D. Lothrop is a name familiar to all English speaking people. And well it may be for the great publishing house which Daniel Lothrop founded and of which he was for so many years the active head, has in these last years been sending forth 1,500,000 books a year. Mr. Lothrop entered the publishing business not merely to make money, but dominating the lower motive was always a noble purpose to do good. He was born at Rochester, N. H., on Aug. 11th, 1831, and so was in his sixty-first year at the time of his death; Mar. 18, 1892. Life with him, in his early years especially, was a battle. But the bright, cheery, sturdy lad was not discouraged when he had to leave school and enter on a business career. And the man who knew what ill health and business losses by fires, panics and others' failures meant, never flinched but went steadily forward in his honorable career. He has given us the best of Sunday school books and multitudes of other excellent ones. He has given us Wide Awake and the children's magazines; all of them pure, bright, eatertaining, instructive. Mr. Lothrop is dead, but the beneficent influences he set in motion live, and will long live to bless mankind. These are his monuments, more enduring than brass, whose full fruition in ennobled lives onlv eternity can disclose. ED. EDUCATION.

FOREIGN NOTES.

FRANCE.

Elementary Education. - The French educational system judged by the summarized statistics, has successfully accomplished one of the great ends for which a system exists, namely, that of bringing all the youth of a nation under instruction. According to the census of 1886, there were in France 4,729,511 children of school age, i. e., six to thirteen (the latter inclusive). The annual increase in this population from 1881 to 1886 was at the rate of 6-10 per cent. If this rate continued the population of the ages specified would have reached a total of 4,786,265 in 1888. According to the official report for 1888 1889 the number of children of these ages inscribed upon the registers of primary schools, including the infant grade, was 4,691,218, or 98 per cent. of the total population of the school age. Judging from the statistics reported for 1887, the children under fourteen years of age in secondary schools and receiving instruction at home would very nearly make up the balance. It is not easy to determine the regularity of school attendance as the official statistics do not show the average attendance. An estimate made in 1886-1887 from the attendance at two selected dates gives an average equivalent to 75 per cent. of the annual enrollment. In Paris the average attendance rises to 91.64 per cent. of the enrollment in the primary schools for children of the compulsory age. The percentage is certainly much lower in the country, still reports from particular districts give a very favorable view of the workings of the school law. An inspector of Puget-Théniers, a mountainous district in south-eastern France, reports an average attendance of S9 per cent. in 1889 1890 in a village school of Saint-Etienne. In his inspectional district there are eighty-nine schools supplied with school libraries having a total of 8,864 volumes, and a circulation of 6,712 in 1890. No country in the world has a more able body of inspectors than France. They are the life of the system entering into the details of the school work with the enthusiasm born of knowledge and inspired by sympathy. They assist the teachers with advice, give model lessons, and preside over conferences, which keep up the professional zeal of their teachers. Beside the inspectors general who belong to the central administration and travel annually each through his assigned district to observe and report to the minister, there is an academic inspector for each of the seventeen academic divisions of France (Algiers included), and under these four hundred and fifty primary inspectors, or one for every one hundred and fifty primary schools. Their salaries range from $560 to $720 per annum, besides travelling expenses allowed at the rate of $2 a day. They are selected upon the

results of a rigid examination in which professional as well as general knowledge is tested.

The system reaches its highest possibilities in Paris, the city sparing no expense to make its schools models for the world. In 1887 - 1888 the current expenditure per capita of enrollment in the elementary primaries (i. e., for children six to thirteen years) was $23, and in the infant schools (écoles maternelles) $17.70. Of the one hundred and sixty-five schools for boys one hundred were provided with workshops, and the rest were to receive this additional equipment. All the girls have instruction in sewing and in the cutting and making of garments. The Paris schools attract pupils from the provinces and from Belgium, and although the school population is much more homogeneous than that of London or New York, it presents a greater variety of types than are usually found in France. The Paris pupils are studious and docile. Much is done to stimulate and reward ambition. Prizes are offered, public competitive exercises conducted with effective ceremony, while the attendance of the poor is facilitated by substantial aid in the way of food and clothing. For this last service and the purchase of prizes, the city provides funds which amounted in 1888 to $234,443. From these funds, among other provision, there was a daily gratuitious distribution of 12,263 school dinners, and the sale at about three cents each of 15.965 meals.

