INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL REVIEW.

The constitution granted by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia in 1850 contained the following articles:

Article 20: Science and the teaching of science are free.

Article 21: For the education of the young, public schools shall be established and maintained. Parents and guardians must not leave their children or wards without that instruction which is prescribed for the public schools.

Article 22: To give instruction and to establish schools is allowed to every one who can prove to the State authorities moral, scientific, and technical capability.

Article 23: All public and private educational institutions are under the supervision of the State authorities.. Teachers of public schools have the rights and duties of officers of the State. [In this clause the State reserves for itself the right of properly training the teachers, and assumes the duty of pensioning them.]

Article 24: Religious instruction is left to the respective religious societies. [This passage was amended subsequently so as to intrust the school teachers with that duty.] The external management of schools is left to the civil communities, while the State employs the teachers and provides for the necessary number and training of teachers. Article 25: The means for establishing, maintaining, and extending the public school system are furnished by the communities, and only in cases of inability does the State furnish the means. [This was subsequently amended. The State now bears from 25 to 333 per cent of the cost of maintaining the public elementary schools and about 50 per cent of that of the secondary schools.] Rights acquired by private grants in behalf of education shall be inviolate. The State guarantees public school teachers a fixed income. Instruction in the public schools is free of charge. [This was not carried out until October 1, 1888.]

Article 26: A specific school law regulates all educational affairs in the State. Article 112: And till the law mentioned in article 26 is passed, the former legal status, so far as it does not conflict with the constitution, shall remain in force.

Since 1850 the Prussian parliament (Landtag) has discussed more than two dozen school bills, only a few of which, dealing with minor questions, were adopted and became laws. A peculiar feature of the Prussian, as of any other German State legislature, is that no bill can be presented or introduced by its members, i. e., can originate in either of the two houses (House of Deputies or House of Lords). This is quite in harmony with the German conception of government. Rights and liberties are granted by the Crown, while here in America the people are the sovereign and hence their Representatives in Congress originate legislation. A German legislature has the right to petition the Government (that is, the Crown and its cabinet ministers) to prepare a bill along certain indicated lines. If the Government is unwilling to do so, that is the end of it. Again, if the Government prepares a bill which does not command a majority of votes in parliament, the bill is either withdrawn by its author, the minister, or voted down. It must always be borne in mind, in order to clearly understand the steps that led to the passage of the new school law, that the German is not, like the English and the American Governments, a party government. The cabinet ministers are not responsible to the people, but to the sovereign.

The representatives or deputies in parliament are divided into a number of parties,a to wit, the conservative parties, and other groups which vote with the conservatives on certain questions; the liberal parties, variously called people's, progressive, or liberal groups, all of which, as a rule, vote in opposition to the conservative groups; the center party, or ultramontanes, consisting of Catholics and orthodox Protestants, which frequently joins issue with the conservatives. The liberal parties and groups have of late lost a large number of seats.

a According to the Statistiches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, the parties represented in the Reichstag are: Conservatives, Imperial party, National Liberals, Liberal Union, Liberal People's party, German People's party, Antisemites, Agrarian Union, Center party or Ultramontanes, Social Democrats, Poles, Danes and Alsacians, and, lastly, Independents. The three largest are (1) Conservatives, (2) Center, and (3) Social Democrats. The Prussian parliament has no Social Democrats among its members, owing to the mode of election, which is by classes.

School legislation has been the ball with which the parties have played for half a century, and meanwhile the regulation of public education has remained in the hands of the Crown and its minister of worship, education, and medical affairs, as the constitution provides in article 112. In absence of a specific school law his orders have had the force of law. In view of the impossibility of harmonizing antagonistic elements, it was thought best in 1888, and even earlier, to resort to partial legislation, in hopes of securing a majority for the settlement of some urgent problems, as, for instance, salaries of teachers, gratuity of instruction, pensions of teachers, and the like. In this the Government succeeded, and also in the annual appropriation bills a number of partial measures affecting the schools were passed, but a general school code, embracing all relations of public and private education, failed as often as it was attempted.

