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FINAL CONSIDERATIONS. 62 I
them to the same discipline and the same laws. In Southern
Germany and Austria the gymnasium course used to be
divided into two parts, and for each a separate school-
building was provided ; this is still done in Italy.* The
object in view when making the division into an upper and
lower gymnasium is that the course of instruction given
at each of these institutions shall be complete in itself.
This offers the advantage that for those students who have
to leave the gymnasium before finishing the whole course of
study a natural and easy exit is secured; they are pre­
served from the anomaly of entering life with a curtailed
and quite insufficient training. At the same time a rational
halting-place on the educational journey is provided for
those who desire to get minor appointments in the official
service, to attend a technical school, etc.
The task of giving the pupils a systematic and prac­
tical education in general subjects would thus be entrusted
to the masters of the Unter-gymnasium, by means of a
course of five years' training in the use of the mother tongue,
for which the study of a second language—Latin—is indis­
pensable, together with elementary mathematics and the
most important facts and doctrines of religion, history,
geography, and the descriptive natural sciences, drawing
lessons being given with the object of strengthening the
powers of observation; while the authorities of the Ober-
gymnasium would be expected to give clear expression to the
classical or scientific character (as the case might be) of the
instruction afforded by them. The Ober-gymnasium might be
organized in such a manner that the classical and scientific
subjects should run in parallel courses ; all the pupils being
taught together in most of the subjects, such as the mother-
tongue, religion, history and geography, modern languages
and drawing, and only divided in order that one division
should be \taught Latin and Greek and the other mathe-
* An arrangement of this kind was demanded in the Ministerial scheme,
which was made the basis of the discussions on the reorganization of the higher
schools held in Berlin, April 16th to May 14th, 1849.