It is somewhat difficult to define the limits and scope of the continuation or Fortbildungsschulen. Conditions vary in the different German states and especially do they vary in the various kinds of continuation schools. Definition is made even more doubtful when we find that the limits of certain schools overlap. It may be said that students are regularly admitted from fourteen to sixteen years of age. Not infrequently however, boys and men of more mature years take advantage of the courses offered. Instruction is carried on during the week-day evenings from six to eight o’clock and on Sunday mornings. Prussia leads the other states in the number and character of her supplementary schools, the system having its fullest expression in Berlin. The fact became early apparent that preparation, whatever line the boy was to follow, was necessary, and this thought is confirmed in the many skilled laborers in Germany to-day. In Prussia, as elsewhere, it was found that boys many times left the common school before they became proficient in any line of book work. The causes were various; poverty, indifference, sickness, overcrowding, poor enforcement of the compulsory attendance laws,--all these conspired to make supplementary schools necessary. In the older provinces very little attention was given the continuation school prior to 1875, and almost as much could be said of those provinces which were acquired in 1866. In 1844 a report issued by the Department of Public Instruction makes mention of the usefulness of such schools, while two years later a second report has only slightly more to say on the subject. This lack of interest may be attributed in large measure to the non-financial support of these schools by the government. Several problems had to be faced in working out the scheme. Certain definite relations between the primary and continuation schools must be observed; those coming into the latter with an inadequate underschool knowledge must be looked after; provision must be made for students of lesser as well as of more mature years; all classes of occupation must be given attention; these and many other difficult questions were to be met and overcome. “Three principles,” says Mr. Bertram, “have contributed to the solution of this problem--free choices between the courses provided, free enjoyment of the preparatory courses without fee, and the selection of the teachers according to their attainments in a particular branch and their ability to adapt their instruction to the needs of the pupils or participants in the course.”