THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

339

Yearly examinations are held during these four years. At the end oh their apprentice­ship they are examined by the government inspector for admission to the Normal schools. If successful in passing, the candidates receive a further course of instruction in the schools named, continuing over two years, which includes school management and other subjects, and after their final examination they are available for a situation as assistant teachers in board or other schools.

Of endowed schools there were a considerable number in Glasgow previous to 1882. But as these had chiefly been founded by private benefactors in order to pro­vide for the education of poor children, under various conditions specified by the founders, and as the institution of the school board had made the existence of these unnecessary, an act of parliament was passed in 1882, entitled the Educational Endow­ments (Scotland) Act, appointing commissioners to review all these foundations, and to make arrangements for the alteration or abolition of many of the schools, and the application of most of the money bequeathed to them to the purposes of education in the shape of bursaries and scholarships. One large bequest, however, remained, that under the Hutchesons’ “Trust,” which was too large to be abolished, and for it the commissioners formulated a new scheme, appointing a board of governesses, to be elected by various public bodies, and making regulations for the continued existence of two schools, one for boys and one for girls. They also fixed the amount of the fees to be charged, and the subjects to be taught, and made provision for the remission of the very moderate fees in the case of two hundred “foundationers,” and for the maintenance and the clothing of a few of them, besides offering a number of free scholarships and bursaries for secondary and higher education to be held in the schools; also for some bursaries for university and higher education in other institutions. The staff of the girls’ school consists of a head master and twelve men and fifteen women teachers, and the organization comprises a preparatory school and a higher school. A girl can enter the preparatory school at the age of seven, and can continue her edu­cation after passing from it to the higher school until the age of eighteen or nineteen. The course of instruction begins at the stage that corresponds with the school board’s “ standard two,” extends over nine years, and is divided into two parts of almost equal duration, the plan of study for the first five years being divided with a view to laying a solid basis for the higher work which the school makes its special province. Besides the usual branches of an English education a special study is made of modern lan­guages, a three years’ course of oral instruction in French, and a two years’ course in German, given in the preparatory school, followed up by further continuous study of both in the higher school, and mathematics, drawing and science also receive special attention. The pupils of the higher classes are prepared for the government Leaving Certificate, and those who intend to adopt teaching as their profession have, if they so desire, opportunities of becoming acquainted with the organization of the whole school, and of handling various classes under the criticism and guidance of the head master. The yearly fees range from twelve dollars and fifty cents in the lowest class of the pre­paratory school to forty dollars in the first or students’ class of the higher school; but after the bursary system was established fee-payers in the higher class became grad­ually fewer, until now the two highest classes contain none but scholars and bursars.

Private or proprietary schools are numerous in Glasgow and of considerable vari­ety as to grades of instruction and fees, some being for kindergarten work and young children only, others carrying their pupils up to preparation for university classes. These are much more expensive than the public schools, and much smaller, but they are preferred by some parents as giving more attention to manners and individual training than it is possible to expect in a large public school. Some of them have a master at the head of the school, others a mistress; there is generally a staff of visit­ing teachers, chiefly masters, and a staff of governesses, who remain during the whole of the school day. There is, however, especially one exception in Glasgow to this general rule, viz., a girls’ school worked by a company of shareholders, many of whom are parents of the pupils being educated there. This school is taught entirely by ladies.