different nations.

Under "good writing," Schönschreiben, the German and English hands are taught, together with swiftness combined with clearness.

The teaching given in the school is far from being restricted to commercial subjects in the narrower sense. The aim of the instruction in languages is to give the student a sufficient knowledge of etymology and syntax, adequate readiness in writing and speaking on both general and business subjects, and some knowledge of good literature. Under the heading of commercial arithmetic every type of calculation is taken up, goods, bank discount, profit and loss, &c., &c., and in geography as usual the work begins with their own empire, Austria-Hungary, and extends over the world, ending in the third year with a glance at the statistics showing the present condition of the world's commerce and movement.

In history the course is full of interest, the "aim" being to give a general knowledge of the world's history, its culture and commerce, with especial reference to the History of the Austrian monarchy. But in the historical course special attention is paid throughout to the history of commercial developments and to the commercial results of Sea Power.

In connection with this school there is a Commercial Continuation School attended by 244 scholars, and tables are given in

the report analysing the status, age, occupation, religion, progress, &c., of these scholars; these are full of interest and show how systematically all things are arranged.

The K. K. Staats-Gewerbeschule, or Royal and Imperial State Trade or Technical School, in this progressive town, was the next institution visited. It is a fine square building of a plain yet dominating type, consisting of three stories, with basement, and some upper dormer roof rooms. The fact that there were twentyone wide windows with good space between each will give a glimpse of the appearance of this fine building of about 80 yards of frontage. It was finished in the year 1897, work being begun in it during the autumn of that year, after twenty-one years of work in other premises. The side wings run back in the quadrangle, at the back of which are other spacious buildings

annexed.

To show how the people have seized upon this technical education, it is only necessary to state that the school began with fifteen scholars; in 1879 there were 137; in 1881, 293; in 1882, 350; and in 1898 there were 565-viz., 332 in the Higher Technical School, eighty in the Master-Workmen's School, and 153 in the Building School.

for the pur

I have referred frequently to the journeys of enquiry taken by the students, but not often to expeditions made by the Professors, and in the report of this school for 1898 there is a full statement Journeys made of the study journeys undertaken by these Professors. made by Professor E. Blaka journeyed through Switzerland, visiting the Professors machine works at Diesel, motor works and waterworks at pose of Augsburg, and on through Zurich, visiting water and electric scientific works, locomotive works, and the famous machine works at investigation Winterthur; electrical and other works at Oerlikon and Baden, electrical power transmission station in Rheinfelden, and the Theodor Bell machine works near Lucerne; the wire-rope and rackand-pinion railways, and other important and up-to-date engineering and machine works or factories. Professor Fauderlik undertook a journey to visit the most famous testing and experimenting institutions. A laboratory had just been started for testing building material, and this journey was to study the best testing methods and machines now in use, and to this end the Royal Technical Testing Institute at Berlin was visited, the material proving or testing institute at the marvellous art trade museum in Nuremberg, the Royal Bavarian Institute at Munich, and similar institutions in Zurich and Vienna. In fact, Central Europe was covered by this professor.

Another professor, Herr Breinl, went on a journey to Copenhagen and Berlin to see the arrangements and working methods of the frementation-physiological laboratories of these cities. He worked for three and a-half weeks in the Physiological Institute of Herrn A. Jörgensen in Copenhagen, and visited and studied during this time the equipment of the well-known brewery of Alt-Carlsberg, and the laboratories of Professors Hausen and Kjedahl, and on the return journey he studied in Berlin the "remarkable and most modern Institute for

Inspection of schools.

Fermentation work, with its model brewery and compressing plant for lees and its chemical and physical laboratories. Professor F. Korner made studies in the physical technical industries, and to this end visited the most important industrial establishments, and technical experimenting and teaching institutions. He visited the Government establishments in Berlin, the Oxygen establishment of Dr. Elkan, and business establishments such as mechanical optical works, also the physical department of the Berlin Technical College. He subsequently visited manufactories of optical instruments, and of surveying and measuring instruments at Jena and Frankfort, and after inspecting newlyestablished electro-technical and physical institutes at Darmstadt and Erlangen, he proceeded to Nuremberg, where he worked for eight days in the testing rooms of the electrical establishments of Schuckert & Co.

And here it will not be out of place to note from the twentysecond annual report of this Royal Trades School the note upon the inspection of the trade continuation schools with the Reichenberg Province. There were 107 schools inspected, two being new ones within the year, 64 German, and 43 Czech. The statistics of 102 of these schools are full of interest as showing how entirely decentralised and universal is this work of giving technical education to artisans.

This slight increase, says the writer of the report, suggests that the schools have nearly reached their natural high-water mark in numbers, but it hints that in teachers, classes, hours of work, and attendance there is plenty of room for advance.