J2 
Elementary Schools. 
especially in sparsely populated districts. While, according to the 
latest Prussian statistics, of 1901, the number of children that had to 
be excluded from attendance or account of overcrowding of the 
schools, amounted to only 2735 (in 1891 to 3239); 214289 children, 
of whom 190159 in country districts, had to go a distance from the 
school of more than 2!/, km. (about 11/, Engl. miles). 
The demands made by the Elementary School on the bodily 
and mental capabilities both of pupils and teachers, are 
generally severe ones in Germany. The number of yearly school- 
days is here perhaps higher than in any other civilised country. 
Che week has six working-days, and the number of weekly hours, at 
least in the upper classes, not infrequently amounts to more than 
thirty. The holidays, with differences in the time of occurrence and 
extent in the various States and districts, amount altogether to at most 
twelve weeks, thus leaving, when a few occasional holidays are 
deducted, a total of about 230 to 240 yearly working days. The holi- 
days coincide with the great church festivals, Christmas, Easter, and 
Whitsuntide, and usually form, besides. two special groups, in summer 
and in winter. 
The aims of the teaching, prescribed in the curricula of the 
elementary schools. require, for their realisation, the full time of the 
compulsory age and the regular attendance of the pupils. But they 
also presuppose diligence, conscientious performance of duty, and 
earnestness on the part both of teachers and scholars. Those pupils, 
however, who fail in these respects, are corrected bv rigorous 
discipline. 
[t is hardly ever possible to present the results of the school 
ceaching in an exact statistical form. Nor can it usually be 
lefinitely shown what part in the forming of the pupils character 
and in his later success in life is attributable to his natural dis- 
position, to home training, or to the influence of the school. Yet a 
comparatively satisfactory standard, by which the activity of the 
elementary school may be gauged is afforded by the spread of 
the simplest elements of school education, reading and writing, 
among the grown-up population of a country. For a considerable 
aumber of years, those liable to military service in Germany have 
oeen tested as to their school training. The results of the latest of 
these tests, for the year 1901, in the German Empire, are presented 
in the following Table, showing a gratifying advance in this respect, 
as compared with those of the vears 1881 and 1891. These fioures