d until recently
the title of the Prussian minister has been: "Minister of
Ecclesiastical Affairs, Instruction, and Medical Affairs." That part
of the minister's title, "Medical Affairs," has within the last few
months been eliminated.

The French Revolution, and the dismemberment
of Prussia at Tilsit, put a stop to orderly progress. Stein and his
colleagues, however, started anew; students were sent to Switzerland
to study pedagogical methods; provincial school-boards were
established, and about 1850 all public-school teachers were declared
to be civil servants; and later, in 1872, during Bismarck's campaign
against the Jesuits, all private schools were made subject to state
inspection. In Prussia to-day no man or woman may give instruction
even as a governess or private tutor, without the certificate of the
state.

This control of education and teaching by a central authority
is an unmixed blessing. In Prussia, at any rate, the officials are
hard-working, conscientious, and enthusiastic, and the system, whether
one gives one's full allegiance to it or not, is admirably worked out.
Above all, it completely does away with sham physicians, sham doctors
of divinity, sham engineers, and mining and chemical experts, sham
dentists and veterinary surgeons, who abound in our country, where
shoddy schools do a business of selling degrees and certificates of
proficiency in everything from exegesis to obstetrics. These fakir
academies are not only a disgrace but a danger in America, and here,
as in other matters, Germany has a right to smile grimly at certain of
our hobbledehoy methods of government.

The elementary schools, or
Volkschulen, are free, and attendance is compulsory from six to
fourteen; in addition, the Fortbildungsschulen, or continuation
schools, can also be made compulsory up to eighteen years of age.
There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools with over
10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private elementary schools with 42,000
pupils who pay fees.

Under a regulation of the Department of Trade and
Industry, towns with more than twenty thousand inhabitants are
empowered to make their own rules compelling commercial employees
under eighteen to attend the continuation schools a certain number of
hours monthly, and fining employers who interfere with such
attendance. It has even been suggested that this law be extended to
include girls.

In Berlin this has already been put into operation, and
this yea