to go out again.

Then another lesson began. The children read out of a patriotic reading-book the principal object of which seemed to be to instil respect for the upper classes and to represent Sweden as the best country in Europe, although as regards climate and social economy, it is one of the worst, its culture is borrowed from abroad, and all its kings were of foreign origin. They did not venture to give such teaching to the children of the upper classes in the Clara School and the Lyceum, but in the Jakob School they had sufficient courage to make poor children sing a patriotic song about the Duke of Ostgothland. In this occurred a verse addressed to the crew of the fleet, saying victory was sure in the battle they wished for "because Prince Oscar leads us on," or something of the sort.

Meanwhile the reading-lesson began. But just at that moment the head-master came in. John wished to stop but the head-master beckoned to him to go on. The children who had lost their respect for him after the catechism-lesson were inattentive. John scolded them, but without result. Then the head-master came forward with a cane; took the book from John and made a little speech, to the effect that this division was the worst, but now their teacher should see how to deal with them. The exercise which followed seemed to have as its object the attainment of perfect attention. The absolute again seemed to be the standard by which these children were to be trained in this incomplete world of relativity.

The boy who was reading was interrupted, and another name called at random out of the class. To follow attentively was assumed to be the easiest thing in the world by this old man who certainly must have experienced how thoughts wander their own way while the eyes pass over the printed page. The inattentive one was dragged by his hair or clothes and caned till he fell howling on the ground.

Then the head-master departed after recommending John to use the cane diligently. There remained nothing but to follow this method or to go; the latter did not suit John's plans, therefore he remained. He made a speech to the children and referred to the head-master. "Now," he said, "you know how you must behave if you want to escape a thrashing. He who gets one, has himself to thank. Don't blame me. Here is the stick, and there is your lesson. Learn your lesson or you will get the stick,—and it isn't my fault."

That was cunningly put, but it was unmerciful, for one ought to have first ascertained how far the children could do their work. They could not, for they were the most lively and therefore the most inattentive. So the cane was kept going all day, accompanied by cries of pain, and fear on the faces of the innocent. It was terrible! To pay attention is not in the power of the will, and therefore all this punishment was mere torture. John felt the absurdity of the part he had to play, but he had to do his duty. Sometimes he was tired and let things go as they liked, but then his colleagues, male and female, came and made friendly representations. Sometimes he found the whole thing so ridiculous that he could not help smiling with the children while he caned them. Both sides saw that they were working at something impossible and unnecessary.

Ibsen, who does not believe in the aristocracy of birth or of wealth, has lately (1886) expressed his belief that the industrial class are the true nobility. But why should they necessarily be so? If to do no manual labour tends to degeneration, perhaps degeneration is brought about even more quickly by excessive labour and want. All these children born of manual labourers looked more sickly, weak and stupid than the upper-class children which he had seen. One or the other muscle might be more strongly developed,—a shoulder-blade, a hand, or a foot,—but they looked anæmic under their pale skins. Many had extraordinarily large heads which seemed to be swollen with water, their ears and noses ran, their hands were frost-bitten. The various professional diseases of town-labourers seemed to have been inherited; one saw in miniature the gas-worker's lungs and blood spoilt by sulphur-fumes, the smith's shoulders and feet bent out-wards, the painter's brain atrophied by varnishes and poisonous colours, the scrofulous eruption of the chimney sweeper, the contracted chest of the book-binder; here one heard the cough of the workers in metal and asphalt, smelt the poisons of the paper-stainer, observed the watch-maker's short-sightedness, in second editions, so to speak. In truth this was no race to which the future belonged, or on which the future could build; nor was it a race which could permanently increase, for the ranks of the workers are continually recruited from the country.

It was not till about two o'clock that the great school-room was emptied, for it took them about an hour with blows and raps to get out of it into the street. The most unpractical part of it was that the children had to march into the hall in troops to get their overcoats and cloaks, and then march into the school-room again, instead of going straight home. When John got into the street, he asked himself "Is that the celebrated education which they have given to the lower classes with so much sacrifice?" He could ask, and he was answered, "Can it be done in any other way?" "No," he was obliged to answer. "If it is your intention to educate a slavish lower class, always ready to obey, train them with the stick,—if you mean to bring up a proletariat to demand nothing of life, tell them lies about heaven. Tell them that your method of teaching is ridiculous, let them begin to criticise or get their way in one point and you have taken a step towards the dissolution of society. But society is built up upon an obedient conscientious lower class; therefore keep them down from the first; deprive them of will and reason, and teach them to hope for nothing but to be content." There was method in this madness.

As regards the instruction in the elementary school, there was both a good and bad side to it; the good was that they had introduced object-teaching after the example of Pestalozzi, Rousseau's disciple; the bad, that the students who taught in the elementary schools had introduced "scientific" teaching. The simple learning by heart of the multiplication table was not enough; it, together with fractions, had to be understood. Understood? And yet an engineer who has been through the technical high school cannot explain "why" a fraction can be diminished by three if the sum of the figures is divisible by three. On this principle seamen would not be allowed to use logarithm tables, because they cannot calculate logarithms. To be always relaying the foundation instead of building on what is already laid is an educational luxury and leads to the over-multiplication of lessons in schools.

Some one may object that John should first have reformed himself as teacher, before he set about reforming the system of education; but he could not; he was a passive instrument in the hands of the superintendent and the school authorities. The best teachers, that is to say, those who forced the worst (in this case the best) results out of the pupils were the uneducated ones who came from the Seminary. They were not sceptical about the methods in use and had no squeamishness about caning, but the children respected them the most. A great coarse fellow who had formerly been a carriage-maker had the bigger boys completely under his thumb. The lower class seem to have really more fear and respect for those of their own rank than the upper class. Bailiffs and foremen are more awe-imposing than superintendents and teachers. Do the lower classes see that the superior who has come out of their ranks understands their affairs better, and therefore pay him more respect? The female teachers also enjoyed more respect than the male. They were pedantic, demanded absolute perfection, and were not at all soft-hearted, but rather cruel. They were fond of practising the refined cruelty of blows on the palm of the hand and showed in so