poorest, and the demand for certain forest products is rapidly becoming more urgent. The tree-growth enriches rather than impoverishes the ground. Forestry not only beautifies the farm, but between woodland and plough-land is established that balance which must be preserved to insure the most equitable distribution of moisture and climatic conditions most favorable to the productiveness of the soil and the better health of the people. Almost every Commune in Switzerland has its _realschule_, where children from the primary school have the opportunity of a higher education, specially adapted to fit them for commercial and industrial life. These schools take the place of the old and now practically extinct system of apprenticeship. The handiwork and technical schools embrace instruction in drawing, modelling, practical reckoning, elements of geometry (especially surface and body measurements), book-keeping in French and German, physics, chemistry, and technological branches, ceramics, and _aquarelle_. The schools for girls include singing, drawing, fancy or handiwork, letter-writing, book-keeping, casting accounts, sewing by hand and machine, dress-making (pressing, cutting, and trimming), besides a knowledge of different kinds of wares, how to tend plants and flowers, and even the art of treating the sick and wounded. From these schools all have access to the Polytechnic, where each professor is an acknowledged authority in the branch of service with which he deals. In all the higher schools and universities every encouragement is given to students to qualify themselves for technical pursuits. The secret of Switzerland’s material success lies in the liberality of its conception of public education. Its primary schools are graded with good secondary schools for scientific education, and these lead to remarkable technical institutions with great completeness of organization. If any country appears by nature unfit for manufactures it is surely Switzerland. Cut off from the rest of Europe by frowning mountains, having no sea-coast and removed therefore from all the fruits of maritime enterprise, having no coal or other sources of mineral wealth, Switzerland might have degenerated into a brave semi-civilized nation like Montenegro. Instead of this it proudly competes with all Europe and America in industries for which it has to purchase from them the raw materials and even the coal, the source of power necessary to convert them into utilities. Other countries have become sensible of the superiority which skilled education can confer, and they have not been slow to take advantage of it. The United States are justly proud of their common-school systems as they exist in the several States. They have done a great deal for public education, and are progressing by their own force and by the general sympathy of the community. Mr. Edward Atkinson, in summing up the elements that have contributed to