The origin of these schools we owe, as we have said, to Bassedow, who transplanted the ideas of Rousseau to Germany, which found, by degrees, a complete introduction, especially amongst the tradespeople; yet the Real-schools of that period--the end of the last century, are by no means to be considered as synonymous with the present ones, although they then excited a general interest and acquired for themselves a tolerably high position. They agree entirely in this, that they were schools for those who were not intended to go forward to the universities, and yet whose future destinations demanded, in some measure a higher education than ordinary. The subjects of instruction in them were particularly--geography, history, the natural sciences, calculation, technology, etc. The first, however, in a more extended range than in the lower class of Folk's-schools; these, as they at present exist, and especially such as are organized on the most recent plans, are not merely higher Bürger-schools, but indeed such as might qualify for an academical course. People are, however, far from agreed upon the rights of these schools; upon the determination of their relations to the gymnasia, the universities, etc.; at least, in many German states, great debates have arisen upon this debatable point, and which are yet by no means brought to a conclusion. The Real-schools divide themselves into Higher Gewerb[28]-- Polytechnical Institutions--and Provincial Real-schools, or Higher Bürger Schools. Now it is evident, that in consequence of the assumption of the higher subjects of tuition, as foreign languages, the higher mathematics, physics, etc., by the first institutions, a disadvantage may occur to the Gymnasia, insomuch as all those who are expressly educated for branches of state official service, for offices of finance, of the forests, of general administration, etc., are educated in the Gymnasia. These, and other reasons which we will explain, in noticing the Gymnasia, have been, and probably will long continue to be the causes, that no result sufficiently satisfactory to both parties, however much desired, can be arrived at. But the decidedly advantageous influence which the collective body of Real-schools exert, and which it will more and more extend by still continually extending its sphere of action, is not, however, to be mistaken; and if this excites a spirit of hostility, there cannot be a more palpable reason assigned for it than that which is drawn from a rich experience by a great philologist, and thus expressed:--"What is _new_ is not always wholesome; but even the necessary _new_, and which afterwards proves itself to be an actual _advance_, is certain in its commencement to be attacked."