The last attempt at partial legislation was made in 1905, when the minister of instruction prepared a bill entitled "A bill providing for the support of public elementary schools." The struggle in the Diet and in the public press about vital paragraphs of this bill, which was passed July 8 in the House of Deputies and July 22 in the House of Lords, was a most interesting and at times fierce one, and could have resulted in a victory of the conservative parties only because of the peculiar mode of electing the deputies. In Germany only the lower house of the imperial parliament, the Reichstag, is elected by universal manhood suffrage. The Prussian parliament is not so elected; its deputies are chosen by classes of electors. On a certain day all men vote who pay a very small amount of taxes. This class consists of artisans, small tradesmen, and generally people of limited income. On another day, say a week from the first election day, a higher class of taxpayers vote, and finally, on a third election day, all of those vote who pay a considerable amount of taxes, and, besides these, all who have especial rights as large land owners. The votes of the second class are counted as multiples of the first, those of the third as multiples of the second and first classes, because each class counts for one-third in the result. This secures a greater voice in the Government to the wealthy conservative classes than is due to their numbers. Naturally, a legislative body thus constituted is more likely to sanction conservative laws than one which is the result of equal suffrage (universal or manhood suffrage), as is the case with the Reichstag, or lower house of the imperial parliament.a

A natural consequence of this mode of electing representatives is the fact that the elements of the Kingdom of Prussia which desire to see church and religion preserved and protected from attacks combine with conservative parties and Government officials to sanction laws which will give the desired protection; hence, also, any school law which will secure to the church the education of the people. Empress Maria Theresa, of Austria, once said, The school is a "politicum." This is everywhere in Europe true to this day. High church dignitaries in the legislative body, both in the House of Deputies and in the House of Lords, use every legitimate means to strengthen their hold on the schools, precisely as the established church in England does. For over half a century the clergy had not succeeded in establishing by law their supremacy over the schools. They were in possession of that supremacy, i. e., they had supervision over the schools to a large extent, but only by grace of the Crown and its minister of education. Every time an attempt was made to pass a school law to that effect the liberal elements in the legislature, backed by the press, by the

a Doctor Barth, editor of the Berlin Nation, says, in a signed article:

We can not expect from a parliament of the privileged, legislation which will do justice to the interests of the people. * * * With every year the incongruity between national performance and national privileges becomes greater; with every year the significance of those strata of the population which are partly not represented at all in the Chamber of Deputies, partly very inadequately so, increases as compared with those wielders of traditional power whose cultural value is absolutely, as well as relatively, steadily sinking. With every year, too, therefore, the surface which this parliament of three classes bears to criticism becomes broader. (Quoted from Review of Reviews.)

The Protestant, or, properly speaking, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church, being one of the established churches of the Kingdom, the Roman Catholic being the other; that is, the State supports these churches, builds church edifices, and pays salaries to clergymen.

universities, and by city officials, raised such fierce opposition to the bill that the Government was obliged to withdraw it. The last attempt to that effect was the Zedlitz bill, in 1892, so called after its author, at that time minister of instruction. The occasion was a memorable one. The liberal-minded elements of the entire Kingdom, from the university professors, who were the prime movers, to the newspaper readers in the remotest hamlet, combined in petitioning the Government not to press the bill, i. e., not give the schools over to the clergy.

In 1905 Doctor Studt, the present minister of instruction, had easier work in pressing a new school bill toward its passage-first, because the liberal parties were hopelessly in the minority, and, moreover, divided into antagonistic factions; secondly, because he could rely upon the steadfast adherence to the bill of all the Catholic members, the bill being quite in harmony with the aspirations of the clergy. Still another reason was the fact that he did not attempt in the bill to cover every feature of school education; notably, the course of study and the inner working were left, as previously, in the hands of the minister, but he submitted the bill as partial school legislation, calling it "Schulunterhaltungs-Gesetz" (law of school support).

