(2) Every town of more than 4,000 inhabitants, or a town of any population where a normal school or a secondary school exists, must also maintain a school or schools of the higher grade.

(3) No school having but one teacher shall contain more than 70 scholars. Where a school has more than that number for a month, the authorities must open another school in a different locality.

The Casati law required heads of families to provide for their children as much instruction as is covered by the inferior elementary course. This law not proving effective, a more stringent one was enacted in July, 1877, to take effect at the beginning of the ensuing scholastic year. The compulsory years are 7, 8, 9, but if the minimum of instruction required is not obtained in those years, then the period may be extended to 10 or even 12 years. The provisions relating to compulsion are contingent upon the provisions relating to school sup. ply. They may be formulated as follows:

(1) Children of the stipulated ages must be sent to school when living in towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants, having one school of lower grade for every 1,000 persons.

(2) They must also be sent when living in towns having a population of from 5,000 to 20,000, supporting an elementary school for every 1,200 persons.

(3) Also when living in the larger communes, maintaining a school for every 1,500 persons.

Parents have, however, the option of sending their children to private schools, or of educating them at home, provided the instruction given is equal to that of the public schools. This last fact the State by its rules in relation to teachers and instruction seeks to ascertain. The penalties for disregarding the law are pecuniary. The fine is 50 centimes (10 cents) a month for each child for absence for the first three months of the scholastic year; after that it is increased to 3 francs a month, and may be increased to 10 francs ($1.93). The school authorities are authorized to consider the reasons for noncompliance with the law, deciding whether they are sufficient or not.

At the end of the scholastic year 1886-87 the supervising authorities reported that 8,178 communes in a total of 8,257 were meeting the legal conditions of school supply. But it does not, therefore, follow that the law requiring school attendance is observed in all the communes of the Kingdom but 79. In Italy, as in other countries, the enforcement of education depends upon certain well-known conditions: The reasonableness of the compulsory provisions; the vigor of the central and local authorities; the economical condition of the people; the intellectual level, and the educational spirit of communities and individuals. Unfortunately, we have no adequate means of determining how generally the law is complied with.

According to the last census, taken in 1881, there were 3,440,000 children of legal school age, 7 to 11, inclusive. The school registers for the scholastic year 1886-87 show that 2,279,090 children of those ages were enrolled in schools of elementary instruction. This is about 68 per cent of the total number of school age, and 7.60 per cent of the

total population reported in 1881. The two dates involving the comparison are six years apart; but, it must be remembered, that population in Italy increases slowly, as measured by American standards. The same year the youth of compulsory school age were 1,808,129 in number; that is, youth between the ages of 7 and 9, both inclusive.

Some light is thrown upon the subject by certain statistics already given for another purpose. Of 2,279,090 pupils enrolled in elementary schools in the year 1886-87, only 169,709 were in the superior course. In other words, the vast majority of the pupils, as measured by their school standing, fell within the compulsory years. But while this fact helps out the ratio of the school attendance to the total number of children within the compulsory years, it still makes a bad showing for elementary education as a whole.

Competent judges tell us, what indeed we should antecedently expect, that in those communes where the conditions are most favorable the law is well executed, but that in communes where population is unstable, the people poor, ignorance dense, or education but lightly esteemed, the law is not very effective. Still more is this true in communities where two or more of these conditions exist.

"J. W. M.," writing in The Nation, gives a graphic account of life in the Sicilian sulphur mines, and particularly of the degradation of children. The following may be quoted:

Attempts have been made by benevolent citizens not interested in mining gains to better their condition. Evening schools are opened, and it is wonderful how many tired, wretched children frequent them. Mutual aid societies, for pay during illness and for burial expenses, you find here and there, but these are poultices on cancer, and nothing more. Here we want missionaries-a Mazzini, a Lloyd Garrison, Mrs. Fry, Lucretia Mott, the Rochdale pioneers-to get hold of the children-of their mothers; to stir up public opinion until, while the "sacred rights of property" are respected, the sacred rights of humanity shall not be openly, flagrantly, brutally violated. Here, indeed, the young men who spout at clubs and twaddle in newspapers might find a grand field for labor; find an "ideal" which they complain is wanting to their generation. Communal, provincial, State authorities are called upon by these "reformers" to mend all; but they can do next to nothing until the mining populations combine to will an altered state of things-not by partial, useless, and lawless strikes, seeing they save not a farthing for the time when they are out of work, but by bringing their wants and wills, their sufferings and their wrongs, to bear on the absentee proprietors and the sweaters, etc. The time will come, is coming; but now one can only exclaim, with wrung heart and harrowed soul, "How long, oh Italy! how long!"

