girls did best in the drill, had kept no exact observations on the point.

Then followed dance movements accompanied by singing, and some pretty and attractive movements with large rings.

All this work was extremely good; in fact it was but little removed from the excellence of the annual display at the Albert Hall given by the London School Board; and was much beyond the ordinary class work of the majority of our schools.

There is little hostility to apparatus for girls. This drill-hall contained three ladders-horizontal, vertical, and oblique-six vertical bars and horizontal bars. Ten girls could thus be employed at once, the remaining girls awaiting their turn. The girls seemed to me more mature and stronger, age for age, than the girls in London Board Schools, and, though there was little grace of movement in the gymnastics, there was much of robust, if somewhat rude vigour. It must be remembered, however, that climbing up a pole or going hand over hand up a ladder is not likely to be graceful unless done with perfect ease, which it would have been ridiculous to expect.

One great point of interest lies in the German attitude towards fixed apparatus. The question of physical education for girls has received very careful attention in England as well as in Germany; but we have, so far, deliberately excluded apparatus from primary schools. Is this difference due to a difference in ideal? I think not. Does it depend on a different estimate of the facts, or are the facts different? I am afraid that I can do no more

than direct attention to the questions. In this case as in education generally, we have in this country no body of evidence as to growth and development to which we can make appeal, quantitative experiment under exact conditions being almost entirely lacking.

Berlin. Primary School.

The drill-hall was used first by the highest class girls.

Thirty-two were arranged in fours on the circumference of a circle. They went through some very complex movements in a precise manner, which, however, suggested that frequent repetition had tended to boredom. The teacher counted and gave directions which were quite unnecessary, as it was obvious that the movements, which were few, had been done so often that the girls could go through them with no instructions whatever. There was a very pleasant absence of stamping.

The hall was then occupied by the first class boys, who marched both in and out singing a patriotic song.

Their drill movements were excellent and quiet, though there was more noise of feet than with the girls, and they marched with a rather accentuated lift of the leg. The teacher was calm, and gave his orders in a low, clear tone; and the boys listened with obvious attention to commands which were by no means short and simple, and carried them out without a fault.

School Games in Germany

The importance of games in school life is receiving year by year increased recognition in Germany, and the reproach so often levelled at the German schoolboy, that he is physically inert and incapable, if ever it were applicable, is becoming less and less so. The rector of a higher modern school in the suburbs of Hamburg took me with pride to the great playing field attached to his school, where a football match was in progress. I rejoiced to think that here, at any rate, the English schoolboy was not behind.

Frankfort.-Swimming

At this time of the year, summer, the boys spend three half-hours per week at the bath. Each visit takes an hour of school time.

The boys looked well when stripped; there were no signs of the spectacled degeneration which popular literature ascribes to the German boy.

Teachers of the school do not teach swimming, though they accompany the boys to the bath. The teaching is done by the bath attendants.

The Municipality pays 16,000 marks annually for the use of these swimming baths, which are floating on the river Main.

School Baths

In one boys' school in the suburbs of Hamburg I saw baths in connection with the school and forming part of the school buildings. A trough, with an

arrangement for shower baths fixed above, and supplied with both hot and cold water, sufficed for the accommodation of thirty boys at a time. Bathing time came once a week, was not compulsory except to dirty children, but was very largely in demand. A total of twenty-five minutes was occupied from start to finish, and no allowance was made for this reduction of time to other subjects. The head teacher informed me that this school bath was the only one in Hamburg, was very expensive, that it was built as an experiment, and that results would be expected in improved physique.

No periodical weighings and measurings were made, so that the basis for such judgments was not provided.

It is perhaps unwise to expect much, either of good or harm, from one bath a week; but it is interesting to see that the German expects his educational experiments to justify themselves by results.

CHAPTER XIX

SINGING

Leipsic.-Primary School. Class VI.b. Forty-seven children, eight and nine years of age.

I was asked to see this class; the discipline was truly excellent and the teacher admirable. The work probably represents for children of this age the highest level attainable by a staff method. For my benefit the lesson was to be reading notes from the staff. The staff was drawn on the blackboard.

1 3 5 8

Then the usual procedure of question and answer began.

Teacher. What is this?

Pupil. That is a "tone-ladder."

Teacher. What does it consist of?

Pupil. It consists of lines.

Teacher. How many lines has it?

Pupil. It has five lines.

Teacher. Where do we write the notes ?

Pupil. We write the notes on the lines and in the

spaces.