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ÜRICH enjoys the credit of having good and cheap schools. A great many of the numerous strangers who come to live at Zürich come because of the vast educational resources to be found here-parents who wish children to get a good liberal education, students who wish to finish higher studies.

Since elementary instruction is made compulsory by law, and since the town, the canton, and the state do so much for the public *This account of a remarkable public school system in the most democratic country on the globe has been secured by Chancellor Vincent. Prof. Baumgartner has become prominently identified with the spread of the Chautauqua Movement in Switzerland as being eminently

fitted to supplement the exceptional means already existing there for the education of the people.-[EDITOR.

schools, there are very few private schools in Zürich. The same is true of any other town or place in Switzerland, Lausanne and Geneva perhaps excepted. For children between the ages of six and twelve there are only five private schools in Zürich, and there are about as many for pupils above twelve years of age.

Children between the ages of six and fourteen are compelled to attend school. They must attend the Primary School. The obligation is precisely this: all parents are bound to give their children instruction at least equal to that afforded in the public primary schools; but if they choose, they are at liberty to teach their children at home, or they may have them educated in private establishments. Attendance upon the Kin

dergartens, which have no state endowment, is optional.

At the age of twelve any child may leave the Primary School, and go either to the Secondary School or to the Gymnasium (the classical department of the so-called Cantonal School). Those who enter neither of the schools at twelve have to stay two years longer at the Primary School. During these two years the student enters what is called the Enlarged Primary School. This arrangement is new for the canton of Zürich, the legal steps having been taken recently. The Primary and Secondary Schools are free, and the books, stationery, and so on, are supplied gratuitously by the town.

Children leave the Secondary School at the end of two or three years, in order either to learn a trade or to continue their studies. To do the latter, girls go to the High School for Girls, or to the School of Industrial Arts. Boys have a greater choice of schools- the Commercial School, the Technical or Industrial School (both being departments of the Cantonal School), the Agricultural School,

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all of which are at Zürich; or the cantonal Training College, which is at Küssnacht, four miles away from Zürich; or the cantonal Technikum, which has its seat at Winterthur. The Cantonal School has three departments: first, the classical, called Gymnasium, which prepares for the University and the Veterinary School (now part of the University); second, the technical (industrial or realistic), called Industrieschule, which prepares for the Federal Polytechnic; and third, the commercial, which prepares for life, or for further studies at the University.

The University belongs to, and is maintained and managed by the Canton, not by the town of Zürich. The Polytechnic School is federal; that is, maintained and administered by the Confederation. Its various departments are: the schools of Architecture, Engineering, Technical Mechanics, Chemistry, Agriculture, and a school for teachers of mathematics and natural sciences. There are also courses in historical, political and military science.

Girls go through the Primary and Sec

TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN ZÜRICH.

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16

17

18

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(b)

Secondary
School.

Optional & Gratuitous

ends here

-Girls

-Boys

(c)

Cantonal School:

(1) Classical department
or:"Gymnasium"
(Optional, fees: $8 a year)

Boys & Girls Cantonal School:

(2) Technical (3) Commercial

School
Industrial Arts.

(trifling fees)

department

department

(fees: $10 a year)

Polytechnic School University

Other Municipal Public Schools:-Trades and Handicrafts, Silk-weaving, Music, Dressmaking and

Cutting-out, Cookery.

ondary School. Those who wish to pursue their studies then enter the High School for Girls (höhere Töchterschule), which has three divisions: one for general education, another for a commercial training, a third for the training of female teachers for the Primary School. There are courses to train female teachers for the Kindergarten system, also special Latin courses for those who wish to enter the University, to study medicine, law, etc. At the age of fifteen girls may also attend the School of Industrial Arts.

There are still other public schools maintained and managed by the city, and highly appreciated and much frequented; for instance, the Gewerbeschule - (a) School of Trades and Handicrafts, (b) School of Industrial Arts-the schools of Music, of Dressmaking and Cutting-out, of Cookery, of Silk-weaving, and a Mechanics Institution. The only schools in Zürich not belonging to the city are the Cantonal School, the Agricultural School, the Veterinary School, and the University, which are all

Cantonal; the Polytechnic, which is Federal. Sir Francis O. Adams and C. D. Cunningham truly say in their book on the Swiss Confederation: "The Swiss citizen takes an honest pride in his school and everything connected with it. The schoolhouse in any town or village, from the capital of the canton to the most remote hamlet, is certain to attract the notice of a stranger as one of the most solid and commodious buildings in the place, and no site, however costly, would be looked upon as thrown away by being used for a schoolhouse." The town of Zürich, with 150,000 inhabitants, has about forty schoolhouses for Primary and Secondary education alone, all of them large edifices (in fact, too large), and many of them really fine buildings. We give, as a specimen, the newest, those on the Bühl, embracing the Primary School, the Secondary School, and the Gymnastic Hall.

Besides all these there are schools for the blind and deaf and dumb, and for children of weak intellect.

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Required Reading for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

China and the ancient world.

Summary of Preceding Chapters.

The RIVALRY of NATIONS

WORLD POLITICS OF TODAY
By Edwin A Start

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE STORM CENTER.

