incorporation with France, contained a population of 1,900,000 souls. For this population there were already provided 4,451 primary schools, of all the classes, and the number of pupils exceeded 190,000. This is a tenth of the whole population, and proves that of the children who are of the age of going to school, the number can be very few who abstain. Several prefects, accordingly, more especially the prefect of Groninguen, who is of that country, have assured us, that not a single boy in their departments would at present be found incapable of reading and writing."

Four thousand four hundred and fifty-one schools, for a popu lation of one million nine hundred thousand souls, is at the rate of a school for every 426 of the population. If we suppose that in Holland marriages are rather more prudent than in other countries, and that four may be taken as the average number of a family, even on this supposition it is nearly at the rate of a school for every 100 families: and if in every two families there is one child of the school-going age, which is probably beyond the mark, it is at the rate of a school for every 50 children. This is a fabric raised by private wisdom and private virtue, private beneficence and private exertion,—any thing like to which we know not that any other country, in any other age, has to boast of. It is an example which may strike other countries, and our own among the rest, notwithstanding the praises it bestows upon itself, with humiliation and shame. To make a correspondent provision for the population of England alone, excluding Ireland and Scotland, a popu lation of ten millions and a half; twenty-five thousand five hundred and eighty-seven schools would be required! With what difficulty, during years of exertion, has it been possible to rear in England so much as a few hundred schools! Let us not any longer hear of the vast public spirit of Englishmen as compared with other men! Let us not hear of it at any rate, as compared with that of Dutchmen! This fact is worth a thousand volumes of self-praise; an abominable habit, which more than any thing obstructs the growth of public virtue; which our countrymen hate so much in others-Frenchmen, for example-but of which in the case of themselves they are so inordinately fond!

The Dutch enjoy one inestimable advantage, of which it is much to be feared that in this country the curse of our religious jealousies will deprive us." The composition, the choice, and the succession of the books," says the author of the Report upon the Schools of Holland, "constitute the foundation of the whole system. Of these books they have an astonishing number, every ́ ́ man being at liberty to propose his own. Those which are intended to be first put into the hands of the pupils are accompanied

with figures, calculated to strike the eyes of children, to enlarge their acquaintance with external objects, and to associate in their minds the words and, the ideas which they represent. Next follow little stories, calculated to stamp moral impressions through the medium of the affections. The next transition is to books which exhibit what is most curious and useful in the operations of nature; which explain those processes of the arts which it is most important for the pupils to know. In all these, as often as it can be done without straining and without affectation, useful suggestions are interspersed, respecting their duties to God, to one another, and to themselves. Sacred history, profane history, the history of their own country, form the subjects of other little works. Lastly come those, of which the utility is unspeakable, books in which a knowledge is communicated of the most important parts of the law, civil and criminal.-Every thing. which they write and copy is calculated to stamp upon their minds some useful truth. In learning to draw, or rather to trace and imitate lines of the different species, they are taught to measure distances and angles with the eye. The arithmetical examples given them to perform are so contrived as to stamp the memory of the relations of the several measures, and of the several moneys. And even their songs are made to convey useful impressions; breathing the sacred spirit of duty to God, and benevolence to every thing that lives; exciting their admiration of virtue, of being useful to others, of being worthy of the trust, the love, and esteem of their fellow-creatures; and filling them with hatred and contempt of vice, of being useless in the world, still more of being mischievous, and of moving the contempt, the distrust, and resentment of mankind."

Another important circumstance is stated. "Almost as many books," says the author of the Report, are written for the masters, as for those whom they teach. The methods which they, are to follow, and even the sort of questions which they are to, address to their pupils, on every subject, are pointed out to them in works expressly composed for that purpose.'

There are various other points in the interesting account of: this system of schooling in Holland, to which we should have been happy to advert; but we are warned by the length to which this article has already extended, that we must limit our desires.. We shall only produce one other statement, viz. that which relates to the supply of schoolmasters. "The Society of Public, Good," says the Report, "have not had occasion either for normal classes or seminaries for schoolmasters, or any of the expensive and complicated expedients used in other countries. It is in the primary schools themselves that masters are formed, and,

without giving rise to any particular expense. This simple and efficacious expedient is another benefit conferred on its country by this meritorious Association. It gives to some of the best of the scholars gratuitous places, and allows them to remain in the school two or three years longer than the rest, on an engagement that they will devote themselves to the business of instruction. As the station of schoolmaster has become, by degrees, more honourable and more lucrative, in proportion as the system has prospered and improved, the number of candidates has augmented in the same proportion. These two or three years are employed by them in gaining a deeper acquaintance with the principles of knowledge; after which the young people become assistants of their masters, and teach the younger children; they ascend to the rank of second masters; and as the superintendants of the cantons are constantly the witnesses of their zeal and success, they recommend them, in proportion to their merit, for the vacancies which occur. Where other modes of nomination are not established, there is a public competition and trial; and then merit alone recommends them. The career is already so respectable, that it is no uncommon thing for money to be offered to obtain admission under good masters.'

