ish. A pertinent illustration of this fact is furnished by Germany on the one side, and by Russia on the other. Germany, among the first of the European nations to recognize the value of popular education, was also the first to appreciate the importance of the school as a national factor. Under the special care of the government the school has been developed to a high point of efficiency and elasticity, serving every need of her people, and stimulating every source of her national life. The school is the all-pervading force of Germany's industrial, commercial, political and military aspirations. It offers a thoro education in all fields of human endeavor, it trains the child in discipline, and in respect and reverence for authority and tradition; it inculcates loyal devotion for the country and for the government; it develops in the child the thoroness, the thrift, the close application which have become characteristic of the German people. Germany's national ideals may in many respects conflict with the ideals of a people trained in an atmosphere of freedom and equality, her methods of serving those ideals may not always conform to the higher conception of the laws of humanity and civilization, but it must be recognized that her remarkable achievements in peace and in war have fully justified her faith in the school as the most potential agency for national unity and for national greatness.

Russia on the other hand has always looked upon universal education with disfavor, and as a menace to her political, religious and social institutions. In consequence of the curtailment of every educational opportunity, more than two-thirds of her population is classed as illiterate, and according to reports, 80 per cent of those serving in the army can neither read nor write. Educational training is a special privilege granted sparingly to a small portion of her people, with the result that schooled intelligence is at a high premium in civil as well as in military and in official life. Her great natural resources and opportunities remain more or less neglected, her commerce and industries are not at all commensurate with the wants of her enor

mous population, and it is only where school training is not essential, as in the agricultural pursuit, that creditable results are achieved. The economic progress that may be in evidence in some directions, can be traced largely to the efforts of the educated foreign element which is attracted by profitable opportunities of organizing and developing some of the industries. Every phase of Russian existence has to adjust itself to the conditions which are produced by the largely prevailing illiteracy of her people, and it is in times of great national stress that the serious consequences of basing her national life upon ignorance become most manifest to the outside world.

The two extremes presented here will help to illustrate the importance of school efficiency as a factor of national welfare, if not of national existence, and we in the United States may draw valuable deductions from them. Not that the German school system, efficient as it is, can as a whole serve as a model for a democracy. On the contrary, in many of the fundamental principles it would be entirely out of harmony with our national ideals, with our sense of right and justice, with our conception of individual freedom, and with our interpretation of human happiness. Certain virtues in which the child of Germany is particularly trained and nurtured would lose their force and their effect in this country unless the underlying causes and motives were modified. For instance, respect and obedience for authority, without which no form of government can endure, must be based in a democracy not upon fear and awe, but upon a strong sense of duty. Submission to discipline ceases to be a virtue in a democracy, if the punishment violates the sense of justice or the sense of honor. Economic conditions also impel national child training along distinct grooves. Germany with its dense population and its limited natural resources trains the child in the prevention as well as in the utilization of all wastage and in the careful conservation of all resources, with the result that the child acquires the habit of thrift and order in its early life. In the United States, on the other hand,

LIBRAK,

OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF

with its vast resources and unlimited opportunities, the need for training the child in thrift is not made urgent, and the benefit of conservation is treated as a remote problem. All this tends to support the theory that a country evolves the system of child training that is best adapted to its political institutions and to its social and economic conditions. When we come, however, to the question of school efficiency and schooling opportunities, we are confronted with a common problem which concerns all nations alike, and one profits from the other by studying the relative value of the different educational systems. The school statistics of four principal cities, each reflecting the educational conditions of the countries in which the cities are located, offer reasonably accurate means of tracing some of the shortcomings which may exist in our own educational system. The statistics of the school day, week and year in the four cities are as follows:

In a recent report of the Comptroller of the City of New York, the fact is pointed out that New York has a shorter school day, a shorter school week, and a shorter school year, and it may be added also a longer school vacation, than any of the European cities.

Berlin provides for its children 400 hours, Paris 370 hours, and London 205 hours more of schooling in a year than New York. Prior to 1866 the Public Schools in New York had 220 days, but by gradual process of curtailment, adding new holidays and lengthening the summer vacation, the school year has been reduced to 190 days.

In London Saturday is school holiday, in Paris Thursday, in Berlin the 2-hour afternoon sessions are omitted on Wednesday and Saturday.

In Paris the school vacation in summer does not exceed

More

six weeks, in London five weeks, Berlin four weeks. over work during vacation is the rule in Europe. In Paris, for instance, the pupils are compelled to work over their exercises two hours or more a day during the vacation period.

The facts and figures presented here lead to the following deductions: Assuming that the school efficiency in Germany or in France is equal to ours, a point which will probably not be disputed, it would follow that the boy or girl in these countries on leaving school at the age of 18 will have acquired about 40 per cent more school instruction than the boy or girl of the same age in New York. They will possess more school knowledge at the age of 16 than the New York boy or girl at the age of 18. When it is considered that by far the greater number of children terminate their schooling at the age of 16, the significance of the above comparison from the standpoint of individual and national efficiency can not be too strongly emphasized. The effect of the inadequate elementary education is manifest in almost every channel of our national life, and whether the boy becomes a wage earner or enters upon a college career the complaint is general that he is ill prepared by the school for his task. The 40 per

cent more school instruction also insures 40 per cent more school supervision supervision thus lessening correspondingly the moral and physical risk to which the child on the street is exposed. It is generally recognized that idleness is an important factor of juvenile delinquency, as it also is of adult criminality, and the 400 additional idle hours which the New York schools offer to the child afford that much more opportunity for mischievous conduct if not for lawlessness. That juvenile delinquency is much more prevalent here than in Europe' is due largely to the insufficient supervision of the child by the school and to the fact that the child is allowed almost as much opportunity for loafing as for schooling. It must not be overlooked that from an economic point of view 40 per cent 1 See EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, June, 1915.

greater utilization of the school plant is not a slight factor, considering that in New York the physical facilities of the schools are taxed to the utmost and that the policy of our school authorities is largely influenced and shaped by the annual appropriations.

While the number of school hours in themselves do not establish school efficiency, time enters as a most important factor, for the more the schooling opportunities are restricted, the more the effectiveness of the school, if not the school efficiency itself, is lessened. The inadequate schooling time which affects the entire educational system in the United States, including our colleges and universities, where also much valuable time is being dissipated by reason of the long summer vacations, presents a serious national problem. It prevents the full development of the mental capabilities of our youth, it increases the moral danger of the child, and it lowers the standard of individual, hence also of national efficiency. The effect upon national preparedness is also quite obvious, for the most elaborate physical war preparedness will eventually prove a delusion, if the moral and mental forces which are the most important factors of national preparedness, are neglected.

NEW YORK

SIGMUND MENDELSOHN