Marenholz-Bülow, Ber- Reminiscences of Friedrich Froebel; translated by Mrs. Horace Mann. Boston, Lee, Shepard & Co., 1877

tha von.

1 50

Letters from Hofwyl on the Educational Institutions of De Fel- London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longlenberg. mans, 1842.

Brockett, L. P.

History and Progress of Education; by Philobiblius, with an intro- New York, A. S. Barnes & Co.
duction by Henry Barnard.

Adams, Francis
Combe, George

Education, its Principles and Practice; edited by William Jolly

List of books suggested as appropriate for a library for teachers-Continued.

560

5660

Cousin, Victor..

Davis, Emily

Mann, Horace.

Mill, J.S..

Pestalozzi, Johann
Heinrich.

Randall, S. S.

Siljeström, P. A.

Stodart, M. A..

Youmans, E. L

APPENDIX.

PRIMARY INSTRUCTION IN BELGIUM.

PRIMARY COMMUNAL SCHOOLS.

LEGISLATION.

Each commune of the kingdom is to have at least one primary school, situated in a convenient locality.

Two or more communes may unite so as to establish or maintain a school. They may even be required to do so by means of a royal decree, the communal councils and the permanent committee having given their opinion on the subject.

The government, after considering the report of the communal council and the permanent committee, is to decide upon the least number of schools which each commune may maintain, as well as the number of classes and teachers for each school. The government determines the schools for each sex and those where both sexes are admitted (Art. 2).

Religious instruction is left to the family and to ministers of different denominations.

One part of the school building is to be placed at the disposal of the ministers, so that they may give religious instruction, before or after recitations, to the children attending school from their parishes.

Primary education comprises morals, reading, writing, elements of arithmetic, system of weights and measures, elements of the French, Flemish, and German languages (according to locality), geography, Belgian history, elements of drawing, knowledge of geometric forms, elements of natural sciences, gymnastics, singing, and needlework for girls.

Other branches may be added in localities where it is deemed advisable. A royal decree is to indicate the additional branches, as well as the reason for such increase of the list for the commune.

Text books are to be examined by the council appointed to judge of such matters (conseil de perfectionnement), then to be approved by the government.

The teacher must not neglect any opportunity of inspiring the pupils with a love of country and the national institutions.

The teacher is to abstain at all times from any remarks against the religious belief of the families whose children are confided to his care.

GENERAL RULES (decree of August 16, 1879.)

The instructor is to have constant care for the physical, intellectual, and moral education of the pupils under his charge. He is to see that moral duties are understood, loved, and practised. He is to watch carefully that pupils observe all rules of propriety at all times.

Primary instruction covers necessarily the branches mentioned in the first paragraph of Art. 5 of the law of July 1, 1879.

Only those books may be used which have been approved of as in accordance with the law.

The teacher must conform in all methods of instruction to the regulations given by the minister of public instruction.

The distribution of work in the various branches of instruction is to be arranged by the head teacher, countersigned (visé) by the cantonal inspector, then ordered (or published) by the municipal authorities. This program is to be placed on the wall of the school room.

The head teacher and assistants are forbidden to make any changes in the program.

Both principal and assistants are to keep a daily record of the instruction in each class, the quality of recitations, &c.

The assistants and employés about the building are to be under the orders of the head teacher or whosoever takes his place.

The school yard is to be opened at least a quarter of an hour before the recitations

commence.

The head teacher and the assistants are to watch over the pupils when they enter and leave the school room and during the recess.

Head teachers and assistants must not have their attention turned aside during the recitations from the exercise of instructing their pupils.

The classification of pupils in the different divisions belongs to the head teacher, or in certain cases it may be referred to the cantonal inspector.

The head teacher is to keep an eye on the pupils, so that they do not waste their time.

The head teacher and assistants are forbidden to show any preference for any bright pupil to the neglect of others, either by reason of desiring to make a fine effect at the examinations or for any reason whatsoever. The instruction should be dis

tributed equally among the pupils.

The head teacher is to see that proper care is taken of the building and its appurtenances. He is to have a care that there is nothing about which might affect the health of the pupils. He is to see that the school room is always neat and that it is cleaned at least once a day. The room should be ventilated before pupils enter and after they leave.

In localities where the physicians of the poor receive a salary from the board of health (bureau de bienséance) they are expected to visit the public schools at least once a month.

At the close of the visit they are to report the sanitary condition of the pupils to the proper authorities (collége échevinal).

Any pupils attacked by a contagious disease are to be sent home, and they cannot enter the school room again until a certificate, stating that they are entirely cured, has been obtained from the physician.

