=The Teachers.=--The training of teachers is as peculiar as the other features of the English system. Lancaster and Bell introduced the monitorial system, by which one teacher could take charge of a large school, the older pupils teaching the younger ones. This idea has been perpetuated in the "pupil teacher" scheme. Children fifteen years old are apprenticed to a school to assist in the work, and in return receive instruction and a small stipend. At eighteen or nineteen they enter the teachers' college for a two years' course. They may instead at this time take an examination for the teachers' certificate, and if successful, they are known as "assistant teachers." That the "pupil teacher" idea has lost its force is shown by the following facts: From 1876 to 1893 the increase of graduate teachers was 114 per cent, the increase of "assistant teachers" 691 per cent, while there was a decrease of 15 per cent in the number of "pupil teachers." This would seem to indicate that England is demanding better prepared teachers. The 131 teachers' colleges graduate about 1900 students each year, which is about two thirds of the number of teachers needed. Teachers' positions are practically permanent, and the salaries are good, being in 1901 an average for certificate teachers of $644 a year for men and $432 for women. Each teacher is entitled to a pension at the age of 65. This amounts to at least $330 for men who have been in the service from their twenty-first year, and $225 for women. If obliged to retire earlier on account of breakdown, the amount of pension will be proportionate to the length of service. Men teachers contribute three pounds annually and women two pounds to this fund, while the State appropriates the balance needed. When one considers the traditions that have controlled English education for centuries, and recalls the conservatism that rules English life, one can only marvel at the tremendous strides taken by England during the last third of a century. Victor Hugo says: "The English patrician order is patrician in the absolute sense of the word. No feudal system was ever more illustrious, more terrible, and more tenacious of life." England has had to overcome her patrician ideas in regard to education, and her growth in the last thirty years has been more rapid and more effectual than for a thousand years before. Although she still has many problems to solve, her recent educational enterprise places her in the front rank among the nations of the world in school matters. The law of 1903 consisted of many compromises which satisfy neither party. It will doubtless be followed by still further changes in the near future. FOOTNOTES: [179] The total enrollment in 1902 was 5,881,278, or 18.08 per cent of the population. [180] Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1896-1897, Vol. I, p. 12. CHAPTER XLV THE SCHOOL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES