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The Bureau of Education is frequently asked for information as to current activities in regard to vocational education in the principal European countries engaged in the present war. This manuscript summarizes the current information on this subject for the following countries: (1) Germany; (2) France; and (3) England. Results of the survey indicate that France and England have reached the same stage in their progress toward a national system of continued education. In both countries, voluntary agencies have been very active in this respect, but they can not meet the national need. The demand is imperative for a compulsory law, applicable to the entire population and enforced by national authority. The proposed law for France places stress upon vocational training in the first division of the continuation period, and upon instruction in civic duties and responsibilities in the second division. The draft regulations for continuation schools in England leave the details of their programs to local authorities, but require in every case provision "for disinterested studies making for wise living and good citizenship." In Germany, employers are forced by imperial law to bear their part in securing the continued education of juvenile workers; the schemes proposed for England include the same provision; complaint is made that the French measure is faulty in this respect, but its amendment at this point is earnestly demanded. [Best copy available has been provided.]

Interest in technical education of the higher order has been greatly increased by the European war, and as a consequence numerous inquiries have been received at the Bureau of Education with regard to the higher technical schools of foreign countries. These inquiries relate in the main to the organization and conduct of the foreign schools, their courses of instruction and the relative value of their diplomas. The endeavor has been made in this bulletin to meet such inquiries, whether general or specific, by means of information drawn from official and other authoritative sources. In a broad survey of the subject it is seen that while the term technical is used often in a comprehensive sense, it is more generally restricted to schools which specialize in engineering and the mechanical arts that involve the applications of science. On account of the varying scope of technical institutions and the differences between countries in respect to classification, it is impossible to employ a uniform scheme of presentation for institutions selected as typical and equally impossible to institute exact comparisons between their programs and their standards. The institutions here classed as higher technical require the same entrance qualifications as the universities of their respective countries and confer diplomas that have equal value with the university diplomas. These two conditions afford a basis of classification which has been maintained in the bulletin. The matter presented includes therefore (1) a survey of the studies preliminary to the higher technical schools; (2) accounts of typical schools; and (3) statistical summaries comprising additional institutions of the same order. Contents include: (1) Germany; (2) France; (3) Great Britain; (4) Ireland; (5) Switzerland; (6) Italy; (7) Austria; (8) Russia; (9) Japan; (10) Canada; and (11) South America. A bibliography and an index are included. (Contains 5 plates and 3 diagrams.) [Best copy available has been provided.]

The publication of "Il metodo della pedagogica scientifica," by Dr. Maria Montessori, docent in the University of Rome, giving a full account of the inception and development of the system of education of which she is the author and the simultaneous translation of the work into English and German are events so unusual as to challenge attention. The explanation of this interest is found in the new conception of social life and its regenerative forces which is stirring throughout the world. Among these forces that of education has been exalted by both scientific investigators and sociologists to a supreme position; but the word "education" is used by them in a sense differing somewhat from the formal disciplines which it generally implies, a sense indicated by the qualifying term scientific. The present examination will be limited to methods that differentiate this system from others; in other words, to the methods of promoting functional activity or autoeducation under the essential condition of the liberty of the pupil. This limitation will exclude the emotional disgression, the general discussions, and the critical reflections which make up a large part of the volume and have value for their personal revelations. The passages cited from the original work are taken from the English version, which has been approved by the author. A bibliography is included. [Best copy available has been provided.]

The States of Central America and South America are in the midst of an industrial development, which imparts new impulses to their educational activities. There is at once an awakened sense of the economic bearings of elementary or popular education and of the need of a readjustment of the work of the long-established secondary schools. Efforts in the latter direction are of special interest to other nations, as it is in the secondary schools that the directive classes are educated. Schools of this order determine in great measure the opinions and purposes of the men who control public affairs and promote international sympathies and interests. In all the States secondary education is the preparatory stage to higher institutions and in several instances forms a department in the university organization. The intimate view of the content of secondary education in the States of Central and South America afforded by the particulars discussed in this paper is of interest to all persons engaged in promoting international relations, and particularly so to those who must determine the equivalence of the scholastic standards maintained in different countries. A bibliography is included. Individual sections contain footnotes. [Best copy available has been provided.]

This bulletin is prepared in accordance with the provisions of the act provided May 28, 1896, authorizing the publication by the Bureau of Education of a bulletin "as to the condition of higher education, technical and industrial education, facts as to compulsory attendance in the schools, and such other educational topics in the several States of the Union and in foreign countries as may be deemed of value to the educational interest of the States." This paper relates to the new English education bill, which had past the House of Commons and had gone to second reading in the House of Lords before the beginning of the present recess of Parliament. The introductory portion shows the relation of this bill to the historical development of public education in England and Wales. The passages carefully selected from the debate in Parliament and from other public utterances, show the nature of the changes which the bill would introduce by showing the attitude of the different parties and of well-known leaders toward those changes. Finally, the full text of the bill is given as it left the Commons, together with the text of the more important provisions of the net of 1902, now in force, which are necessary to a full understanding of the new measure. An index is included. Individual sections contain footnotes. (Contains 2 tables.) [Best copy available has been provided.]