important school at Samakov. The Berlin Treaty
(Art. V.) forbade religious disabilities in regard to the enjoyment of
civil and political rights, and guaranteed the free exercise of all
religions.

_Education._--No educational system existed in many of the rural districts
before 1878; the peasantry was sunk in ignorance, and the older generation
remained totally illiterate. In the towns the schools were under the
superintendence of the Greek clergy, and Greek was the language of
instruction. The first Bulgarian school was opened at Gabrovo in 1835 by
the patriots Aprilov and Neophyt Rilski. After the Crimean War, Bulgarian
schools began to appear in the villages of the Balkans and the
south-eastern districts. The children of the wealthier class were generally
educated abroad. The American institution of Robert College on the Bosporus
rendered an invaluable service to the newly created state by providing it
with a number of well-educated young men fitted for positions of
responsibility. In 1878, after the liberation of the country, there were
1658 schools in the towns and villages. Primary education was declared
obligatory from the first, but the scarcity of properly qualified teachers
and the lack of all requisites proved serious impediments to educational
organization. The government has made great efforts and incurred heavy
expenditure for the spread of education; the satisfactory results obtained
are largely due to the keen desire for learning which exists among the
people. The present educational system dates from 1891. Almost all the
villages now possess "national" (_narodni_) primary schools, maintained by
the communes with the aid of a state subvention and supervised by
departmental and district inspectors. The state also assists a large number
of Turkish primary schools. The penalties for non-attendance are not very
rigidly enforced, and it has been found necessary to close the schools in
the rural districts during the summer, the children being required for
labour in the fields.

The age for primary instruction is six to ten years; in 1890, 47.01% of the
boys and 16.11% of the girls attended the primary schools; in 1898, 85% of
the boys and 40% of the girls. In 1904 there were 4344 primary schools, of
which 3060 were "national," or communal, and 1284 denominational (Turkish,
Greek, Jewish, &c.), attended by 340,668 pupils, representing a proportion
of 9.1 per hundred inhabitants. In addition to the primary sch