As a matter of self-evidence, no school law which deals with the question as to who is to establish and maintain the schools can evade the question of denominational instruction a question paramount in the land of Luther, where the school has been, since the time of the Reformation, a child of the church. During the second half of the nineteenth century the hold which the Protestant church once had upon the consciences of the people, as well as upon the educational institutions of the State, had diminished considerably, especially during the liberal era of Minister of Instruction Doctor Falk. He introduced professional in place of ecclesiastical school supervision, and heartily approved of the establishment of common schools for all denominations. A number of cities-notably, Frankfort-on-the-Main-had established the American system of common or simultaneous, that is, nonsectarian schools, partly from reasons of economy, partly because the church had proved in its supervision of public education to be lagging behind just demands of modern times.

Now, when this new school bill was presented to the Diet the old contention grew particularly fierce, since it was seen that it considered the “simultaneous" (or common) school a negligible quantity, and decreed its gradual abandonment. To some extent the efforts in the Diet for saving these common schools were successful, as will be seen in the text of the new law.

The Deutsche Rundschau of Berlin (July, 1906) sums up the features of the new law as follows:

It is a compromise, accepted by the two conservative parties and the national liberals; the radical parties and factions voted in the negative. For the first time in the history of Prussian public schools the contributors to the expenditure for schools are definitely determined, the quota of the State is essentially increased, the right of establishment and maintenance of schools on the part of urban communities legally defined, the election of teachers and principals by communal authorities prescribed by law, the further existence of "Simultan-Schulen" (common for all denominations) safeguarded and their extension made possible. The liberation of the schools from the government of the church will, now that this law is passed, remain a pious wish, but in comparison with former conditions the Prussian people's schools receive a firmer legal foundation in regard to financial support and a greater freedom of choice between denominational and common schools.

Additional expressions of opinion of the new law by deputies in parliament, professional educators, and the press in Germany and the United States follow after the text of the law, which has been translated with a view to making it comprehensible to American readers-that is to say, technical terms have been given their American equivalents, though they may not always be logically congruent.

Some statistical data of the Prussian schools, of expenditures, attendance (in text and diagram), supervision, and teachers, are added to enable the reader to gauge the importance of the new law.

LAW CONCERNING THE MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN PRUSSIA.

[Passed the House of Deputies July 8, the House of Lords July 22, and was signed by the King July 28,

1906.]

We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God King of Prussia, etc., decree, with the consent of both houses of the Diet of our Monarchy, as follows:

CHAPTER I.

Contributors to the school maintenance.

SECTION 1. The establishment and maintenance of public elementary (so-called people's) schools shall be the duty of civil communities and independent seigniorial districts, except where specific regulations in this law require the State to contribute to the costs.

Communities (seigniorial districts) are to form either separate school districts or may, for the purpose of maintaining one or more schools, combine to form a joint school district.

A community (seigniorial district) may belong to several school districts; it may, even though it have formed its own school district, be part of one or more joint school districts.

Seigniorial districts as supporters of the school maintenance, as well as joint school districts, shall have the rights of corporations in civil law.

SEC. 2. Every city, as a rule, shall form a separate school district. City communities with more than twenty-five school rooms or classes may, with the consent of all concerned, combine with other communities or seigniorial districts to form a joint school district.

SEC. 3. The supervisory school authority of the State a decides about formation, change, or dissolution of a joint school district upon motion of those concerned (civil communities, seigniorial districts), and after consultation with the township (Kreis) council, or, in case it involve a city, the county (Bezirk) council. In cases of opposition of some one concerned formal consent of township or county councils may be required by the supervisory school authority.b

From the action of township or county councils the school authorities and those concerned may appeal to the provincial council within two weeks.