We cannot conclude this article with any thing more to our satisfaction, than a translation of the Report which has been presented, upon this subject, to the Emperor of the French, by Carnot, his Minister of the Interior; and of the Decree by which it was followed. It is not often that a document breathing so much of the true spirit of philanthropy issues from a source of that species of elevation.

Extract from the Moniteur, 30th of April 1815.-Report to the Emperor by the Minister of the Interior.

SIRE,

There is an example of the progress of reason furnished by a country of the New World, more recently, but already perhaps better, civilised than most of the nations constituting that which is called the Old World. When the Americans of the United States determine the situation of a city, or even of a hamlet, their first care is, along with the instruments of agriculture, to send a Teacher immediately to the spot; these men of sensethese pupils of Franklin and Washington-being very sensible that to cultivate the mind is as closely connected with the real necessities of man as to clear the ground, to roof houses, or to obtain clothing.

But when, in the midst of European civilisation, inequality of

fortune, an inevitable consequence of great societies, occasions amongst men so great an inequality of means, how shall we admit to the benefit of instruction, and to the advantages of primary education, the most numerous class of society? Instruction without morality can only produce new wants, more dangerous perhaps than ignorance itself. Morality, therefore, must go hand in hand with Instruction. Now how can we raise to morality, and at the same time to knowledge, the greatest possible number of men of the least fortunate classes? Here is a double problem, worthy the attention of true friends to humanity, and which Your Majesty may solve by founding a good primary education.

When I shall inform Your Majesty that there are in France two millions of children who require primary education, and that of these two millions, some receive it very imperfectly and others not at all, Your Majesty will not find the details that I have the honour to present, concerning the steps already taken in communicating primary instruction, trifling, or unworthy of your attention, since they are the very means by which most of the rising generation may be made to enjoy the benefit of primary instruction, the only true expedient for successively raising to the dignity of men all the individuals of the human race.

We must not, then, make half-learned men, nor men of the world; we must give to each individual the knowledge suited to his station; we must make them good husbandmen, good labourers, and virtuous men, with the assistance of the first clements of indispensable knowledge, and of those good habits which love of labour and respect for the laws inspire.

In all parts of political œconomy, the great art is to do much with the most slender means. Such is the principle which has directed many of those philanthropists whom we regard as the founders and directors of primary education: they have endeavoured to instruct the greatest number of children with the least possible expense, and with the assistance of the smallest number of masters-this is their general aim.

Let us now see the means they take to arrive at this end. It is to make the children instruct one another, both in moral conduct and intellectual learning, by the rapid communication and almost electrical transmission of commands proceeding from one master only; this master is thus multiplied to all the parts of a considerable school by his young representatives invested with different offices, such as inspectors, monitors, and instructors; and this representation of a single person every where and in every thing, is so positive and sure, that one master is sufficient

to take the charge of a thousand children, whilst the master of a common school is scarcely able to exceed forty.

It is a remarkable fact, that this principle of mutual superintendence is to be found in the laws of Lycurgus; it is here the key of the proceedings of the primary instructor. And it is a still more happy circumstance, that in the very expedient which œconomizes the number of masters by immediately supplying assistants on the very spot, according to the necessity of the school, a principle is found productive of new masters. The pupils who have just become masters over the forms where till that moment they had been learners, are seen, upon quitting the class where they only held the place of a thousandth fraction, now capable of raising to the same degree a thousand similar fractions; that is to say, they are quite capable of immediately becoming masters of a class as numerous as that which they quit: and the new class which they are to superintend can in its turn produce others, who must increase and multiply in the same proportion.

It would not therefore be forming too exalted an idea of the noble and philosophical institution of primary schools, to hope, that, carried as far as possible, it will not fail to produce a great amelioration in the condition of mankind, since its object is to make all the individuals of the least fortunate classes participate in the benefit of primary education. Thus the institution of good primary schools may be considered as one of the most sure foundations of that system of which the feeling mind may have formed so unbounded a conception, but which, within its natural limits, the soundest wisdom may defend-I mean, the system of human perfectibility.

By the simplification in respect of masters, Your Majesty may judge of the economy in expense: this œconomy is found also to be naturally connected with all the proceedings of primary education; for, in the progress of teaching, the use of books for the scholars is dispensed with, and there is scarcely any consumption of paper and pens: a simple slate, designed for writing as well as arithmetic, is generally sufficient for all the operations that the pupils perform, and which succeed one another in their order: every thing which is taught commands and fixes their attention; the intellectual faculties, the moral powers, are continually called forth, stimulated in each pupil, and exercised in all at the same time, without interruption, with such a series of examinations, of accounts given in, and of continual verifications of the intellectual operations which they are called upon