NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13006, 25 October 1905, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN BERLIN. Tun report of the Committer of Council on Education in Scotland is an immense volume of 1148 pages. Among the matters of general interest, perhaps the. most striking is a long report by Mr. G. Aildrew, one of H.M. inspectors, on the elementary schools of Berlin and Charloten burg. The subject is divided into four divisionsorganisation, attendance, curriculum, and provisions for welfare of the children. As to the first, lie points out that, the child's course lasts eight years, beginning with Easter or Michaelmas'after his sixth birthday. Thus the teacher is nob inconvenienced by children dribbling into the infants' class all the year round. General praise is bestowed upon the school buildings and their apparatus. Showerbaths are present in all the newer schools, and some of the older ones. Weekly baths are not compulsory, but an alternative and irksome task is provided. School begins at seven in summer, eight in winter, and continues five hours, but there are intervals at the end of each hour amounting altogether to 50 minutes. There is no Saturday holiday. School attendance is enforced in Berlin by an indirectly coercive method, and by a directly coercive method in Charlottenburg, and each produces excellent results. . In Berlin and Charlottenburg there are Evangelical schools - and Catholic schools, both maintained by the communities.* In schools where the majority are Evangelical, though there may be a dissenting minority of Catholics or Jews, the latter receive religious instruction from teachers of their own creed. For the year 1902 these cited § were represented numerically as follows in the Gemeindeschulen of Berlin: — Evangelical ' ... 1 ... 94,573 Catholic ... ... ... 9,233 . Jewish «.» .», ,030

! ■Catholic religious instruction was given in the 22 Catholic schools; in the others the instruction was Evangelical, but in 39 of ! them Jewish instruction was given as well. Every child must receive religious instruction of some kind. In the Charlott-enburg schools Jewish pupils may (a) take the Evangelical lesson if their parents take to the police a declaration of their willingness, or (b) receive instruction from a Rabbi engaged by the Stadt to teach them twice a week in the afternoons, or (c) may be privately instructed, evidence to that effect being produced, i'lie religious instruction generally is under the supervision of the clergy. Pupils of 13 years of ago attend classes held twice a week during the year by the clergy in preparation for 'confirmation. Both in Charlottenburg and Berlin the schools are under medical inspection. In the report o? the Berlin school deputation for 1901, one reads that 10 doctors examined 2547 entrants to school as t otheir fitness to begin school life. This was the first year of medical inspection. Of these 321 children (12.3 per cent.) were refused admission as being " unfit." The grounds of " unfitness" were various—general bodily weakness, . recent serious- ailments, scrofula, anemia, insufficient mental development, tuberculosis. In ■a large number of children heart troubles were discovered, these having been in the majority of cases previously unknown to (.ho parents. Mr. Andrew also' draws attention to the methods adopted for ameliorating the lot of poor children—the society for feeding them in the winter; the supply of free school books; playgrounds, and recreation courses in the summer holidays; day-nurseries, and holiday colonies.

THE RUSSIAN WORKING CLASSES. Tiie present state of affairs in Russia lias induced the Russian Liberal press to inquire into the actual numbers of the working classes and the division of the different categories of workmen. No special and accurate statistics on this point are available, but the inquiries of the Russkiia ViedoiHosti, based partly on the census of 1897, and partly on. other figures obtained from various sources, enable us to form some idea, of the position of Russian labour. The late M. von l'lehve made an inquiry into the number of workmen, which he considered from a political point of view. In 1897 the numbers of workmen and servants amounted to 9,156,000, which is equal to 27 per cent, of the total number of persons obliged to seek independent means of existence (i.e., unendowed with land). But this figure includes only those whose wages form the principal source of revenue. Since 1897 the number of such persons has greatly increased, and it- is at present little short of 10,000,000. The working class is divided into two chief categories, viz., the workmen proper, who amount to 7,043.000, and the servants of private persons or institutions, who number 2.113,000. Women are very numerous in both categories, forming 21 per cent, of the former, and 63 per cent, of the latter; in all, there are 2,821,000 women employed in industries and domestic service. It is especially in Poland that the number of persons living by independent labour is remarkable. The men thus employed form 32.7 per cent, of the independent population, and the women 65.6 per cent. This fact is due to the poverty of the soil and to the great development of industry and of the towns. In other parts of the Empire the proportion of the industrial population to the total is infinitesimal, notably in Central Asia. To come to more detailed figures, we find the working class distributed as follows:-Trade, 256,000; ways of communication, 365,000; day labourers, 1,095,000; industry of cultivation, 2,600,000; rural industry, 2,723,000. Thus, although numerically less important than the working classes of other countries, their relatively superior intelligence and education make .of them a. very formidable element of Russian society.