Report of the Commissioner of Education Made to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year ... with Accompanying Papers

DIPLOMAS OF SECONDARY CLASSICAL INSTRUCTION.

The diploma of the fifth elementary year is necessary to be admitted to the inferior "ginnasi."

The diploma of the third year inferior "ginnasi" is necessary to be admitted to the superior "ginnasi.”

The diploma of the second year superior "ginnasi" is necessary to be admitted to the "licei."

The diploma of the third year "licei" is necessary to be admitted to the "universities.”

The diploma of the third year "licei" is necessary to be admitted to the superior special schools.

PROGRAMME OF TECHNICAL SCHOOLS AND INSTITUTES.

Technical School (3 years).-Italian language; geography, descriptive and political; French; arithmetic; geometry; commercial studies, bookkeeping, handwriting, natural sciences, drawing.

Technical Institute (2 years).-Physics, mathematics (first section); agronomy (second section); surveying (third section); commercial studies and bookkeeping (fourth section); industrial and technical branches (fifth section).

DIPLOMA FOR SECONDARY TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION.

The diploma of the fifth elementary year is necessary to be admitted to the technical schools.

The diploma of the third technical year of the school is necessary to be admitted to technical institutes.

The diploma of the second institute year (either section) admits to Institute of Forestry, to first course in physics and mathematics, to the university, and for the diploma of civil engineering.

Generally called the "licenza ginnasiale" and the "licenza liceale."

SECONDARY CLASSICAL AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION. (a).

a The "Annuario Statistico," dated September, 1892, gives the following as the latest figures: "Ginnasi," 723; pupils, 54,232. "Licei," 315; pupils, 14,003. Total, 68,225. Technical schools, 393; pupils, 32,256. Technical institutes, 73; pupils, 10,283. Total, 42,539. Total for secondary classical technical instruction, 108,764.

b Supported by the communes, by corporations, or by private individuals.

There is one special superior normal school at Pisa, and there are 134 normal schools in Italy for males and females, distributed in as many cities. Their object is to prepare teachers for primary elementary instruction.

The position of professor in secondary instruction (technical schools and institutes) is subject to competition among those who can exhibit a diploma of one of the Italian universities, or of a school, institute, or academy for special superior study. This subject will be properly treated under special and superior instruction; but it may be stated that of the total number of the 134 normal schools for both sexes, 26 rank as "inferior" and 108 as "superior;" 36 are for men and 98 for women. According to that proportion, the total number of pupils is divided as follows: Men, 1,414; women, 9,646; making a total for 1890 of 11,060 to 6,130 in 1871, with 1,392 teachers. Thress of normal instruction Taly may be noted from the above s

er cent of the

the women

Women have equal
When they wish to

under the old system of public education in Italy.
access to elementary, day, and Sunday schools.
perfect their elementary education, the normal school is the only insti-
tution to which they can apply for that purpose. The result is that
while the normal schools offer to many girl pupils the desired occasion
to complete their elementary education, the importance and normal
character of the school itself becomes lowered.

In the special parliamentary debates, it was assumed that the only official schools for female normal education were the two special normal institutes or "magisteria" for women in Florence and Rome, and the nine special superior female educational institutes (educatorii) of Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Montagnana, and Verona. Of the 98 regular normal schools in the most populous towns throughout Italy many fill to-day the place of the much-needed complementary school of elementary education. They answer more the purpose of general female culture than that of normal training, for which they were created.

Under such favorable circumstances the culture of Italian women, as noted in the attendance at the normal schools, has progressed everywhere. The pedagogic direction of the kintergärten, of the Sunday schools, as well as of the inferior classes of the elementary schools is now entrusted to female teachers with satisfactory results. Quite lately a group of the most distinguished and well educated women, well known in literature, have undertaken, by means of lectures and the press, to secure such a law as will afford women the same treatment as is accorded to male pupils. Public opinion in Italy is favorably disposed to the idea. "That a sister in a household," according to a recent plea for coeducation, "should be educated as their brother is educated; that the mother should have the power, by reason of her own serious thought on literature, history, art, and the varied ennobling instrumentalities of life, to guide and train the thought power of her children; that the wife should be on an intellectual plane with her husband, ever stimulating and inspiring him by thinking and never giving him opportunity to depreciate, or to seem to depreciate, her mental capacity in comparison with his own."

