ford and by Rev. Mr. Robinson-the band played several lively tunes-the children were delighted-and all the people were given fit occasion to talk about the common schools. The newspapers of the city all spoke in high praise of the demonstration and its effect; and from that day dates the interest in popular education which has made Cincinnati distinguished among the cities of our country for liberal and thorough free schools.*

Having secured good feeling for the schools, Mr. Guilford next gave his attention to the improvement of text-books. He prepared an Arithmetic, which was for many years almost universally used; and he published a revised edition of Webster's Spelling-book, improving it, as his friends have claimed, in many important particulars, which have since been recognized in other spelling-books.

Mr. Guilford, having mainly given up the practice of the law, was engaged in Cincinnati, as a bookseller and publisher, the greater portion of the time between 1825 and 1843. He then started the "Daily Atlas," a Whig journal, of which he was chief editor and proprietor until 1847. In 1849, a law was passed authorizing the Cincinnati Board of School Visitors to elect a superintendent of the city schools. Mr. Guilford was chosen. His health had become impaired, but he gave the best energies he could command to a work which enlisted the warmest emotions of his heart. He continued in office till 1852, when he was elected to the office of local magistrate. He was an active friend of the movement by which the Hughes High School, in 1847, and the Woodward, in 1852, were opened, under the auspices of the Cincinnati School Board; and in numerous other good works, of which we have not sufficient data to give particulars, manifested those noble characteristics which his common school labors so emphatically evince-characteristics which will associate his memory, through all the history of Ohio, with one of her proudest and most-to-be-cherished institutions.

Mr. Guilford died in the sixty-ninth year of his age, December 18th, 1854, lamented as an invaluable citizen, a philanthropist, and an exemplary husband and father.

Mr. Guilford was a tall, compactly-built man. His face was strongly marked, in his later years, with lines which showed that he had been a severe thinker and an earnest worker.

*In his first report as superintendent of schools, (1837,) Samuel Lewis said the only free schools in Ohio were in Cincinnati.

XVI. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN NORWAY.

By HARTVIG NISSEN, Educational Councillor.

1. PRIMARY OR DISTRICT SCHOOLS.

Norway has an area of about 5,750 square miles, whereof about twofifths are unfit for any sort of cultivation, while of the remaining threefifths, large tracts are covered with scanty wood, and scarcely fifty geographical miles are cultivated in corn-fields.

There are in Norway about 1,400,000 inhabitants. Of these about 180,000 dwell in the larger or smaller towns, while the remaining 1,220,000 are spread over the country districts. Generally, only one family dwells in each separate farm-house or cottage, and the distances of these houses or cottages from each other are, in many parts of the country, so great that it is not possible to bring together in any one spot a sufficient number of children to form a school. Herein lies an essential impediment to the satisfactory organization of the system of schools in the country districts of Norway. A sort of coercive or compulsory system, as regards the education of children, has been in operation, according to the Norwegian law, since 1739. The parents and guardians of every chiid are under a legal obligation to instruct, or cause the child to be instructed, in those elementary branches of education which are usually taught in the district schools. Although the law does not usually bind parents to send their children to any school properly so called, and still less to any public school established by the state, yet the result is the same as if it did so as regards the great majority of the lower classes, who are unable and have not time to instruct their children, nor means to pay for their children's instruction in private schools or by private teachers, especially in the country districts, where, as a matter of course, cheap private schools can not exist together with the public schools. The time during which children must either go to school or receive instruction at home, begins in the seventh or eighth year of their age, and ends at the period of their confirmation, which usually takes place when they are fourteen or fifteen years old. The number of children in the country districts, who are thus under the conditional obligation of going to school, may be taken to be about 198,000, of whom about 4,000 may be supposed to receive instruction either at home or in the higher public or private schools. In the towns the number of such children is about 25,000, of whom about 6,000 may be supposed to receive instruction in private or in the higher public schools. The number of the above-named children attending the

district schools may thus be estimated at about 213,000, while the number of those not attending the district schools may be taken to be about 10,000.

The state having thus imposed on parents a duty which they would not usually be able to fulfill, unless there existed, at proper intervals throughout the country, schools to which the children could be sent to obtain the instruction required by the law, it has also, by the same law, imposed on every district (in the country on every parish) the duty of establishing a sufficient number of such schools. It must be remarked that every town forms one municipality, and so does also every parish in the country, a certain number of towns and parishes forming one higher municipal body, called an "Amt" (county), of which there are eighteen in the whole country. This duty is, on account of the local peculiarities of the country above described, connected with great difficulties; and most places have hitherto been forced to make shift with very scantily endowed schools, where instruction is imparted only during a short time in the course of the year.

The schools in the country districts are divided into stationary or permanent, and circuit or itinerating schools. Every stationary school is attached to the nearest surrounding district, the children of which (as before mentioned) must go to the school, unless their parents provide in another manner for their receiving the instruction prescribed by law. The distance which the children have to go to such a school is usually not more than a quarter of a Norwegian mile, or about two English miles; sometimes, however, it is as much as four English miles. Every stationary school has its house, comprising a school-room and an apartment for the master. Every master at a stationary school has, moreover, besides his salary (which on an average can be reckoned at about 90 sp. drs.*), a free lodging, and a certain portion of land for his own use. The number of stationary schools in the country districts is estimated to be about 380, and the number of children who attend them about 24,000; there are thus, on an average, 63 children to each school. The time of instruction is from 16 to more than 40 weeks in the year; on an average it is about 30 weeks or 180 days in the year. As most of the pupils of these schools are divided into two classes, which attend school on alternate days, each pupil has on an average, opportunity for receiving instruction 90 days in the year.

