lie and private schools eight days before the opening of the terms. When a child leaves school, notice must be given to the mayor, with an indication of the provision to be made for its future instruction. In case of temporary absence, explanation of the cause must be given to the teacher, who is required to keep a register of attendance and make a monthly report of absences, with the causes, to the mayor and the primary inspector. Excuses for absence have to be submitted to the commission, and only sickness, death in the family, and accidental interruption of communication are to be regarded as legitimate. Other exceptional circumstances may be accepted at the discretion of the commission. This requirement applies to directors of private as well as public schools, and any disregard of it is reported to the departmental council, which has the power to impose penalties, including suspension for three months. If a child is absent as much as half a day four times in a single month, without an excuse satisfactory to the commission, the parent or guardian may be summoned, and, in default of satisfactory explanation or amends, may be subject to the penalty of having his name and offense publicly posted. Repetition of the offense may be brought to the attention of a justice of the peace, and dealt with under the penal code. The commission is allowed to grant leaves of absence in certain cases, not exceeding three months in the year, and subject to the approval of the inspector if exceeding fifteen days at one time. Attendance in part may also be dispensed with on the approval of the departmental council, in the case of children employed in industries or entered as apprentices. Children who receive instruction at home must submit to a public examination each year upon subjects corresponding to those taught to children of their age in the public schools. The jury of examination consists of the primary inspector or his delegate, a delegate of the canton, and one person qualified by a diploma of the university or a certificate of capacity. The judges are chosen by the inspector of the academy. In the examination of girls, the person holding a certificate of capacity must be a woman. If the examination of any child is unsatisfactory, the parent or guardian is required to send it to a public or private school, notifying the mayor of his choice. The school fund instituted by the law of 1867 is established in each commune.

GROUNDS OF OPPOSITION.—Opposition to this law, both when it was pending in the Chambers and after its adoption, was based on the features which make instruction wholly secular, and which make it obligatory. It was argued by the Clergy and by Catholics generally that moral instruction must necessarily be religious. An amendment proposed by M. Jules Simon, in the Senate, that teachers should instruct their pupils in their duty toward God and their country, was the subject of protracted debate on this point. The provision in regard to re

ligious instruction outside of the school was regarded as far more rigid than that of the Belgian law of 1879. This allows religious instruction by ministers of the different forms of worship in the school-houses themselves before or after school-hours. The French law simply allows one day in the week which may be devoted to religious teaching outside of the school, at the option of parents. In other words, religious instruction is excluded from the schools, and relegated to the home or the Church. M. Waddington attempted without avail to secure an amendment which would allow ministers of religion to use the schoolhouses for instruction, on Sunday and other days, when there were no school sessions. The principle adhered to was that of a strictly secular use of the funds and appliances of primary education.

The compulsory clause of the law of March 28, 1882, is also specially objectionable to Catholics in France. According to a statement of M. Chesnelong, in 28,000 communes of France, having less than 2,000 inhabitants each, there are none of what are called "free schools" at all, and can be none on account of the general poverty of the people. Compulsory education, therefore, means compulsory attendance upon public schools of the state.

LAW IN BELGIUM.-In Belgium, on the contrary, education is not made obligatory, and nearly everywhere there are the free private schools in close proximity with those of the state. The parent generally has his choice between the two. In Belgium provision is made that instructors in the public schools shall be prepared in the normal schools of the state. In France there is no similar provision. In point of fact the teachers come very largely from the various religious " congregations." The law of January 22, 1881, in regard to primary normal schools, does not forbid religious instruction, but makes special provision for it. But when these teachers assume their functions in the primary schools, they are practically debarred from any inculcation of religious ideas, and this is a cause of complaint on the part of Catholics, especially as in the poorer communes they have no choice but the public schools, and are obliged to send their children to some school. In Belgium the school committees are appointed by the Minister of Public Instruction, and no regard is paid to the wishes of the communal authorities, and priests are not invited to serve. In France the commissions are constituted mainly by the communal councils, and priests are often selected. This has given special significance to the attitude of the Church toward the schools. It has been the policy of the ecclesiastical authorities to encourage the entrance of priests into the school commissions in those localities where there is a lack of the "free schools." In many cases special instructors have been engaged to look after the religious culture of children outside of the schools, in strict ac

cordance with the law. In a circular, dated April 25th, Cardinal Donnet, the venerable Archbishop of Bordeaux, said the masters would do nothing contrary to the new law by meeting the scholars in the morning, before the hour for opening the school, for prayer and study of the catechism in a private room outside the school proper; and, where that was impracticable, he authorized the use of the church for the purpose. In Belgium the ecclesiastical authorities have held an attitude of discouragement to the secular public schools, even withholding the sacraments from those taking part in their management and instruction, or resorting to them for education. The different action shown by the Church in France is due to the obligatory features of the law, from which there is no escape without conflict with the state, and the lack of school facilities other than those provided by the state in most of the poorer and more sparsely peopled communes.

