the school the whole year, 20 per cent. more than four months, and 15 per cent. less than four months. The explanation of this irregularity is to be sought in the poverty of the parents and the great distances between the home and the school. SCHOOL YEAR, DAYS, AND HOURS. The schools of Finland are commonly in operation from the 1st of September to the middle of June, with a vacation of 4 weeks at Christmas. The popular schools must be open at least 30 weeks a year in order to get the state aid, the average of the last year being 33 weeks. Some of the special schools fix their terms according to the seasons and other circumstances. In the day schools the work is going on 6 days a week (except in some popular schools 5 days) and 4 to 6 hours a day. THE LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION. The population of Finland being partly Finnish and partly Swedish, the schools too, as far as the language of instruction is concerned, are either Swedish or Finnish, depending on what is the mother tongue of the majority of the pupils. Occasionally both languages are used at the same school, as English and German in many schools of Ohio and other States. In the secondary schools the other mother tongue is a subject of instruction, so that the educated people generally understand and are able to speak both languages. At the university the profess ors, with two or three exceptions, lecture in Swedish. Russian is studied as a foreign language, there being only two Russian popular schools in Finland. These are situated at the eastern boundary. SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE AND FURNITURE, METHODS, ETC. School architecture has not reached any high standard, most of the school-houses being old fashioned, very inconvenient, and uncomfortable. Many of the public schools are also located in rented houses, not at all adapted to the purpose of teaching; but improvement is being made. As for school furniture, the single or double seat chairs and desks on the American plan are very commonly introduced instead of the old long benches, with or without desks of the same length. The public schools, especially those of higher grade, are, as a rule, very well equipped with apparatus of all kinds. Most if not all of the schools have their own libraries for the use of the teachers and pupils; and, although in Finland as in America there is no royal road to learning, the methods of teaching have during the last ten or fifteen years been much more rational. Oral instruction is much in use, perhaps too much. Corporal punishment is totally abolished in all secondary schools and many others, without any injury to the discipline, which is as good as in the old times when the head master was the birchen whip. TUITION FEES. Although the previously mentioned schools are public, they are not all free, small tuition fees being charged in all secondary schools and in many of the popular and special schools. Those fees amount, in popular schools, to 2 marks a year; in the Realschulen, to 12 or 24 marks; in the lyceums and ladies' schools, to 40 marks, (except in the ladies' school at Helsingfors, where the yearly fee is 80 marks;) and, in the polytechnic school, to 60 or 80 marks; but in all schools there are soine free places, nobody being excluded on account of poverty. Especially in the popular schools, only a part of the pupils pay, and in many of these schools no fees are charged. In the university and in many special schools there are no tuition fees at all. TEACHERS' SALARIES. The salaries of the teachers vary in the different schools. In the popular schools in country places the average salary at present is 1,000 marks, (about $200;) somewhat more for the gentlemen and somewhat less for the lady teachers. The teachers of the popular schools in cities receive a little more. In the secondary schools, the ordinary male teachers receive 2,800 to 4,800 marks and the ladies 1,600 to 2,400. The rector or president of the school has, besides this, 300 to 1,000 marks. The ordinary teachers of the polytechnic school are paid 4,200 to 6,000 marks and those of the teachers' seminaries 3,400 to 5,200 for males and 1,400 to 2,000 for females. At the university, ordinary professors receive 7,500 to 9,000 marks, the extraordinary professors 5,000 marks, the docentes 2,500 to 3,500 marks, and the special instructors in drawing, gymnastics, and music 3,000 marks. Besides this, the president of the university has 4,000 marks and the deans and inspectors of the faculties or nations receive 1,000 marks each. In connection with the salaries here given, it is to be recollected that the money has a much greater pur chasing power in Finland than in America. The state also pays teachers who have worked faithfully for 30 or 35 years their full salary as a yearly pension during life. In case of incurable sickness at an earlier time, a pension of smaller amount is allowed. THE SUPPORT OF THE SCHOOLS. All the public schools of Finland are either wholly or in great part supported by the state. The popular schools are really town institutions; but the state pays 600 to 900 marks to every male teacher and 400 to 600 marks to every lády teacher, depending on the time spent in school work. The ambulatory village schools are of private character and have no state aid. The towns supply the Realschulen, Sunday schools, and navigation schools, and their teachers, with rooms and fuel; but all other schools are, as a rule, wholly supported by the state. shown below, the state appropriations for school purposes amount to 2,219,628 marks, (or about $443,000, gold,) making 9.4 per cent. of all the ordinary state expenses, which in 1874 were 23,749,710 marks. Of these appropriations a small part comes back to the state in the shape of tuition fees, which in the schools wholly supported by state money do not go into the school treasury, but are paid back to the government. On the other hand, however, the amount given does not include the incidental expenses for school houses, furniture, &c. PRIVATE SCHOOLS. Besides the private schools of primary grade, the number of which is not small, there are, as far as known, the following private schools, several of which receive small subsidies from the government, viz: 4 lyceums, 33 ladies' schools, 2 schools of commerce, 2 schools of art, 1 industrial and drawing evening school at Helsingfors, and 1 school of horticulture. 50 Statistics gathered from official reports of the bureau of stalistics at Helsingfors, 1870 to 1875, inclusive. very large. *These statistics embrace neither the ambulatory village schools, of which there are several in each parish, nor the elementary private schools, the number of which is The Finnish mark is the equivalent of the French franc, about twenty cents of United States currency. |