E.—ls

12

as the ordinary experience of the children is widened by school visits to factories and workshops, by school walks into the country, and by the use of objects in the school museums, which are generally very good. The lessons are such as to call forth from the pupils carefully reasoned-out conclusions suited to their ages, and these are expressed clearly in natural language. The training in the schools is such as to make thoroughly intelligent workmen and citizens ; culture is not sacrificed, the training of artistic taste being a special feature in the Swiss schools ; a high and not a narrow patriotism is fostered ; there is careful attention to hygienic conditions in the schools as concerns both buildings and children ; boys and girls receive training in the laws of health, and almost everywhere an opportunity is given for girls to learn all that relates to their health and the management of homes. Arithmetic and geometry, which are apt to be treated too abstractly in British schools, are treated in a concrete manner. Handwork receives full treatment in all the primary schools, and in secondary schools of the modern type. Every calling in life followed by the people, whether it be that of a marketgardener, or a watchmaker, or postman, clerk, merchant, telegraph operator, engineer, surgeon, or civil administrator, has some school or institution in which the future citizen can receive full training, and, up to a certain point, at all events, he is compelled in most cantons to undergo such training. The Swiss people as a whole are evidently earnest in their belief that education is a most important factor in the national life. The standard of regularity of attendance in all their schools is very high indeed. For the year 1905 the ratio of the average attendance in the primarschulen (primary schools) to the number on the roll is represented by 97-2 per cent., and more than nine-tenths of the absences are " with excuse " —that is, are due to sickness or other unavoidable causes. The communes readily tax themselves for buildings and for the maintenance of their schools. The school-site is generally one of the best sites in the district, and, although the buildings are not, as a rule, pretentious, and are not so elaborate, say, as school buildings often are in America, they are always a credit to the community, and no pains are spared to bring them in all respects, from the point of view of education and hygiene, up to date. The great majority of communes, too, have readily voted for compulsory attendance at continuation or vocational schools and classes, and in many cases have provided expensive buildings for carrying on special technical or trade classes. In addition, the cantons generally give assistance towards the building of technical schools. In conversation, one soon discovers how proud the ordinary Swiss citizen is not only of the common schools, but of the higher institutions in his own and other cantons. The total number of people under instruction in Switzerland is 743,745 out of a population of 3,463,609. The figures given are for the year 1905. In other words, 21-5 per cent, of the Swiss people are at school. In New Zealand the proportion is 19-4 per cent., or 185,468 out of a population of 956,457 (1906). These figures are striking enough in themselves, but the contrast is still more marked when we inquire into the cause of the difference. In New Zealand the number receiving instruction in public schools or colleges above primary grade is 26,289, or 2-74 per cent, of the population ; in Switzerland, on the other hand, the number of such persons is 199,533, or 5-76 per cent, of the population—that is, more than twice as great a proportion as in our own country. Evidently New Zealand has a long way to go before her people reach as high a general standard of education as Switzerland.* In the totals, account has been taken in New Zealand of the number returned by the Registrar-General as attending private schools and (under Secondary Education) of those attending Maori secondary schools as Government scholars, and in Switzerland of those attending a small group of private schools partly recognised by Government; but in the case of Switzerland none of the numerous boarding-schools, used indeed to a large extent by foreigners, have been included in either the larger or smaller total. Further, the roll-numbers have been quoted, and not the average attendance. If the latter had been used, as the attendance is so good in Switzerland, the advantage in favour of that country would have appeared even higher than it is in the figures given above. Details are given in Tables Al and A 2.

*I am not unaware .that the conditions differ somewhat in Switzerland and New Zealand, and some allowance must be made for the fact that a large proportion of our pioneer population is on the outskirts of civilisation.