NORMAL SCHOOLS.1

In 1887-88 there were in Italy 134 normal schools-36 for male and 98 for female students. These schools may be classified both with respect to their support and management and their degree or rank.

Divided in the first way, 82 are Government schools and 21 equal to Government schools (pareggiate). Of the latter, 15 are provincial schools, 4 communal, 1 endowed, and 1 private. The 8 other normal

1In 1891-92 there were 149 normal schools-36 inferior, 113 superior, or 24 for men and 125 for women. Students numbered 18,029 (men, 2,135; women, 15,898).

schools are described as not equal to the Government schools (nonpareggiate); 4 of these being supported by provinces, 2 by communes, and 9 by endowments, while 16 are private. These nonequal schools arrange their own courses of study.

The 134 schools are also divided as superior and inferior. The first class consists of 108 schools-28 for males and 80 for females; the second class of 26 schools-8 for males and 18 for females. The superior schools cover six years of instruction-three preparatory and three normal; the inferior, five years of instruction-three preparatory and two normal. The studies are the same in both courses, but differ in quantity and somewhat in distribution, the main difference being in the normal instruction proper.

Time-table of the classes of the superior normal schools.

The total is 166 hours, of which 116 are given to instruction, and 50 to practical lessons.

In the boys' schools lessons in drawing, manual labor, and agricul ture take the place of the lessons in domestic economy. Schools for practice work are found in connection with the normal schools. Candidates for admission to the normal grades, if males, must be 16 years. of age; if female, 15 years. They are subjected to a preliminary examination, oral and written, in grammar, arithmetic, the catechism, and Bible history. They must also present certificates of moral character and physical health.

Normal schools and normal school pupils, 1886-87.

Fifty-eight of the 69 provinces contain one or more normal schools. each; 21 contain 2 or more, while 6 have 3. To the support of these schools the State, in 1889, contributed 1,813,000 lire, the provinces 632,000, making a total of 2,445,000 lire. (8671,885).

All the tests show that the normal schools have made satisfactory

It will be seen that the girls have increased much more rapidly than the boys. This fact has an important bearing upon the relative number of the sexes employed as teachers, to which topic attention has been drawn in another place."

The Government schools have also increased more rapidly than the non-Government. In 1871-72 there were 59 of the first to 56 of the second; in 1887-88 the ratio was 83 to 54. In 1882 there were 5,440 pupils in the Government schools and 3,325 in the non-Government schools; in 1887 the ratio was 7,808 to 3,252.

The qualifications of teachers, supposing the examination tests to have remained the same, have also been steadily improving. If, as is probable, the tests have become more severe, the improvement has been still more marked.

19.3 cents to the lira.

Elaborate regulations for normal schools of gymnastics were issued in 1890. The programme of the school for men embraces the theory of gymnastics, the novitiate and school of command, practical gymnas tics, military exercises, anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, the peda gogy and history of gymnastics, drawing and choral singing. The programme for women includes the same subject matter, with the exception of military exercises and drawing.

SECONDARY CLASSICAL SCHOOLS.

Gymnasiums and lyceums (ginnasi and licei).-The full period of secondary classical instruction is eight years, five in the gymnasium (ginnasio) and three in the lyceum (liceo). The gymnasium is again divided into an inferior course of three years and a superior one of two years. Only boys are admitted to these schools. The gymnasium receives them from the elementary school, and they pass from the gymnasium to the lyceum.

Some of the gymnasiums and lyceums belong to the Government and some do not, and those that do not are divided into the pareggiate and the nonpareggiate, or those that are equal and those that are not equal to the Government schools. The pareggiate are divided into the communal and the endowed; the nonpareggiate into the communal, the endowed, the episcopal, and the private. The following table shows the status of the gymnasiums and lyceums in respect to rank and maintenance in 1887. It should be premised, however, that the provision of secondary schools and attendance upon them are wholly optional. The only compulsory education in Italy is that given in the inferior elementary course.