ious 125,815
-------
Of the total heads of families 973,941, seventy per cent.
therefore are agriculturists.
]

CHAPTER VII.

EDUCATIONAL--ETHNOGRAPHICAL.

Educational laws--Statistics--Cost of instruction to the
State--(Note: Comparison with Great Britain)--- Backward condition
of education--Imperfect state of university instruction--Roumanian
youth in Paris and elsewhere--Impolicy of the system--Pecuniary
loss to the country--Moral drawbacks--Edgar Quinet's
views--Conflicting opinions in Roumania--Need for the encouragement
of home instruction--The Asyle Helene--A remarkable institution for
girls--Its foundation and history--Dr. Davila again--Princess
Elena--Constitution of the school--Classes and subjects
taught--High standard for the training of teachers--Proficiency of
the higher pupils--Marriages from the Asyle--How
negotiated--Wretched payment of state teachers--Other schools and
institutions--A few ethnographical considerations--Descent
illustrated philologically--Latin roots in the Roumanian
language--Examples--Their significance--Magyar roots, indicative of
foreign domination--Examples--Roumanian music, perpetuates the old
days of oppression--Dances--Gerando's description of an historical
dance--(Note: Reference to works on the subject).

I.

Theoretically education in Roumania is everything that can be desired;
practically it is still far otherwise. The Constitution of 1866, article
23, declares that primary instruction shall be compulsory and
gratuitous, and that primary schools shall, by degrees, be established
in every commune.

In 1877-8 there were two universities (Bucarest and Jassy), 96 private
schools, 55 secondary and normal, 26 technical and special; 1,242 boys',
265 girls', and 628 mixed primary schools. The total number of scholars
set down as attending all these institutions was 119,015 (95,765 boys
and 23,250 girls), and the total number of teachers 4,486. The whole
amount of money expended on education in that year, from State,
religious, municipal, district, and commercial sources, was rather over
260,000_l._ In 1881 the total amount set aside by the State for all
purposes of education and _public worship_ during 1882 was 450,000_l._
These figures show, in a population exceeding five millions, 2,412
sc