QUESTION IN SWITZERLAND.-An interesting and important question has been brought up in Switzerland by an effort to transfer the charge of public education from the local authorities to the Federal Government. By the elections of October, 1881, a considerable radical majority was returned to the Federal Assembly, and on June 14, 1882, the following decree was adopted by the two Houses, the National Council and the Council of the States: The Federal Council is charged to proceed immediately, through the Department of the Interior, to such investigation and study in regard to the situation of the schools in the cantons, as is necessary to assure the complete execution of Article XXVII of the Federal Constitution, and to authorize legislation on the subject. To place the department in a satisfactory position for this task, it is allowed a special secretary (Secretary of Public Instruction), with an annual compensation limited to 6,000 francs. His functions shall be determined by a special regulation of the Federal Council. This proposition occasioned a good deal of discussion, and met with warm opposition. As one result of school management in the cantons through the local authorities, the sentiment of the people in regard to religious instruction had been very generally satisfied. The provisions of Article XXVII of the Federal Constitution are the following: "The cantons provide for primary education, which shall be sufficient, and placed exclusively under the direction of the civil authority. It is obligatory, and in public schools gratuitous. The public schools may be attended by adherents of all confessions, without suffering in any way in their liberty of conscience or belief. The Confederation will take the necessary measures against the cantons which do not fulfill these obligations." This was claimed as a guarantee of religious freedom in the management of schools, and, as in most of the cantons there was a large preponderance of Catholics, the schools under local manage

ment partook largely of a religious character. This fact has been regarded as the motive for the attempt to transfer the control to Federal authority under a Secretary of Public Instruction in the Department of the Interior. The decree for an investigation, etc., was justified by its advocates under the last clause of the article quoted above, on the ground that the cantons failed to fulfill their obligation to place the direction of primary instruction under the civil authority exclusively. It was, in fact, or at least was claimed to be, largely in the hands of the Church. The proposition of the Federal Council met with strong opposition, and it was urged that the public education was made by the Constitution a local affair of the cantons, and the Federal authority had no right or power to intervene, to deprive them of its control. The actual programme of the administration was indicated in a document issued by Councilor Schenk, of the Interior Department. His views were presented under six heads: 1. Interdiction of public schools based on religious confession. 2. Interdiction of public instruction by the religious communities. 3. A prohibition of confiding the inspection of schools to ecclesiastics. 4. A project for placing private schools under the regulation of the state. 5. Giving the state full authority in the control of education, but not clearly defining the line between Federal and cantonal authority as representing the state. 6. Establishing religious instruction, rather historical than dogmatic, at the option of the cantons, but apart from the regular hours and exercises of the schools. This programme excited the strenuous opposition of the Church, and of those jealous of a centralization of the powers of state in the Federal Council.

Under the Swiss Constitution a law proposed by the Federal Assembly must be submitted to a vote of the people provided 30,000 citizens, or eight cantons, make the demand. This process is known as the Referendum, and more than 200,000 signatures were affixed to the demand for a vote on the decree of June 14th. This number was unparalleled in the annals of the Constitution. Several of the cantonal governments also joined in the demand, and a warm canvass was conducted on this question. The vote was taken on the 26th of November, and resulted in the rejection of the decree of the Assembly by 307,352 to 167,221.

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EGYPT, a principality, tributary to the Sublime Porte, which attained a semi-independence under Mehemet Ali, appointed Turkish Governor in 1806, who made himself master of the country by force of arms. grandson Ismail, who succeeded as Vali, or Viceroy, in 1863, obtained further concessions from the Porte, including the right to bear the title of Khidiv-el-Misr, Persian-Arabic for King of Egypt, and the adoption of the Salic law of succession. Ismail involved the country in financial embarrassments in his desire to introduce European civilization and develop