ward children repay her
for any extra trouble they give by their affection and gratitude. She
knows the circumstances of every child in her class, and where there
is real need she can get help from official sources or from
philanthropic organisations, because a teacher's recommendation
carries great weight in Germany. This lady gets up every day in summer
at a quarter past five, in order to be in school by seven. Her school
hours are from seven to eleven in summer, and from eight till twelve
in winter; but she has a great deal of work to prepare and correct
after school. Her salary is raised with every year of service, and
when she is past work she will be entitled to a State pension of
thirty pounds.

Children have to attend school from the age of six and to stay till
they are fourteen; and in their school years they are not allowed to
work at a trade without permission. They do not learn foreign
languages, but they are thoroughly grounded in German, and they
receive religious instruction. Of course, they learn history,
geography, and arithmetic. In the new schools every child is obliged
to have a warm bath every week, but it is not part of a teacher's
duties to superintend it. Probably the women who clean the school
buildings do so. In the old schools, where there are no bathrooms,
the children are given tickets for the public bathing establishments.
The State does not supply free food, but there are philanthropic
societies that supply those children who need it with a breakfast of
bread and milk in winter. Everyone connected with German schools says
that no child would apply for this if his parents were not destitute,
and one teacher told me a story of the headmaster's boy being found,
to his father's horror and indignation, seated with the starving
children and sharing their free lunch. He had brought his own lunch
with him, but it was his first week at school, and he thought that a
dispensation of bread and milk in the middle of the morning was part
of the curriculum.

School books are supplied to children too poor to buy them, and it
seems that no trouble is given by applications for this kind of relief
by people not entitled to it. Gymnastics are compulsory for both boys
and girls in the lower classes, and choral singing is taught in every
school. Teachers must all be qualified to accompany singing on the
violin. Most of the elementary schools in Prussia are free. Some few
charge sixpence a month. A child can