_Importance of the Public Elementary School._--Of the various schools, it is only the public elementary school with which we need concern ourselves in this book. The State compels no one to attend the higher school or the university. The children of the lower classes of the population, whose relatives are not in a position to provide instruction for them in their own homes, are all sent to the public elementary school. Now, since in a manufacturing town nearly three-fourths of all the children belong to the lower classes, since for this reason, of the children attending the public elementary schools, the enormous majority belong to the proletariat, since, finally, only a minimal proportion of proletarian children attend any other kind of school, it follows that the public elementary school is primarily intended for the children of the proletariat, and that practically the only school available for these children is the public elementary school. To-day, the children of the lower classes are educated almost exclusively in the public elementary school, those of the middle classes chiefly in the public elementary school, while those of the upper classes are educated almost without exception in their own homes by tutors and governesses. [Obviously the writer refers here to the conditions obtaining in his own country.] _Methods of Instruction._--Children at the present day can be educated by any of the following methods: (_a_) The parents themselves instruct their children; (_b_) they have their children taught by a tutor or a governess in their own homes; (_c_) they combine to carry on special schools for their own children (family schools); (_d_) they send their children either to a governmental or to a private school. In former days there existed no public schools. Parents either educated their own children, or had them educated by a tutor or governess. As time goes on the number of parents increases who are competent to teach their children all that they learn at the public elementary school; but most parents have neither leisure nor desire to undertake this. Consider, for example, the case of the father of a family whose whole day is spent at work. Most fathers of families make a better use of their time by devoting all their energies to their trade or profession, instead of themselves attempting the education of their children. Thus here also the principle of the division of labour comes more and more fully into application. The parent gives his whole time to his work for a livelihood, and the profession of teacher becomes more and more exclusively that of a specialist. The children of the proletariat are in need of education, and in their case, apart from the question of leisure or desire, the parents lack the necessary aptitude to instruct their own children. The public elementary schools of to-day have come into existence for the children of these lower strata of the population, and the curriculum of such schools has been