III. POPULAR PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Primary instruction is now imparted in all the communes of Italy (8,253 on the 1st of January, 1892).

It was first made compulsory in 1859, but the law could not be enforced at that time on account of the political agitation during the period of the wars of independence. A new law was enacted in 1877, covering more ground than the former, the enforcement of which has been of marked effect in the general development of popular culture, as is shown in the length of the school term (9 months between 6 and 10 years of age); in the number of pupils; in the attendance and efficiency of teachers, which has kept pace with the general improvement by means of pedagogic lectures an annual conventions.

The spirit of national and popular education is greatly aroused by the parliamentary debates that have recently taken place on the subject, and the subsequent augmentation of the budget of public instruction by the central as well as by the provincial and municipal administrations. The discussions included the creation of a pension fund for the benefit of elementary teachers, and they extended to the benefits which would accrue from the subsidies granted by the Government to communes for the erection of school buildings.

The number of pupils, which in 1871 amounted to 1,722,947, has now increased to 2,326,392 in public elementary day schools only; but including night, Sunday, normal, and military schools, a total of 3,306,266 is obtained for the whole population of Italy. This includes army elementary schools, which are peculiar to the country, the usefulness of which is demonstrated by special statistics. As a result of their organization the illiteracy, which on 100 recruits of both army and navy, averaged formerly 52.78 per cent, had decreased in 1871 to an average of 6.52 per cent, so that 93 per cent were sent home after their military term of service able to read and write. When, owing to reasons of public economy, the regulation was repealed which provided that no recruit could get his discharge unless he could read and write, the percentage of those who had been in school was reduced. .

Finally, of the annual contingent of 365,026 recruits, 80.48 per cent are fully able to read and write at the time of their discharge from military service. By law all sergeants leaving the army may receive, if desired, the diploma of an elementary teacher, thus greatly contributing to the increase of the staff for primary popular education.

In the elementary and industrial schools and institutes for deaf, dumb, and blind of Milan, Palermo, Rome, and Turin, as well as all the elementary and industrial schools of prisons, penitentiaries, and houses of correction of Italy, the increase of illiteracy is still larger, as shown by special statistics. (Of 388 illiterates in reformatories, 371 were able to read and write at the end of the year.) In the roll of primary instruction there are also about 50 schools opened in foreign countries,

namely, in the Levant and certain parts of South America, where Italians remain as residents and not as citizens. The Italian Government reserves the right to inspect and to enforce a curriculum of study, contributing in its budget and annual subsidy of one-half million lire.

The programme of studies for elementary schools is as follows: Rights and duties of citizenship, reading, handwriting, rudiments of the Italian language, and history, arithmetic, metric system, gymnastics. Manual training will be added at an early date to the programme in order to prepare those pupils for common industrial life who do not pursue the higher courses of studies.

The criticism is made, both in and out of Parliament, that the elementary school of Italy is not sufficiently educational to form the character of the pupil, so that he will be fitted to perform whatever duties are assigned him by his compatriots; that too much of his time is taken up by the arid processes of mental exercises to the detriment of the moral aims of education. To that criticism, Hon. E. Villari, ex-minister of public instruction, and one of the most learned and progressive Italians in pedagogical science, answered that the educational character of the people's schools could not be expected to be perfected by means of programmes only, so long as the general progress of the people is slow; that progress must come from every direction in order to give the people's school a higher educational character.

But it is an acknowledged fact to-day that in modern Italy elementary instruction, which only could raise the standard of popular education among the masses, has been from the beginning unwisely sacrificed to secondary instruction. This has been clearly stated by Hon. Gallo in his exhaustive report to the Chamber of Deputies this year. He says: "We went too far when we admitted that secondary instruction could have, as a means of educating the people, the same efficacy as primary education. Italy always needed, and needs yet, a school, complementary to the elementary one, where the minds of the pupils will be formed especially for the aims of life and the defense of national rights. It is the Government's duty to organize a democratic school answering to the needs of the majority of the people, who can not continue their education in the schools for secondary instruction." Thus it seems that the curriculum of primary instruction in Italy has been freely discussed and the suggestion of the complementary school is admitted as a necessary basis of an early reform.

The "Annuario Statistico," September, 1892, gives later figures as follows: Public schools, 55,547; pupils, 2,357,148. Private schools (regular), 8,157; pupils, 184,404. Private schools (irregular), 2,908; pupils, 85,172. Night schools, 5,191; pupils, 191,600. Sunday schools, 3,625; pupils, 100,150. Total, 2,918,474. This does not include the army schools.

IV. SECONDARY INSTRUCTION.

Secondary instruction is given in the following classes of schools: (a) Classical: Ginnasi (inferior and superior); licei.

