personal and domestic improvement, political and religious rights, national and educational renown ?

If twenty millions of Prussians can establish a regal system of national education, cannot thirty millions of Americans establish a democratic republican system ?

There is an old Latin maxim, that "it is lawful to learn of an enemy." Let us adopt this new maxim: It is lawful for a republic to learn of a king.

HOLLAND.

Let us look at a brief outline of the national system of education in Holland.

The kingdom has an area of thirteen thousand square miles, divided into twelve provinces, containing three millions of inhabitants. Its system of education was established when it was a republic. It commenced operations April 3, 1806, under the then Batavian republic, thirteen years before the Prussian code was matured. So deep laid in truth and prudence is the system, that the conversion of the Batavian republic into a kingdom, then its incorporation with the French empire, then the dethroning of Louis, and the restoration of the house of Orange, then the union of Holland and Belgium, and lastly the separation of these and the restricting the kingdom of the Netherlands to its former limits-all these changes have made no alteration in the school law.

The striking peculiarity of the Holland system is its welladjusted machinery of inspection, which is truly telescopic and microscopic.

The present governmental organization is this :

1. The King, who holds the power of revising and remodelling any of the "regulations."

2. The Minister of the Interior. All communications are through him, and in his office; therefore, he has a

3. Secretary, called Referendary, who has charge of all this class of communications, and who may be considered the third in the governmental series.

4. Inspector of Primary and Latin Schools. This officer, answering to the Minister of Public Instruction in Prussia, is the mainspring of the whole educational establishment.

These several officers, above mentioned, constitute the Central Board of Education for Holland, and are therefore clothed with the highest powers.

But it was found necessary to have a council specially charged with the strictest execution of the laws.

5. This Council gives uniform and powerful impulse to every part of the vast whole.

The kingdom is divided into ten provinces. Each province has its provincial Board of Inspectors. Each provincial board sends a deputy once a year to the Hague; and these deputies, united with the central board, form the general committee. In this there is great responsibility. They must watch over the whole school system, sanction special regulations, prescribe the books, require the introduction of new modes of teaching, and see that the laws are rigidly enforced.

6. The next Board is called the Board of Primary Instruction. There is one of these in every province, made up of school inspectors, of whom there are fifty-six in the realm. They are elected as inspectors, amid great rivalship, and are very superior men.

7. Each province is subdivided into districts, and to each district an inspector is appointed. This is the office of labor and responsibility, on which they place most of their hopes. He is a school missionary, an itinerant government, and is almost a member of every family in his district. He is paid by government, and has jurisdiction over every school, public and private.

Thus we see how each inspector has charge of his own district, each provincial board the charge of its province, while the general meeting, which may be called the Assembly of the States General of Primary Instruction, has charge of the whole kingdom. All the public functionaries are paid by government.

To make this system of governmental inspection more simple, let us apply it to Massachusetts, thus:

In every school district of a town there would be a prudential committee; then a town school committee, having the county inspector as a member; then in each county, a county-board of education made up of the several inspectors within the county; then the deputies, chosen from the several county boards of inspectors, would join the general inspector, the secretary of state and the governor constituting a central board of education, and each board responsible to the next above it, and the last responsible to the legisla

ture.

Here would be a system Argus-eyed and Briarian-handed!

The Dutch asked this question :-What is the foundation and life of a popular school system? They decided that a due superintending power was the main-spring, the soul of primary schools, because any society must depend on the government controlling it; therefore, they passed a law under which principles were afterwards to be carried out. This law strikingly exhibits a sort of hierarchy of authorities, and organizes a system of public instruction only so far as it organizes a government for it. Mr. Van den Ende, who was the Holland system personified, said, with great emphasis, to M. Victor Cousin: "Take care who you choose for inspectors. They are a class of men who ought to be searched for with a lantern in one's hand."

Article 194th of the new Constitution says: "Instruction shall be free, under the absolute control of government." There is an annual distribution of silver medals to those teachers who have been most zealous and successful."

The national system of Holland is sustained by all the forces that government can give it, and the results are cheering and helping every family in the kingdom.

FRANCE.

Let us look now at the system of France: France, with its area of two hundred and four thousand eight hundred

square miles, its eighty-six departments, and its thirty-six millions of inhabitants, has a national system of education of grand and imposing dimensions. It is called the "Royal University of France," and embraces the whole system of national education, and includes all the institutions for imparting instruction, which are spread over the whole kingdom, from the lowest schools up to the highest colleges. The university is placed under a council of six members, called the "Royal Council of Public Instruction," of which the minister of public instruction is the official president; and he is a member of the cabinet.

In 1838 the national system cost the government three millions eight hundred thousand three hundred and fifty-four dollars; now probably twice that sum. The salaries of all teachers are regulated and paid by government.

A striking peculiarity of the national system is, that all the professors in all the colleges and lyceums, and the faculties of law, medicine, theology, and letters, and all institutions of education, above the primary school, are appointed by competition (les concours). The judges are selected from the ablest scholars in France, and the trial or competition may continue a week; but, the result is that the most learned and accomplished scholar secures the selection. This law of concours has filled all the scientific and literary offices with the richest talent of the realm. I have witnessed these diamond-cut-diamond conflicts, and they are thorough and decisive beyond description.

As is the Teacher so is the School. The eminent professors and teachers in the various institutions of France, have drawn students to Paris from all quarters of the globe; and the government is liberal to them all.

So much for a national system, shaped by the maturest minds in the realm, and then carrying its humane and Christian plans into effect by the resistless power of the imperial government.

June 28th, 1833, France established a national system of primary education. In fifteen years it increased the number

of primary schools from thirty-three thousand six hundred and ninety-five to forty-three thousand five hundred and fourteen; and the school-houses from ten thousand three hundred and sixteen to twenty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty-one.

The effects have been so healthy and auspicious, that M. Guizot, minister of public instruction, said: "The ministry of public instruction is the most popular of all governmental departments; and that which the people look upon with the highest favor and expectation.'

May not the time come when the United States shall have a national system of education, in all its parts so complete and powerful, that thousands of ambitious young students shall come from our sister republics in South America, instead of going, as they now do, to Europe, to receive the best instruction in the world?

BADEN.

The national system of education in the Grand Duchy of Baden, in Germany, merits notice for some peculiar excellencies. Its one million five hundred thousand inhabitants are united, prosperous, and happy, owing to the paternal care of the government in educating all the children. In 1806, when the present Duchy began to exist, there was no national system of education; but, seeing the absolute necessity of such a system, in order to put themselves on the same vantage-ground as other countries, they established, in 1830, a system which organized upon a uniform plan the common and classical schools of the whole Duchy. Dismembered parts and opposing interests were all brought into unity by the magic power of the national system. It was hopeless for objectors and enemies to hold out against a national movement for a good object. The national system consists of two universities, seven lycea, five gymnasia, three pædagogia, four normal schools, nineteen higher schools, seven latin schools, and about two thousand common schools.

These institutions are all under the general supervision of