Commercial Education in Germany

entury, the present development is actually of recent date. The conviction was long dominant, and is still prevalent in certain parts of the country, that commercial training is attained solely in the school of experience. It is only since the international struggle for commercial supremacy became so strenuous that the champions of this old laissez-faire doctrine have begun to break ground. As has already been pointed out, the commercial schools parallel the general educational organization of the country, and appear in three distinct phases: elementary, secondary, and tertiary. Commercial education in this elementary or lower group is found in the ordinary continuation schools, although there are certain other continuation schools withoptional attendance, as well as commercial evening schools for adults, some established by municipal foundation and some by chambers of commerce, guilds, unions, or upon other more indi- ols vidual initiative. The continuation school, which has been called the "newest link in the German educational chain," is widespread throughout the greater part of the empire. It is obligatory for boys in twelve of the twenty-six states, to wit: Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemberg, Baden, Hesse, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Gotha, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and Waldeck-Pyrmont. The opportunities for girls are considerably less general, although the girls' commercial continuation courses are rather more numerou... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.