=National Systems of Education in Europe and Canada.=--In previous chapters (XVII, XXI, XXIII) we have witnessed the gradual evolution in America of state systems of universal education out of the unorganized and rather aristocratic arrangement of schools that had first been transplanted from Europe in the seventeenth century. But development of a centralized organization of public schools has not been confined to the United States. During the past century and a half, the leading powers of Western Europe and Canada have likewise organized state systems of education, similar in some respects to those of the American union. All of these states have now established universal elementary education free to all, although as yet in few instances are secondary schools also gratuitous, and only Canada has welded her elementary and secondary systems. France alone has completely secularized its system, but the public schools of the other nations, while still including religious instruction, have been emancipated from ecclesiastical control, and are responsible to the civil authorities. In all of them school attendance is compulsory. Yet the educational system in none of these countries is identical with that in the United States, but has been adapted in each case to the genius and social organization of the people concerned. Its characteristics must, therefore, be considerably modified, in order to be utilized or to prove suggestive to the United States or other nations, and can be understood only in the light of the educational history of the particular country to which it belongs. For an intelligent appreciation of these modern school systems, we must, therefore, trace the gradual development to their present form in response to the changing ideals of successive periods. [Sidenote: Rise of Prussian education due to enlightened despots:] [Sidenote: (1) Decree for compulsory attendance by Frederick William I in 1717;]