290 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
of institutions, namely: (1) T%e primary, or lower, schools, chiefly intended 
for the poorer classes. In these schools no foreign language is taught. 
() The intermediate, or secondary, schools, preparatory to university ednca- 
don. These schools, especially in their lower classes, have also the func- 
son of imparting the knowledge considered to be of use in practical life. 
[n the lowest class of these schools one foreign language is taught. (3) 
The universities. The intermediate schools do not form a direct con- 
Anuation of the primary schools, as is the case in the United States of 
America. In Sweden, as will be understood from what has just been 
mentioned, they have different aims. The higher classes of the primary 
school may be said to run parallel with the lower classes of the secondary. 
The question has been raised, however, of bringing the lower and secondary 
schools of our country into a closer connection, by cutting out one, two, 
or three of the lower classes of the secondary schools, and making the 
lower school preparatory to the secondary school, thus shortening up, but 
allowing it at the same time to pursue special aims in its highest classes. 
In this way the lower school would become the ‘common school ” for all 
classes of the population, as is the case in this country, and the duplica- 
;ion and overlapping of the two grades would be abolished. 
As for the result of the working of Sweden’s lower schools, it may suffice 
to mention some figures that you may verify in the exhibit of the United 
States Bureau of Education in the government building of the World’s 
Fair. The ratio of illiteracy in Sweden was in 1890 only four-tenths of 
one per cent. The lowest recorded percentage, that of Saxony, was two- 
senths of one per cent. Sweden thus ranks among the countries occupy- 
ng the best place in this respect. For the sake of comparison, I mention 
shat the ratios of illiteracy in England and France are respectively nine 
and nine and one-half per cent. 
In our primary schools coeducation of boys and girls is usual. It is 
only in some of the higher classes in larger towns that boys and girls are 
separately instructed. Teachers for these schools are trained in special 
schools called seminaries. A university education is not required of them. 
A large proportion of the teachers are women. 
The curriculum of the secondary or intermediate schools comprises nine 
years. The boys (boys only—mno girls—are admitted into these schools) 
must have turned nine years of age before entering. During the first 
shree years all the boys are instructed on the same plan. As just men- 
sioned, all the pupils are taught a foreign language from the first. This 
language is German, that being the only foreign language taught in these 
three years. At the beginning of the fourth year a bifurcation takes 
place. Some of the pupils begin to learn Latin, others English. The 
school is thus divided into a classical line and a modern line. Still, 
in all subjects other than Latin and English the instruction as a rule is 
common for the two following years. A third foreign language, French,