CUREENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13947, 2 January 1906, Page 6

CUREENT TOPICS.

Under the will of the late Alfred Bernard Nobel, of Sweden, five prizes, each ■of about £BOOO, are awarded annually tor services to the oau.se of peace, for the meet distinguished literary work of an idealistic tendency, for the most not-

THE NOBEL PIITZE.

able inventions in physics and in chemistry, and for the most notable discovery in. physiology and medicine. The scheme came into operation in 1901, and Britain has in three years been awarded four prizes. Mr W. R. Grenier was awarded a peace prize, and Major Ross, of the Liverpool School, of Tropical Medicine, Sir William Ramsay and Lord Rayleigh have received prizes in science. The literature prize has not yet fallen to an Englishman. The recipients in past .years have been Sully Prudliomme, Bjornsterne Bjornson, Theodor Mommsen and, last year, Francis Mistral and Jose Echegaray jointly. It is hoped, however, that the claims of British writers will be considered this year. There is a. Nobel Prize Committee in London organised for the specific purpose of advancing British claims. Each year it invites about a hundred University professors and other qualified people to make recommendations and forwards the result of the voting to Stockholm, but the Academy of Stockholm judges between the various claims put forward. In literature the prize is awarded purely as a distinction. It has invariably been given to some veteran writer, of great reputation, whose best work belongs to the past. In all other departments the prize is a reward, given for the most important discovery or invention of the year. English literature is practically unknown in Sweden, and consequently the claims of our poets and novelists have been passed over, but it is said that the representations of the London committee are likely to have some effect in the distribution for 1906.

EDUCATION’ STATISTICS.

A volume of statistics which has just been issued by the RegistrarGeneral contains eomo very interesting figures bearing on tho .educational system of the colony. The first table deals with the number of schools, public and private of all descriptions, that come in any way under the notice of the Education Department. From this wo learn that there were on December 31, 1004, 1785 primary schools in. tho colony, employing 3718 teachers, 1416 males and 2302 females, and providing education for between 125,000 and 135,000 children. Tho last figure is indefinite because the number on the roll and the number in attendance present a rather wide difference. ' The number on the roll at the beginning of the year was 125,150, and at the end 135,475, while the average attendance throughout the year was 116,506. The high schools, aided or endowed, numbered 27, with 4038 scholars and 189 teachers, and the private schools 295 with 16,378 scholars ■and 858 teachers. It is a little curious that in the case of the private schools 724 of the teachers were females and only 134 males. The sexes of tho scholars-did not show anything like tho same disparity, as 6785 were lioys and 9593 were girls. Of course the Roman Catholic schools formed a very large proportion of the private institutions. These numbered 149, with 455 teachers and 11,373 scholars. The ages of the scholars attending the primary schools are given in yearly stages from five years and under six years to over fifteen years. There wore no fewer than 10,507 children under six, 13/995 between six and seven, 15,637 between sovep and eight, 15,524 between eight and nine, 16,457 between nine and ten, 15,669 between ton and eleven, 15,078 between eleven and twelve, 14,447 between twelve and thirteen, 11,248 between thirteen and fourteen, 5419 between fourteen and fifteen, and 2597 over fifteen. Apparently a considerable number .of parents ' think that when a child ha® reached thirteen it is quite time he had finished his education. The 27 secondary schools were employing 189 regular and 66 visiting teachers, and were providing education for 2443 boys and 1895 girls.

The ordinary cablegram, with its piteous details of the distress existing in Russia comes from such an official son too that it probably represents only a tithe of the real misery that has overwhelmed the Czar’s “ Little People.” Some extracts from private'letters,-given to a London journal by an .exile, show how terrible are the sufferings of the peasants. Within the interior of Russia, says the correspondent, exist villages in which the entire population lie famished in their wretched huts. In these there are not even mice, because there is no food, no cats owing to the absence of mice, no dogs because they have starved." In some places the inhabitants have trained themselves to do without food by allowing themselves to sink into a kind of winter sleep, and by moving as little as possible. In many parts where the famine is severe, ho adds, it is hardly likely that a single, child will survive. Because there is no milk, the baby, it appears, is given a horrible substitute, called a sucking bag. It is filled with b'ack bread, which is rarely changed, and spreads disease as it goes on from mouth to mouth. At last dysentery sets in, and the child’s soul returns whence it came so short a while before. It is for this reason that the mortality of the Russian population is increasing so'rapidly. The Russian peasant is not trained to labour. He feels no zest in it, and will not work more than is necessary to provide for a few days. The. land is not his own, and he lias only a very minor interest in it. His whole character lias been enervated by enslavement and bad government, which have rendered him less capable than over of struggling with bad times. Lassitude, it appears, is encouraged by the State, and no. country in the world has a greater number of holidays and festival in the course of the year. The Russian of the farming districts has 160 or mere of these holidays annually, and the tendency in official circles is stilt further to increase them. If the rye crop fails the peasants have nothing else to fall back on, so that they live very close to the starvation line.

THE FAMINE IN RUSSIA.