schools.

Every municipal or rural community is compelled to maintain one or
more primary schools sufficient, as regards size and the number of the
staff, to educate all the children in the district. The establishment
of higher primary schools is voluntary, and that so many of them are
in existence is ample proof that the benefit of higher education is
fully appreciated in Japan. Instruction in all the schools is
practically free. No fee may be charged save with the consent of the
local governor, and when one is imposed it must not exceed the
equivalent of 5d. per month in a town school and half that sum in a
rural school.

As regards secondary education, it is compulsory for one school to be
established in each of the forty-seven prefectures into which Japan is
divided. The course of study at the secondary schools extends over
five years, with an optional supplementary course limited to twelve
months. The curriculum of the secondary school embraces morals, the
Japanese and Chinese languages, one foreign language, history and
geography, mathematics, natural history, physics and chemistry, the
elements of law and political economy, drawing, singing, gymnastics,
and drills. The course of study is uniform in all Japanese schools.
Candidates for admission to the secondary schools must be over 12
years of age, and have completed the second year's course of the
higher primary school. There are about three hundred of the secondary
schools in existence--a number, as will be seen, six times as large as
that obliged to be established by law. The pupils number over a
hundred thousand and the cost approximates L500,000.

There are also 170 high schools for girls besides normal schools in
each prefecture designed to train teachers for the primary and
secondary schools. The course of study in these schools is for men
four years, for women three years. The whole of the pupils' expenses,
including the cost of their board and lodging, is paid out of local
funds. There are also higher normal schools designed to train teachers
for the ordinary normal schools. It will thus be seen that there is a
systematic course of education for what I may term the common people
in Japan, extending from the higher normal to the ordinary primary
school.

There are besides in Japan higher schools, the object of which is to
prepare young men for a University education. The expense of these
schools is entirely borne by the State. Japan prides herself,