The enrollment in elementary schools, public and private, not including infant schools, was 193,251 (boys, 92,522; girls, 100,729). Of this number 62.8 per cent. were in public schools. The teachers in the latter numbered 3.002. The salaries paid by the city are higher than the rates fixed by the state. Men receive an average of $879 for head teachers and $494 for assistants; women $661 and $340 respectively. In addition there is an allowance in lieu of residence amounting to $160 per annum for head teachers and $120 for others.

Women in the Superior Council of Public Instruction. - The Superior Council which is the deliberative head of the French educational system comprises representatives of every grade of instruction, elected by their peers. The interests of infant schools (école maternelles) have been represented since 1886 by Mme. Pauline Kergomard, who is now a candidate for reëlection. In a letter announcing her candidature for the fourth time, Mme. Kergomard states that she is induced to do so solely by the fact that no other woman seeks to assume the responsibility. Sympathizing with the views of those who secured the recognition of women in this important body, she urges upon her sisters in the teaching profession the importance of living up to the honor and the obligation of the position. In her letter which is dignified and forcible she discusses also the need of a larger representation

of primary instruction in the council, and especially the importance of a hearing in the permanent section, whose advice really determines educational movements.

Examination of Recruits.-M. G. Jost who keeps a watchful eye on the educational status of all countries has recently published an account in the Manual Général de l'Instruction primairé, Paris, of the examination of Swiss recruits from which the following data are taken. Every conscript is examined in reading, arithmetic, composition and civic knowledge. He receives a certain number of marks for each subject according to which he is rated as very good, good, passable, bad, naught. The results are entered in the little book or certificate of his military service. Failure at the examination obliges him to frequent the camp school while his brother soldiers are free. This is a humiltation which every young man seeks to avoid. The results of the examination in 1890 show that for every one hundred conscripts twenty-five are ranked as very good, thirty-seven good, twenty-nine passable, eight bad, one naught. M. Jost warns his countrymen that these are better results than those shown by the French recruits, and he instances two battalions, one drawn from northern France in which forty-two out of two hundred and sixty-nine fresh recruits (15 per cent.) were illiterate, and another pertaining to central France in which three hundred and fifty-five out of one thousand one hundred (32 per cent.) were illiterates. The statistics for the country at large give 10 per cent. of illiterate conscripts. With this, M. Jost compares the statistics of Prussia, giving only one illiterate conscript on one hundred. The military service of European countries is, at least it appears, an incitement to personal improvement.

ENGLAND.

Conference of the National Union of Elementary Teachers. — The annual conference of the N. U. E. T. held this year at Leeds was one of the most interesting in the history of the organization. The death of the president, Mr. George Collins, early in the year, threw the responsibilities of the office upon the vice-president, Mr. Taxall. The fact that Mr. Taxall is a candidate for a seat in the House of Commons increases interest in his official actions. His address bore upon the short comings of the English system of education, especially its failure to get firm hold of the poorest children and the unsatisfactory prospect which it holds out to teachers. The incoming president, Mr. Macnamara, dwelt particularly upon the evils of absenteeism, and advocated an effective administration of compulsory laws. The social features of the conference bore witness to the liberality and friendly spirit of the great manufacturing city in which it was held.

PRUSSIA.

New Programmes for Secondary Schools (i. e., gymnasia, realgymnasia, and oberrealschulen). The official programmes recently published, present the final outcome of the movement inspired by the emperor for the reorganization of secondary instruction. The changes authorized amount in brief to the following: The reduction of time devoted to Greek and Latin in the gymnasia; sensible modification of the character of the realschools by the diminution of Latin; the improvement, moral, and material, of the modern realschool (i. e., secondary school without Latin). The extent of the changes can be seen by the comparative summaries of the weekly time tables for all the classes of each grade of schools, below.

The regulations go far toward putting the certificates showing the results of the leaving examinations of the three classes of schools upon the same footing. The right to confer the certificate of maturity is given for the first time to the oberrealschulen. The certificate from this class of schools however, secures admission only to the scientific faculties of the universities, those of the realgymnasia admit also to courses requiring modern languages. The leaving certificate of the gymnasia still carries the higher distinction and admission to all the faculties.