The majority of the children belonging to the country population attend the circulating or itinerant schools. Every parish, which usually contains several churches, with their separate church districts, is divided into school districts. Every such school district not possessing one of the above described stationary schools, is again subdivided into several "Roder " (sections or circuits), the children of each of which attend the school together. Thus, although the whole district only has one teacher, there are in reality as many schools as there are sections or circuits in each

* One pound sterling is equal to four specie dollars and a half.

district. A district for a circulating school consists commonly of three or four sections. The teacher goes round from one section or circuit to another, to keep school. According to law, the youth of each circuit are to receive instruction during at least three months, or, where this is not possible, during at least two months in the year; but the fact is, that in some places the children in the circuit schools receive instruction during twelve weeks, but on an average during not more than eight weeks, over the whole country. The school is not, however, kept uninterruptedly in the same spot while within the limits of the same circuit. It is the duty of every farmer (Gaardmand) or small proprietor in the circuit, each in his turn, to provide a proper school-room in his own house, and to give the teacher board and lodging for a certain time, which is usually in proportion to the extent of the estate. The teacher usually moves with the school every week to a new house. The eight weeks in each year, during which the instruction is usually given by these schools in each circuit, are not consecutive, but distributed in several terms at various times, from October to April, that part of the year within the limits of which all the instruction of the circuit schools in most places begins and ends. In some places the teacher of the circuit school gives instruction also during some of the summer months, having either a district consisting of a greater number of circuits than usual, or to teach in each circuit during a greater number of weeks than the minimum required by law. The salaries of the circuit schoolmasters are very different. In some parts of the country only 12 sp. drs, are given, besides board and lodging in school time, for 30 weeks' teaching yearly, while in other parts the salary is 40 sp. drs. The whole number of such itinerating schoolmasters is about 2,000, and of circuits about 7,000.

According to the existing law on district schools in towns, every town is bound to establish so many schools that every child can receive two days' instruction per week all the year round, with the exception of the usual vacation, no teacher having on the same day more than 60 pupils. The district schools in towns are usually so arranged that every child receives two or three days' instruction weekly. In most places each school is provided with only one teacher, who, where each child is to receive three days' instruction weekly, teaches on alternate days each of the two classes into which the children belonging to the school are divided; while in places where each child is to receive two days' instruction weekly, he teaches every third day each of the three classes into which the children belonging to the school are in that case divided. The divis ion into classes is usually regulated by the advancement of the pupils in knowledge. In places where the children have access to the school two days in the week, each child will be able to attend school about 84 days in the year, and in those places where the children have access to the school three days in the week, about 126 days in the year.

What has been above remarked concerning the time of instruction in the different classes of district schools, applies only to that time during

which the children have an opportunity of receiving instruction, and not to the time of instruction whereof the majority of the children actually avail themselves. Parents can indeed, according to law, be punished by the infliction of fines when their children, from having neglected to attend school, have not made such progress as they ought to have made; but in practice, this measure is seldom or never adopted unless the neglect appears to have taken place in a very remarkable degree. The fact is, that the children who attend circuit schools do not on an average actually receive instruction during more than four weeks in the course of the year. It must, however, be observed, that during the year, or at least the halfyear, immediately preceding their confirmation, which usually takes place in the interval between the fourteenth and fifteenth year of their age, the clergyman of the place gives the children who are to be confirmed instruc tion in religion, several hours weekly, besides the instruction which they receive at the schools. Moreover, according to the existing law for the organization of schools in the country, all children above twelve years of age are bound, until two years after confirmation, to appear in church at the public catechisms which are conducted by the clergyman in connection with the usual divine service, and are held several times a year in each church. It must also be observed that in many of the country districts the parents are anxious, as far as they are able, to assist the school in giving their children religious instruction particularly. As regards those children who belong to the permanent schools in the country, the disproportion between the opportunity of receiving instruction and the instruction actually received is not so great as it is with respect to those who belong to the circuit schools. The same remark may be, on the whole, applied also to the schools in towns.

According to law, instruction is to be given at the district schools, as well in the country as in towns, in reading, religion, singing, writing, and arithmetic. School begins and ends every day with prayer or psalm singing, or both. In a number of circuit schools, the instruction is (contrary to law) limited to reading and religion, and in the great majority of circuit schools the instruction in writing and arithmetic does not extend beyond the first rudiments. As the circuit schools are kept alternately in the houses of the several farmers, and very frequently in the same rooms where the inmates are engaged in their daily avocations, there exist, of course, obstacles to the proper organization and successful operations of the schools. Very frequently the room is also extremely unwholesome, and especially it often happens that all ventilation is impossible, the windows not even being made to open. Drawings of rooms of itinerating schools in different parts of the country, and a drawing of the farm where one of these rooms is found, were exhibited at the Educational Exhibition. In many permanent schools, as well in the country as in towns, several other branches of instruction have been adopted; for instance, orthography, and sometimes a little history and geography.

Some superior district schools have been lately established, in which