his son’s schooling.  Sometimes the boy is at school, then for months together he is away from school, and taught, so far as he is taught, by his father and mother at home.  He is not the least an invalid, but it pleases his father and mother to bring him up in this manner.  Now, I imagine, no English friends of compulsory education dream of dealing with such a defaulter as this, and certainly his father, who perhaps is himself a friend of compulsory education for the working classes, would be astounded to find his education of his own son interfered with.  But, if my worthy acquaintance lived in Switzerland or Germany, he would be dealt with as follows.  I speak with the school-law of Canton Neufchatel, immediately under my eyes, but the regulations on this matter are substantially the same in all the states of Germany and of German Switzerland.  The Municipal Education Committee of the district where my acquaintance lived would address a summons to him, informing him that a comparison of the school-rolls of their district with the municipal list of children of school-age, showed his son not to be at school; and requiring him, in consequence, to appear before the Municipal Committee at a place and time named, and there to satisfy them, either that his son did attend some public school, or that, if privately taught, he was taught by duly trained and certificated teachers.  On the back of the summons, my acquaintance would find printed the penal articles of the School-Law, sentencing him to a fine if he failed to satisfy the Municipal Committee; and, if he failed to pay the fine, or was found a second time offending, to imprisonment.  In some Continental States he would be liable, in case of repeated infraction of the School-Law, to be deprived of his parental rights, and to have the care of his son transferred to guardians named by the State.  It is indeed terrible to think of the consternation and wrath of our educated and intelligent classes under a discipline like this; and I should not like to be the man to try and impose it on them.  But I assure them most emphatically—­and if they study the experience of the Continent they will convince themselves of the truth of what I say—­that only on these conditions of its equal and universal application is any law of compulsory education possible.”

We have now seen, at least in general outline, the system of National Education which he would have wished to set up—­how he would have co-ordinated all instruction from the lowest to the highest, and how he would have compelled all classes alike to submit their children, and in the higher ranks of life to submit themselves, to the training which should best equip them for their chosen or appointed work.  We must now enquire what sort of knowledge he would have endeavoured, by his co-ordinated system, to impart.