3. So long as the existing statute remains in force, if truthful instruction is to be given in the subject, the possible benefits of alcohol when prescribed by physicians should be conceded. The difference in the effects on the human body of fermented beverages (beer and light wines) and distilled liquors should also be noted. Emphasis should be laid, too, on the greater susceptibility of young persons both to direct injury from the use of alcohol in any form and to the danger of forming undesirable habits. Pupils should be allowed also to know that there is wide disagreement among authorities as to the physiological effects of a strictly moderate use of liquors by adults. On the other hand, attention should be called to the fact that the moderate use of alcohol very commonly leads to excess, and the teacher should emphasize the fact that an immoderate use of liquors weakens the tissues so that they are made more susceptible to disease.

4. Finally, if the teacher wishes to present the strongest arguments in favor of either total abstinence or strict temperance, and thereby fulfill the spirit rather than the letter of the law, your Committee recommends that comparatively little time be spent in trying to teach the physiological effects of alcohol and tobacco. Let us frankly admit that we are discussing not so much a question of physiology as one of morals and economics, and let us devote the larger part of the time required by law to a treatment of the question from the moral and economic standpoint.

V

THE ABOLITION OF COMPULSORY GREEK IN

GERMANY

A sweeping change has just been effected in the school system of Germany. With the commencement, at Easter, of the new scholastic year the classical Gymnasia of Prussia have practically been remodeled. The alteration is of such surpassing moment that the educationists of the future will certainly consider it to stamp the beginning of the century as a turningpoint in the history of German education.

The first intimation of the approaching change was contained in the now famous Kiel decree. The object of this order was stated in the title to be the continuation of the reform of the higher schools in Prussia. It was signed by the Emperor personally, and was published in the last days of the year 1900 in the official organ of the Ministry of Education. The most important passage ran as follows: "I have no objection to raise to a suitable strengthening of Latin in the timetables of the Gymnasia and Realgymnasia, but, in view of the great value of a knowledge of English, I attach especial importance to a closer consideration of this subject in the Gymnasia. For this reason the introduction of an English course as an alternative for Greek is to be permitted everywhere up to the class II B." 1

But it formed

The last sentence quoted is the pregnant one. less than two lines of a fairly long decree, which was issued amongst a number of other official documents, and in this way there was every likelihood of its significance being overlooked by the general public. Afterwards, however, when this, with other less important provisions of the Kiel decree, was incorporated in the new Prussian curriculums which come into force 1 The nine classes of a German Gymnasium are best regarded as consisting of three upper classes: I A, I B, II A; three middle : II B, III A, III B, and three lower: IV, V, VI.

in the present year and supplant the well-known programs of 1892, the innovation immediately attracted universal attention, and while the change was actually impending it was minutely discussed in all its bearings.

The curriculums naturally enter more particularly into the details of the arrangement, and it is surprising to find, on closer examination, that the alternative course has much less of an English character than was to be expected from the terms of the decree. Instead of having the Greek lessons replaced by an equal number of lessons in English, only half the time is to be applied to the modern language.

But what really justifies the application of the term English to the new course is the fact that it implies a complete reversal of the position hitherto occupied by the subject in the gymnasial time-table. Up to the present year English formed no part of the regular course of a Gymnasium. It is true that every such school offered its pupils the opportunity of learning the language, by giving two lessons a week to any boys in the three higher classes who specially desired to take it up. But no students were compelled to attend; indeed, the pressure of their other work was sufficient to prevent most of them from joining extra classes. Now, however, all has been changed and this neglect is a thing of the past. Instead of being taught out of regular school hours to a few exceptional pupils, English has been made an essential part of a course, which, if still only optional, is at least compulsory for all who desire to avoid Greek.

But while the new rule is of deep interest as far as it affects English, the change in the attitude of the Prussian authorities towards Greek constitutes nothing short of a revolution in German education. For Germany has been the stronghold of classicism more than any other country. Even now the graduate of the classical schools can study in all faculties at the university, and until last year the professions of law, medicine, and the Church were open to him alone. There are in Prussia exactly 400 secondary schools with the full nine-years' course, and of these as many as 289 are classical Gymnasia in which Greek has hitherto been a compulsory subject. In other

words, until this Easter, Greek had to be studied by every pupil in nearly three-quarters of all the schools in Pruss.a which have the right to send pupils up to the universities. The figures obtained by including the secondary schools with a six-years' course, the successful completion of which is rewarded by the right to one year of military service as a volunteer instead of two as an ordinary recruit, illustrate well, but much less strikingly than the last, the rank recently held by Greek. Out of the total number of 603 higher schools in Prussia Greek was compulsory in 346 Gymnasia and Progymnasia. There is an enormous difference between the standing of Greek as represented by these proportions and the position assigned to it from the commencement of the summer term of 1902, after which there will no longer be a single school in the kingdom in which the language will be obligatory. It is a remarkable proof of the centralization of Prussian education, and of the thoroness of its organization, that such a sweeping change could be brought into force at a single step without exciting a storm of indignant protest from zealous humanists.

Now, not only was Greek studied in a very large proportion of Prussian higher schools, but it claimed a considerable share of the pupils' time. In this connection it is as well to observe at once that the time-table of a Progymnasium, which is practically a Gymnasium lacking the highest three classes, corresponds in all respects to the time-table for the remaining classes of the Gymnasium, so that all remarks about the middle and lower classes of the Gymnasium apply to the Progymnasium with only a trifling change of terms. Greek is begun by a gymnasial pupil in the fourth school year, on joining the lowest of the three middle classes. In these and also in the three upper classes,—that is, to the end of his school course,— he devotes six hours a week to the subject. By the new regulations he, or his parents for him, must decide once for all, at the beginning of his fourth year at school, whether he is to take Greek or to devote these six hours a week to the subjects of the alternative modern course. If he decides for the latter the six hours will be distributed as follows: in the classes III B and III A, three hours English, two French, and one mathematics;

and in II B, three hours English, one French, and two mathematics and natural and experimental science.

Thus, in the official curriculums, provision is made for the alternative course only in these three classes, and no reference whatever is made to any similar arrangement for the higher grades. The inference is a tempting one, that the government has no intention of introducing the alternative course in the upper division. Now if this were for a moment regarded as a fact, the drawback would immediately suggest itself to the mind that no opportunity of continuing their studies is offered to those who have taken the modern course up to II B; such pupils would be debarred from further study at their Gymnasium because the alternative course did not exist in II A and the higher classes. As a matter of fact the authorities have obviated this difficulty by ruling that a pupil who has successfully studied the modern course as far as II B can join the class II A in a Realgymnasium without having to pass the usual test at entrance. In this way the individual interests of a pupil are to some extent safeguarded. But in practice the expedient would prove a failure; in the first place, because it would entail an overcrowding of the upper classes of the Realgymnasia for which these institutions are quite unprepared, and, in the second place, because the gymnasial pupil, on changing over to his new school, would certainly find himself much further behind his class-fellows in mathematics than he was in advance of them in Latin. In neither subject would his attainments stand in the proper relation to his work, and his progress in both would be hindered. Seeing that the privileges which he would gain by completing either the regular course at a Realgymnasium or the modern course at a Gymnasium do not differ in the slightest, it would be far more to his advantage to enter a Realgymnasium in the first instance, and avoid the check to his progress which must inevitably accompany a transference from one school to another of a contrasted type.

We are now confronted by the difficulty which lay at the root of the change. This was the problem of adjusting the balance between the Gymnasia and Realgymnasia. Within the last twelve months the latter have made enormous strides