(b) Technical schools and technical institutes.

(c) Nautical, industrial, agricultural, commercial, and normal schools. The increased number of technical schools and institutes, and of "ginnasi" and "licei," as well as the increase of pupils, viz, from 43,798 in 1871, to 85,629 in 1890, is considered as a great advance in secondary instruction in Italy. But whether the people derive greater usefulness from classical or technical training is now a particular subject of discussion, the result of which is expected to be in favor of technical instruction. It may be stated as an opinion that while all the Italian ministers of public instruction have understood their mission and demonstrated a desire to fulfill it to the best of their ability with the means put at their disposal, very few of them have emancipated themselves from the Italian preference for classical studies "for the majority of the people," a tendency which is not in harmony with the modern idea of fitting the greatest number for the pursuit of agriculture, commerce, industry, and finance-a field where "arithmetic is the first theoretical study necessary for the mastery over the material world." The evil of fostering classic instruction among the Italian people is proven, first, by the ratio of the number of pupils frequenting "ginnasi” and

"licei" (63,860) to those of technical schools and institutes (21,036), the only secondary instruction preparing pupils for early practical life; second, by the fact that out of the 50,132 pupils of the "ginnasi" 13,728 only enter the "licei," the balance, viz, 36,404, entering the field of life with a preparation of classical studies, when a technical and a professional one would be more to the purpose. The consequence of this is that when the students are brought in contact with the people of other nations, and especially with the Anglo-Saxon, they are frequently found to be deficient in the practical methods that lead to success. So that while the "ginnasi" though crowded with pupils, do not contribute much to the hgiher and special studies, since the greater number of them (68 per cent) stop at the door of the "licei," agriculture, commerce, industry, and steam power are not attended to as they should be for the increase of national prosperity.

Hon. E. Villari, ex-minister of public instruction, in his analysis of the Italian system of public instruction before the Chamber of Deputies, May, 1891, and in response to the general attack against classical education, closed the debate with the following sentences, characteristic of an Italian mind:

Industrial schools are necessary for the toiler in order that he may be trained to the study of the material world, of which he is a part. But if the people prefer to crowd the "ginnasi,” it is because they naturally follow the instincts and traditions of their country. Therefore, it is our duty to raise a generation educated to live in the world of thought. The sciences, and mathematics particularly, however useful they may be in subjugating natural forces to the use of man educate only unilaterally. They do not prepare human intelligence for those problems, the objectiveness of which is thought, while literature and words, holding all that a nation has felt and suffered, direct the pupil toward a world of thought, thus forming that intelligent class which has a high mission in modern times when the working class is on the increase and tending to become one of the most potent forces of human society. Then, refusing to consider a plan for the general reform of the Italian educational system, which he declared could only be done by slow and continuous movement, the minister proposed what he thought necessary and advisable to adopt in the transformation of technical instruction, namely, the division of existing technical schools into three branches: First, a school of superior elementary instruction; second, a school for commerce and industry; third, a theoretical scientific school for those who wish to enter technical institutes. The first of such new schools to be accessible both to men and women in order to give them an equal chance to complete their elementary instruction for the education of the family and the wants of ordinary life. The second, the industrial, he declared urgent, because the "wealthiest and most powerful nation is the one that creates the most skilled laborer." The third, the theoretical, to fully prepare for the applications of science.

DIPLOMAS OF SECONDARY CLASSICAL INSTRUCTION.

The diploma of the fifth elementary year is necessary to be admitted to the inferior "ginnasi."

The diploma of the third year inferior "ginnasi" is necessary to be admitted to the superior "ginnasi."

The diploma of the second year superior "ginnasi" is necessary to

be admitted to the "licei.”

The diploma of the third year "licei" is necessary to be admitted to the "universities."

The diploma of the third year "licei" is necessary to be admitted to the superior special schools.

PROGRAMME OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES.

Technical School (3 years).-Italian language; geography, descriptive and political; French; arithmetic; geometry; commercial studies, bookkeeping, handwriting, natural sciences, drawing.

Technical Institute (2 years).-Physics, mathematics (first section); agronomy (second section); surveying (third section); commercial studies and bookkeeping (fourth section); industrial and technical branches (fifth section).

DIPLOMA FOR SECONDARY TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.

The diploma of the fifth elementary year is necessary to be admitted to the technical schools.

The diploma of the third technical year of the school is necessary to be admitted to technical institutes.

The diploma of the second institute year (either section) admits to Institute of Forestry, to first course in physics and mathematics, to the university, and for the diploma of civil engineering.

1 Generally called the "licenza ginnasiale" and the "licenza liceale."