SEC. 4. The question of settlement of property caused by the formation, change, or dissolution of joint school districts is decided by the supervisory school authority. Appeal from such decision is to be taken to the county council within two weeks. SEC. 5. The supervisory school authority may, after consultation with the school districts concerned, send children of one district as guests to the schools of another

a In order to understand the provisions of this Prussian law, it should be explained that the "supervisory school authority" mentioned so often in this law is not, as in cities of the United States, the local superintendent of schools, or the inspector of schools, as in England and Germany, but an entire hierarchy of officials, namely: (1) The royal minister of instruction and his division chiefs; (2) an officer (usually a privy school councilor) attached to the executive office of a president or governor of the province; this officer has his assistants, and in a small way is minister of instruction of the province; (3) the counties (or Regierungs-Bezirke) have also educational officers, or councilors, subject to orders of the provincial and royal officers.

Hence a question involving the school authorities of a district or a township is by this law referred to the "supervisory authority" of the county or Regierungs-Bezirk. If the question be of wider bearing and of more general character it is referred to the "supervisory authority" of the province, and sometimes to the president or governor of the province. The highest supervisory authority, or "Schulaufsichtsbehörde," is of course the minister of instruction, who, as head of an executive department, represents the Crown.-(Translator.)

Prussia has twelve provinces and one principality (Hohenzollern). Each province is divided into several Regierungs-Bezirke, or counties. Each Bezirk is divided into Kreise, or townships, but the chartered cities form Kreise of their own.-(Translator.)

district if this does not necessitate the erection of new buildings and the appointment of additional teachers.

In similar manner, and with the same proviso, children may be allowed to participate in the instruction in separate branches only.

Appeal from the decision in this matter of the supervisory authority may be taken within two weeks to the president of the province, whose decision is final.

Remuneration for the attendance of such guest children is to be paid by the school district in which the children reside. In case of disagreement between the school districts the fees are fixed by the township council or, if a city be concerned, by the county council. Appeal from the decision of the councils is to be taken within two weeks to the provincial council. As far as such cases may involve the city of Berlin, the supervisory school authority determines the remuneration. Appeal is to be taken within two weeks to the superior administrative court. In determining the fees of guest children the additional cost to the one and the saving caused thereby to the other district should be considered.

In cases of considerable changes in the attendance caused by guest children, a school district may withdraw from the agreement only after giving a year's notice, the date to coincide with the close of the fiscal year. Under similar provisions the remuneration for guest children may be differently determined.

In suitable cases the supervisory authority may require a member of the administrative body of the school district from which the guest children come to act as a member, without vote, in the board of the district in which the children are taught. SEC. 6. School districts may require tuition fees for attendance at school of nonresident children.

As residents may be considered all children of the German Empire who reside in the respective school district or in the guest district (sec. 5); that is to say, in the place of residence of those who have the care of the children's persons, including private parties who, without pay, maintain in board and lodging children not their own. Tuition fees for nonresidents must not exceed the average per capita cost of school maintenance for the last three years.

The fixation of these fees is subject to the approval of the supervisory authority. If this authority denies approval the community may appeal within two weeks to the provincial council.

With reference to complaints and objections concerning the payment of tuition fees, the legal provisions in force dealing with local taxation shall be applied.

CHAPTER II.

Distribution of school taxes-Budgets of expenditures—Building funds-The State's contributions.

SEC. 7. In civil communities the costs of maintaining schools are to be provided for by local taxation.

The duty to contribute to the local school taxes of persons freed from local taxation (according to sec. 40 I, Nos. 1 and 3, as well as sec. 41, of the law of July 14, 1893, providing for local taxation; see Code of Laws, p. 152) is regulated by law.

SEC. 8. In seigniorial districts the costs of maintaining schools are to be provided by the seignior.

If the seigniorial district is not exclusively the property of the seignior, or if within the limits of his district other persons have inherited property rights, or if in the district there are taxpayers who do not stand in the relation of servants or wage-earners to the seignior, the school taxes, upon motion of the seignior, are to be subdivided in such a manner that the duty to participate is performed according to the provisions of the law of local taxation. (July 14, 1893; see Code, p. 152.) Separate regulations are to be made by written agreements (Statut), the terms of which, after a hearing