many private schools, and secondary and France in Germany is generally admitted to lead in commercial In Germany education. The growth of this training has taken place continuation since 1887, but there is now offered under state control a unified and thorough preparation for any line of business. Besides private continuation schools, in which a course of three years in modern languages and elementary commercial studies can be obtained, there have grown up both public secondary schools and university courses and university in which a thorough general education and theoretical courses, work in commerce, as well as a practical and technical training, are provided (Fig. 55). England and France but England have been rather indifferent to commercial education. different. In both countries until very recently schools have been few, and the number of pupils in each has been small. But now continuation schools, free evening courses, and private classes have sprung up, and in a few large cities commercial schools of secondary and even higher grade have been established. In the United States commercial In the United training began by the middle of the nineteenth century ness colleges,' through private enterprise with classes in bookkeeping, and later with 'business colleges.' Despite the name of the latter, the course is narrow and is generally shaped by pecuniary aims. During the last two decades of the and secondary nineteenth century high and normal schools began to courses. offer commercial instruction, but until the twentieth century the courses were only tolerated as a necessary evil, and largely imitated those of the business colleges. Since then many cities have opened high schools of commerce, and university schools and colleges of commerce have arisen, and even a score of years before this development the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce was started at the University of Pennsylvania. States 'busi and higher Agricultural instruction in France and United States offers courses in all grades of education. Recent Emphasis upon Agricultural Training.-A the schools of similar development has of late been taking place in agricultural education. France and Germany offer elementary instruction in agriculture, while the former has also introduced the subject into the normal schools, and the latter has established a secondary agricultural institution open to students at the close of their sixth year in the Realschule. Through the feeling that the United States must become the great agricultural nation, and that the traditional methods of agriculture have been exceedingly wasteful, this country especially has been emphasizing that type of vocational education. The land grant colleges, first endowed by act of Congress in 1862, have greatly stimulated interest in the subject, and later Congress added other sources of revenue, and has recently furnished appropriations for instruction in the teaching of agriculture and for extension work in agriculture. Thus the way has been prepared for the introduction of the subject into the high school and grades. There are now at least one hundred agricultural high schools in the United States, and agriculture is taught as a branch of study in several thousand high and elementary school systems. Social conditions demanding moral training. Moral Training in the Schools To-day.-But present day tendencies in education have to do with more than the material side of civilization. There is a growing sentiment in favor of moral instruction in the schools. There are many reasons why this need should be especially felt in the complex business life of to-day. When men work for impersonal corporations, sell products to people they never see, or intrust their welfare to officials whose names are scarcely known, one strong factor making for Fig. 55. Vocational education for boys in Germany (Commercial, Industrial, and Professional) in Relation to Public School Organization. 16 15 MILITARY SERVICE HIGHER VOCATIONAL OR REALGYMNASIUM (Reproduced by permission from Farrington's Commercial Education in Germany.) GYMNASIUM honesty and virtue, that of personal relations, is lost. Moreover, as a result of the weakening of old religious sanctions, the new conditions in large cities, and other causes, moral traditions are in need of being buttressed. secular train mission. The educational systems of Europe have for a quarter of a century given more or less attention to moral training. In France this training has been purely secular and In France excluded all religious elements. But the education of ing, but in England and England and Germany has always associated the teaching Germany of morality with religion. In England, the 'board religious. schools have furnished religious instruction of a nonsectarian character, but the religious training of the 'voluntary' schools has occupied more time and has stressed the creed and denominational teaching of some church, usually the Church of England (see pp. 380 f.). The contest over religious teaching since the Act of 1902 (see p. 390) caused a self-constituted commis- Sadler's comsion, with Michael E. Sadler as chairman, to investigate the subject of moral instruction, and in 1908–1909 it presented a large and illuminating report. In Germany the moral and religious instruction in all elementary schools is sectarian, and Catholic and Protestant schools are alike supported, wherever needed, at public expense. During the past decade there has been considerable discussion in the United States concerning moral education. In response to the demand for an investigation of the subject, a committee of the National Education As- Work of the sociation in 1908-1909 made a report upon various phases United States. of moral training, and recommended special instruction in ethics, not in the form of precepts, but through consideration of existing moral questions. In 1911 the N. E. A. in the |