hole charge of their instruction on itself.

We have already spoken of the deep interest we have taken in the
progress of the infant schools. We visit them frequently, and attend
all the examinations. On entering, it is scarcely possible to
recognise in clean, orderly inmates, the dirty, ragged, quarrelling,
scratching, screaming children of the back-streets, which, however,
they were only a short time ago. All is changed: the miserable hut,
the narrow street, and muddy lane, for a pretty room full of pleasant
objects; the timid look and distrustful scowl, for sunny cheerfulness
and open confidence. There is no unkind distinction among the lower
classes in this country, and by this I mean the whole of the Austrian
states. There being only two classes--the nobles and the commons--none
of the commons despise each other, however poor or humble their
situation may be. The barefooted orphan, kept and educated by charity
or the state, is not an object of contempt or ridicule to the child of
the prosperous artisan, who stands clothed in its little snow-white
frock and pink ribbons beside its less fortunate companion. Neither is
any distinction made on account of religion. The infant schools of the
empire are for the children of all the poor--Catholic, Lutheran,
evangelical, &c.; and the two belonging to Presburg, to which we here
particularly allude, contain from sixty to seventy of the latter in
every two hundred.

I was present at an examination of one of our Presburg seminaries in
September last. A number of girls and boys, from three to five years
of age, with a very few a little older, who had come in comparatively
late, were subjected to the usual questioning in the various branches
of their very elementary erudition. Some of the queries proved beyond
the powers of the generality of the children; but this led to no
expression of dejection or awkwardness. They evidently all endeavoured
to do their very best. It was interesting to observe, that so far from
pining to see a cleverer neighbour answer what they had failed in,
they seemed to feel a triumph when, after a general difficulty, it was
at length found that _some one_ could give the right answer--shewing
that they might have a feeling of emulation as to the honour of the
school, but none as between one pupil and another. On several
occasions, when some unusually intelligent little creature would come
from a back-form, and solve a question which had bewildered those i