AUSTRIA.

ORGANIZATION OF HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

Higher technical education in Austria is provided by seven higher technical schools (Technische Hochschulen), which are remarkably uniform in regard to administration, programs of instruction, and internal regulations. The main facts and figures relating to these schools are comprised in the table on page 75.

Administration.-Higher technical schools pertain to the ministry of education. The State contributes liberally to the maintenance of these institutions, but does not interfere with their administration, which is exercised by the "college of professors" under the presidency of the rector. The college consists of all the ordinary and extraordinary professors of the school and several delegates representing the private docents. The rector is elected by the college from the number of ordinary professors for one school year. The retiring rector, called "prorector," retains certain vestiges of authority; for example, he fills the office of rector in the absence of the latter.

Similar administration is provided for each department of the school; the professors of the department form a "departmental college of professors" and elect a dean as their president for one school year. Besides the ordinary and extraordinary professors, the schools employ private and honorary docents and lectors, the latter title being usually applied to instructors of foreign languages. There are also assistants to aid the regular professors in their work and adjuncts to assist in experiments and demonstrations. The professors are appointed by the Emperor, upon the recommendation of the minister of education. The private docents and adjuncts are appointed by the minister himself.

Admission requirements.-The certificate of maturity, showing the completion of the course of a gymnasium, a real school, a real gymnasium, or a reformed real gymnasium, is necessary for admission to higher technical schools. Graduates of classical gymnasia are required to give proof of adequate training in drawing, both geometrical and freehand.

No matriculation examinations are held in the higher institutions, but secondary schools admit externs to the maturity examinations, and if they pass give them certificates identical with those awarded to their own pupils.

Auditors and guests may be admitted to single lectures or a course of lectures without proof of secondary education.

Foreigners are admitted as students or auditors upon the authorization of the dean of the respective department or of a special com

mittee of admission; questions arising as to the value of foreign certificates presented by candidates are decided by the minister of education.

PROGRAMS AND METHODS OF INSTRUCTION.

Instruction. The courses of instruction in most of the departments are of four years' duration. In architecture, however, they cover generally five years. There are also short courses for surveyors and insurance experts.

Programs and methods of instruction are very similar in all the schools here considered. All have departments of mechanical and structural engineering; with one exception all have departments of chemical engineering, and all but two are provided with departments of architectural engineering. A general department is also a common feature. Electrical engineering, agriculture, "kultur" engineering, hydraulic engineering, and geodetical engineering are each offered in one school.

The general system of instruction closely approaches the German system, as analyzed in the case of the Charlottenburg school. All the Austrian schools have ample facilities for practical work; all employ specialists teaching highly differentiated subjects; and all assign considerable time to practical instruction.

At the end of the second year the students are required to submit to the first State examination. The second State examination is held at the end of the last year. Frequent examinations in single subjects are held during the course.

Language of instruction. The language of instruction in four out of the seven higher technical schools in Austria is German; in the Lemberg school the instruction is in Polish; Brünn and Prague have each two higher technical schools, the language of instruction being Bohemian in one of the schools and German in the other.

Degree. The degree conferred in all the technical departments is that of doctor of technical sciences (Dr. techn.). It is awarded to those who, after the completion of the full prescribed course, in one selected department, present a thesis on a scientific subject and pass the final examination (rigorosum). Instead of a scientific thesis, a construction design may be accepted, if accompanied by technical description and a scientific motivation, showing the author's ability for independent work.

Length of the school year.-The school year begins the first of October and closes at the end of July.

This

The vacations amount to 99 days, or a little over 14 weeks. The school year comprises, therefore, approximately 38 weeks. time is divided into two semesters, winter and summer, the former ending and the later beginning on March 1.

1 From this number several more days must be deducted for national and local holidays.

RUSSIA.

INTRODUCTION.

General features.-Higher technical education in Russia is provided in polytechnic institutes offering instruction in all recognized branches of engineering science, and special institutions devoted to the teaching of one selected branch with a view of preparing highly specialized engineers for positions in Government service or industries. There are also three schools of intermediate type, termed technological institutes, which offer two departments, mechanical and chemical, and are in their essential features but incomplete polytechnic insti

tutes.

The organization of the Russian polytechnic institutes presents few distinctive traits, while that of special technical schools requires more particular consideration.

Technical education in Russia is under several different ministries, each having absolute control of its own province. The ministry of public instruction controls many technical schools, but those under other ministries are by no means unimportant. The department of agriculture alone disburses for its agricultural schools a larger sum than that expended by the ministry of public instruction for all technical schools under its control. The ministry of commerce and industry controls a number of polytechnic institutes and schools of commerce. The grouping of these several classes according to the respective ministries responsible for their supervision and maintenance is shown in the table appended to this section, page 91.

PREPARATORY EDUCATION.

Standard of preparation.-Notwithstanding the divergency of administrative systems and programs, all Russian technical schools of the higher order have certain common features. Among these are the admission requirements, which are essentially the same whether for polytechnic institutes or special institutions for any branch. The standard of these requirements is the full course of a gymnasium with eight classes. Diplomas of other secondary schools are honored if they represent an amount of work equal to the gymnasium course.

Gymnasiums and real schools. The section on Germany gives a detailed account of the three representative types of secondary education in that country: The gymnasium, the realgymnasium, and the "ober" real school. The Russian secondary schools present, mutatis mutandis, a fair copy of the corresponding German institutions. All Russian real schools are "ober," since they are all equipped with the seventh class. The German realgymnasium finds a parallel in the Russian reformed gymnasium established by the decree of 1902. Intermediate between the ultraclassical and the reformed gymnasiums is the type of 1905, which limits the time given to Latin and Greek and introduces intensified modern language study and natural science.

The amount of knowledge represented by diplomas of the secondary schools enumerated is a well-known educational quantum, and Russian graduates hold their own in any test or comparison with western European graduates of similar institutions.

Gymnasiums and real schools are all controlled by the ministry of public instruction.' As regards the other secondary schools whose diplomas are recognized for admission to higher technical institutions, they require, owing to their multiplicity and differences of scope and organization, a more detailed presentation.

Secondary technical schools. The secondary schools above considered pertain to general education. All other secondary schools are termed technical and fall under the control of different ministries, according to their special character. This presentation will be limited to those that serve as feeders for places of higher technical education. The secondary technical schools of the ministry of public instruction have a four-year course which was originally designed to give a complete technical education of a lower degree than that of higher technical schools. The original regulations required for admission to secondary technical schools the completion of five classes of a real school. Since, however, very few realists took advantage of this opportunity, preferring to complete the real school course and then enter the higher technical schools, the secondary technical schools were compelled to disregard the rule and to lower their admission requirements so as to admit pupils from two-class elementary schools and even persons without any school education, but having practical experience in factory work. There are five types of secondary technical schools under the control of the ministry of public instruction, respectively: (1) Mechanico-technical, (2) chemico-technical, (3) technical school of architecture, (4) technical school of rural economy (agriculture), and (5) technical school of mines.

1 With the exception of some gymnasia for girls controlled by the board of institutions of Empress Mary.