T the present time the attention of the world is focused upon China A almost to the exclusion of other points of interest. The contact

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of China with the world through commercial intercourse is of immemorial antiquity. Just when in the dawning of civilized life in Asia the Chinese people developed a national existence we do not know, but there are evidences that trade was carried on between the Chinese and the ancient empires of Egypt and Babylonia. China itself is supposed to have been occupied by the race that now inhabits it, about twenty-four or twenty-five centuries before Christ. It was known in the days of the early Roman empire, and it is described by Ptolemy as " vast and populous country touching on the east the ocean and limits of

[Chapters I.-IV. appeared in the October issue. The first was an introductory discussion of the significance of the present age, the expansion of the nations, the industrial revolution, the growth of democracy, and the world problems resulting from the interplay of these elements. Chapter II. explained the politics of Europe in the middle of the century, as turning upon the ideas of nationality and the revolutionary democracy; with the Eastern question as shaped in the Crimean war. In Chapters III. and IV. the development of England and France, respectively, in the last half century was traced, with especial reference to the rise of English democracy and the growth of republican government in France. [Chapters V.-VIII. in the November number considered in a similar way the other four great powers of Europe, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.

[Chapters IX.-XI. in the December number dealt with the question of the near East. Chapter IX. described the reopening of the Eastern question after 1871, explaining the relations of Russia and Turkey and the status of the Turkish empire and the Balkan and Danubian provinces. Chapter X. discussed the developments from 1871 to the RussoTurkish war of 1877-78, the results of the war and the treaty of San Stefano, and Chapter XI. the resettlement of the Eastern question by the Congress of Berlin, the resulting conditions, and the effect upon Russian policy.

[In the January number Chapter XII. discussed the consequences of the Congress of Berlin in the Balkan peninsula; Chapter XIII. considered Egypt as a factor in the Eastern question, and the British control; Chapter XIV. was a general introduction to the subject of Colonial Expansion; and Chapter XV., on "Imperial England," began an examination of the characteristics, methods, and extent of the colonial activity of the different European powers.

[Chapters XVI.-XIX. in the February number continued the study of the expansion of the great nations begun in January, Chapter XVI. being a study of the growth of the British imperial idea in its spirit and manifestations. A chapter on German colonial policy showed the consistency and studied character of German colonial methods, and another dealt with French colonization in its chief aspects. The closing chapter was on Russian expansion. [In the March number Chapters XX.-XXII. were devoted to a consideration of the advance of civilization in Africa, the scramble for territorial possessions, and the present relations and prospects of the European nations in the Dark Continent. Chapter XXIII. dealt with the entrance of the New World into world politics, the Monroe doctrine and South America. Chapter XXIV. described the growth of the foreign policy of the United States.

[Chapters XXV.-XXVIII. appeared in the April number. The first of these dealt with considerations growing out of the recognition of the United States by itself and others as a world power. Some of its needs, limitations, and responsibilities in this rôle were touched upon. Chapter XXVI. reviewed the great historic movements of nations, with the resulting reconstruction of the map, and considered "the new map of the world." In the following chapter" The Problems of Asia" were taken up, starting from the basis of the four Asiatic empires, Russia and Great Britain, China and Japan. The especial importance of railways in the Asiatic problem was alluded to. Finally, in the fourth of these chapters, Japan," the new oriental world power," was traced to its present place among the nations.]

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the habitable world and extending west nearly to Imaus and the confines of Bactria. The people are civilized men of mild, just, and frugal temper, eschewing collision with their neighbors and even shy of close intercourse, but not averse to dispose of their own products, of which raw silk is the staple, but which includes also silk stuffs, furs, and iron of remarkable quality." This description, so well corresponding to our knowledge of the modern China, shows that the knowledge of these people in the time of Ptolemy was something more than mere legend.

The overland route through Bactria (a year's journey) was open and The great Mongol used by European traders until shut off by the dominion of the Seljuk empire. Turks in Asia Minor and Syria. Much information has been brought to light in recent years from Chinese accounts in regard to the early trade relations of China with the western people. In the thirteenth century the conquests of the great Mongol chieftain Jenghiz Khan, extended by his even greater grandson Kublai Khan, brought together in one vast empire, China, Corea, Thibet, Tongking, Cochin-China, most of India beyond the Ganges, a part of Persia, Siberia, and the Turkish possessions westward to the Dnieper river in Russia. These Mongol rulers were liberal men, with the ideas of statesmen as well as conquerors. Under them there was freedom of travel in China, as we know from the experiences of the Polos, narrated by Marco Polo, and from other travelers who ventured into this region. Kublai Khan made Peking the capital of his empire. He offered the pope an opportunity to introduce Christianity into the vast Mongol domains, but Innocent III. was too much occupied with European politics to respond to the hospitable call of the largeminded oriental ruler, and the opportunity was turned over to the Grand Lama, the pope of Buddhism.

Under the native Ming dynasty, which began in 1368, a new and more Exclusive policy. bigoted policy was adopted, which grew still narrower as the celestials learned to suspect European purposes. Nor did this change under the Manchu emperors, who established their power by conquest in 1644, and have maintained their rule over China, Thibet, and Mongolia until the present time.

Modern European intercourse with China began in the seventeenth

'Cited in Yule, "Cathay and the Way Thither."

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