PROGRAM OF EDUCATION.

The program of education to be given in primary communal schools was determined by the ministerial decree of July 20, 1880. We take from the circular explanatory of the program some passages which show the object the government has had in view:

If it is important that the program should neither alarm nor discourage any one, it is of supreme necessity that it should offer serious obstacles to routine and become an instrument of progress; that it should compel the teacher to awaken in his pupils a spirit of observation, experiment, and reflection; that instead of habituating him to the disastrous methods of verbalism it should urge him to labor for the sound development of the faculties. It should constantly be a reminder to him that his last as well as his first daily duty is to make a thorough preparation of his lessons, that is to say, to find out the surest, shortest, and most attractive way of making his instruction reach the minds and hearts of his pupils.

The program ought to fulfil another important condition. It should stimulate

the teachers in small communes, while it responds to more general requirements. It should arouse them and encourage them to lead their pupils as far as the extreme limits of primary education properly so called will permit. But it should not become an obstacle in the path of improvement in larger communes which may wish to extend the education of their children beyond the ordinary sphere. In order to comply with these different principles the plan of study has been divided into two great sections, the program of the primary school proper and of the superior primary school.

The program of the primary school proper is obligatory throughout and embraces three successive courses or grades of two years or more each. In schools where the attendance is regular the first or elementary grade will include, as a rule, children of from 6 to 8 years of age; the second, children of 8 to 10; and the third, those from 10 to 12 years of age. It is not the intention of the government to prescribe in an absolute way the precise time to be devoted to studying the subjects assigned to each grade. It contents itself with requiring that these three great stages of school life should be clearly marked in each school, and it is also convinced that the majority of children will be able to pass them without too much effort between the ages of 6 and 12, and very easily between 6 and 13 or 6 and 14 years of age.

It belongs to the inspectors, the communal governments, and the teachers to adapt the program to the needs of each locality by distributing the subjects of study among the different school years and divisions and by selecting the points which will only be treated summarily and those which, according to the longer or shorter time at the disposal of the teachers, can be studied more deeply.

Besides the obligatory subjects enumerated in Art. 5 of the law of July 1, 1879, the program of primary schools includes two elective studies: a language (French for Flemish or German localities, or German for Walloon districts) and elementary notions of agriculture, horticulture, and arboriculture. Instruction in these two branches will be organized in accordance with the regulations of the royal decree of April 25, 1880. The superior primary school can only be established by virtue of the same decree. It will be opened for children of at least twelve years of age who have finished the studies of the third grade of the primary school. Instruction in each of these schools will be given by one, and, if necessary, two special teachers. The superior primary schools will offer great advantages to the large rural or industrial communes which have no secondary state schools. They will continue the general education of the young, furnish preparatory training for an agricultural or professional career, and diffuse among the population, by an extension of knowledge, a taste for observation and for intellectual pleasures.

Communes which cannot organize a complete superior primary school may add to the obligatory program of the ordinary primary school one or more of the subjects of study of the superior primary school, in accordance with the regulations of the abovementioned royal decree, such studies to be pursued only by pupils of at least 12 years of age. In the interest of the scholars care will be taken that the number of studies thus added shall be as restricted as possible.

As formulated, the program of primary education, with the extensions it may receive, embraces four concentric circles gradually widening, each of which embraces all the subjects of study. These four progressive courses, the first three of which are obligatory, are characterized by being at once independent and connected, each forming a whole in itself and yet being complemented by the others. The system adopted, so eminently suited to the simultaneous development of all the faculties of a child, also has the advantage of corresponding in its first three courses to the present classification of scholars into the lower, middle, and superior divisions, and is adapted at the same time to the needs of children who leave school without having finished a full course of primary studies.

By offering all the subjects of study in each grade, according to the measure of the intellectual powers of the children, the latter are enabled to reap from their attendance at school much more solid advantages than could be gained from instruction in fragmentary courses graded in successive stages.

Instruction in morals.-The official program determines the office of the teacher as regards moral instruction, as follows:

Moral instruction is the noblest and most important work of the school, and the teacher must devote all his energies to it. He is to employ all the resources of his mind and heart in making easy to his pupils the practice of their duties to themselves, their parents, their superiors, their equals, and their country.

Instruction in duty to God belongs more especially to the different religious beliefs, but by making use of an idea common to all of them without entering on dogmatic ground the teacher can find occasion to talk to his pupils about the Deity, the soul, and those great moral and Christian truths which, to the honor of humanity, have progressively become the domain of all religious and the inheritance of all civilized nations. (Ministerial circular of July 17, 1879.)

It is principally by his administration of the school that the teacher will inculcate