As the clocks struck eight one Monday late in August the big gates to the school grounds swung open. With a shout waiting boys ran through one gate to a playground which they had not seen for several weeks. Crowds of girls ran through a gate to another playground on the other side of that same schoolhouse. That August day was the first day of school for girls and boys in nearly every city and town in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Girls and boys who live in those countries do not have such long summer vacations as have American girls and boys. Many of them go to school until the first of July and come back to school again in the last week of August. They go to school more days each week, too, than do American children. They go to school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They start to school each morning after a very early breakfast. In winter all the children of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark must dress and eat their breakfast by electric lights, and go along the streets to school while the street lights are still burning. Of course, those girls and boys in the far northern part of Norway and Sweden work by electric light in their classrooms all the winter days. [Illustration: THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL] With such an early breakfast, the pupils are hungry by the middle of the morning. They are given a lunch time around ten thirty or eleven o’clock each day. Many girls and boys eat a lunch at the schoolhouse, but others go home for a lunch which they call “breakfast” even though they had eaten an earlier meal. The younger pupils go home from school about one o’clock and the older pupils leave school each day about three o’clock. [Illustration: SWEDISH BOYS IN SCHOOL] Schoolhouses in the lands far to the north look much like American schoolhouses. Of course all the schoolhouses in those countries do not look alike any more than do the school buildings in America. 1. AT SCHOOL IN NORWAY Harold lives in Oslo, Norway. He is in the third grade. All the pupils in his room are boys and the teacher is a man. The first day of school was a busy one for Harold. When the boys were in the room the teacher said, “Write your name on the paper which I shall give you.” Harold wrote his name in clear letters. After the teacher got the names of all the boys he said, “Now I shall tell you what lessons you will have each day. You may write them down on a time plan.” Harold and his classmates knew what a “time plan” is. The storekeepers in the bookstores had given them pretty picture cards with blank places on them where the pupils could write the names of the subjects and the time at which each would recite. So when the teacher told them the lessons they would have each day they wrote them on their time plans. Harold’s time plan looked like the one shown here.