REPORT OP MR. HILTON.
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No expense was spared in fitting up the different halls and separate buildings, wherein the various states of the German Empire exhibited what they had sent to Vienna, for the purpose of illustrating their educational systems. Here were really Museums of objects used in Technical or Art Schools.
It would have been a splendid thing if one of our rich men had gone over, and bought up some one of them and sent it home for the benefit of his countrymen. A perfectly feasible idea, if the rich man had only existed.
It was most surprising and interesting to note the reach of the educational facilities afforded to the people of some of the smaller states by their respective state, communal and social agencies. It was to be expected that the larger and wealthier states would have admirable arrangements. The prosperity * of these small states can be noted by almost any one, which fact may be taken as a proof, if proof be needed, of the efficacy of the judicious course pursued in the past and continued in the present.
Selecting examples at random, one may find that in the Grand Duchy of Hesse all that can be done is done for the people. The workingman has every opportunity for improvement. Education is provided for his children free of charge, and for apprentices and workmen desirous of improv- ln g themselves, there are winter schools, where book-keeping, dental arithmetic, etc., are taught, and similar schools are open in summer for women and girls.
Of the men called out to fill up vacancies in the ranks of the Hessian Division in 1870—71, out of the total of 4,542, only 14 were without a school education.
There are also the so-called "Handwerks Schulen,” or Schools of Design for Artisans. These were first started with
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a surplus of $250, wdiich remained from the receipts of the first International Exhibition in 1837 ; and two schools were started as an experiment, one with fifty pupils and another ^uth twenty-eight. These were found to answer so well, that now,.there are fifty-two such schools, with 3,000 pupils attend- ln g them. As a result, cooperative societies,—benefit clubs, Managed by the workmen themselves,—exist in considerable numbers; also savings banks, of which the artisans avail themselves more and more every year.
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