“Special schools of drawing, painting, and architecture were instituted; while Prague and Innspruck had public libraries endowed. Observatories, enriched with valuable apparatus and instruments, arose in Vienna, in Gratz, and in Tirnau; Van Swieten was summoned to regenerate the study of medicine and surgery, and Metastasio was invited to help in disseminating a cultivation of the Italian muse on the banks of the Danube. Measures of importance and magnitude were effected by Maria Theresa in the government of her people. She introduced great amelioration into the feudal system as it then existed in Bohemia. She abolished the torture in her hereditary states,—Hungary and Bohemia. Severe penalties were attached to literary piracy. She exerted herself to promote popular education throughout her dominions, establishing a general system, and taking means for its efficacious operation. She divided into three classes the schools she instituted; firstly, ‘normal schools,’ one in each province, to serve as a model for all the other schools in the province; secondly, ‘principal schools,’ in the large towns; and thirdly, ‘commercial schools,’ in the smaller towns and villages. The normal schools were superintended by a director; those of the large towns were under the superintendence of a magistrate; and the commercial schools, under that of a parish priest, or an assessor of the communal council. “She granted extra emolument to those teachers whose wives taught the girls sewing, knitting, and spinning; so that children thus taught were able to earn a daily addition to the family income. The system worked admirably, and formed the basis of that extended popular education which operates so beneficially throughout the Austrian monarchy.” Her second war with Frederick the Great, which lasted seven years, was in the end productive of little besides a terrible loss of life and money to both contestants. By the treaty at its close not a foot of territory was gained or lost by either party. In this war Austria’s allies were France and Russia. Maria Theresa was forty-eight years of age at the end of this war. For twenty-four years all Europe had watched her with wonder and admiration. She had replaced the incapable Bartenstein by the able minister, Prince Kaunitz, and for nearly thirty years he ruled the councils of Austria as prime minister. Maria Theresa was not satisfied short of knowing and comprehending all things pertaining to her government. She often devoted ten or twelve hours together to state business; and notwithstanding this close attention to governmental affairs, she still found time for society, and the amusements of her court, as well as to be the mother of sixteen children.