In addition to the above there are six normal literary schools (universities) and five normal scientific schools (universities)-Naples, Padua, Palermo, Pavia, Rome,

in.

་

a Later statistics (Annuario Statistico, September, 1892), bring this number to 12,856.

V.-SUPERIOR AND SPECIAL STUDIES.

Persistence in the adoption of that class of studies called superior and special indicates intellectual power in a nation and its inclination. toward solving those problems which are of benefit to mankind. It also shows what are the characteristic qualities of nations and the degree of influence they exercise in the progress of human thought. The tendency of a nation toward the highest education, whether in literature, philosophy, or science, can only be measured by looking into her historical tradition, that sacred treasure handed down from one generation of thinkers to another, for every generation adds the products of its own studies and experience to the national intellectual treasure. Owing to traditional Roman culture Italy could, in the mediæval period of the glorious republics of Genoa, Venice, Amalfi, and Florence, open a new civilization, while many nations had scarcely emerged from barbarism. During the "Rinascimento" she gave to the world philosophers, astronomers, navigators, artists, historiaus, etc., of immortal fame The spirit that animated the celebrated school of Salerno, the classic "Studio of Bologna," and all her traditional schools of art and science, which seemed to be lost during three centuries of national disorganization, are now revived; and the revival is evinced by the elevated programme of studies adopted for the Italian universities and academies, also by the large number of athenæums and superior special schools which have been inaugurated in the principal cities during this generation.

They represent the tradition of the Latin race for high and special culture, and explain at the same time the tendency of modern Italy in that direction. The programme of study of the Italian universities and superior institutes is to-day as high as that of any other European university, and in several branches, such as legal jurisprudence and moral and economic social sciences, Italy holds a prominent place. It is her glory to have adopted, within the generation following her national resurrection, a code in which capital punishment finds no place and where criminality is treated on the scientific basis of pathological sociology. This new conquest of the human mind, connected with biology, anthropology, physiology, and psychology, has in Italy specialists of international reputation, such as Prof. Lombroso and others well known. Sociology is already taught in ten universities and several autonomous Italian academies.

AGRICULTURE.

Agricultural instruction is now being imparted in Italy as follows: In higher elementary schools; in normal schools for males; in ambulatory schools for elementary teachers; and more particularly in 135 institutions founded since 1870, showing the progress made by the country in one generation, viz:

One superior normal school (Pisa); 2 special scientific superior schools (Milan, Portici); 6 academies of agriculture (Turin, Milan, Florence (Georgofili), Fermo, Lecce, and Pesaro); 1 forestry institute (Vallombrosa); 14 agrarian stations; 1 institute for the advancement of agricul ture (Naples); 10 special normal schools; 25 farming schools (a law of 1887 ordering the foundation of such schools in each of the sixty-nine provinces of Italy); 75 technical institutes (sections of agriculture and surveying). At the present day skilled agriculture is recognized in various countries as an element tending to national prosperity.

This has been felt by the Italian nation, and undoubted signs of a revival are already noticeable throughout the country.

The Italian Government, having opened thirteen deposits of agricultural implements for free public use in 1870 (increased to forty-eight in 1890), the importation from England, Germany, the United States, and France of a great amount of machinery was a natural consequence; and furthermore, international exhibitions having served as a precedent, national and local agricultural conventions and exhibitions were annually organized in the most productive districts. Scientific agriculture as taught in the special industrial schools and superior institutes is already productive of national results, in machinery and implements, with a constant tendency to increase, and is expected in time to replace importations.

There are in Italy (1890) about 2,000,000 hectares of uncultivated land good for agricultural purposes, besides the special immense mountain tracts reserved for the pasture of cattle and sheep, and 353,709 hectares (ex-Neapolitan feudal and ademprivi Sardinian lands) destined for agriculture and colonization.

SCHOOLS IN WHICH AGRICULTURE IS TAUGHT.

Date of foun

dation.

Profes-
sors.

Pupils.

1870

Pisa, Superior Agrarian School (University), (1 cabinet chemistry, 1 cabinet
cryptogamy, 1 cabinet Agricultural and Rural Economy).

1870

Milan, 1 superior special scientifle school..