Education.—In point of educational culture Germany ranks high among all the civilized great nations of the world (see [Education]: Germany). Education is general and compulsory throughout the empire, and all the states composing it have, with minor modifications, adopted the Prussian system providing for the establishment of elementary schools—Volksschulen—in every town and village. The school age is from six to fourteen, and parents can be compelled to send their children to a Volksschule, unless, to the satisfaction of the authorities, they are receiving adequate instruction in some other recognized school or institution.

The total number of primary schools was 60,584 in 1906-1907; teachers, 166,597; pupils, 9,737,262—an average of about one Volksschule to every 900 inhabitants. The annual expenditure was over £26,000,000, of which sum £7,500,000 was provided by state subvention. There were also in Germany in the same year 643 private schools, giving instruction similar to that of the elementary schools, with 41,000 pupils. A good criterion of the progress of education is obtained from the diminishing number of illiterate army recruits, as shown by the following:

Years. Number of
Recruits.		 Unable to Read or Write.
Total. Per 1000
Recruits.
1875-1876 139,855 3331 23.7 
1880-1881 151,180 2406 15.9 
1885-1886 152,933 1657 10.8 
1890-1891 193,318 1035 5.4 
1895-1896 250,287 374 1.5 
1898-1899 252,382 173 0.7 
1900-1901 253,000 131 0.45

Of the above 131 illiterates in 1900-1901, 114 were in East and West Prussia, Posen and Silesia.

Universities and Higher Technical Schools.—Germany owes its large number of universities, and its widely diffused higher education to its former subdivision into many separate states. Only a few of the universities date their existence from the 19th century; the majority of them are very much older. Each of the larger provinces, except Posen, has at least one university, the entire number being 21. All have four faculties except Münster, which has no faculty of medicine. As regards theology, Bonn, Breslau and Tübingen have both a Protestant and a Catholic faculty; Freiburg, Munich, Münster and Würzburg are exclusively Catholic; and all the rest are Protestant.

The following table gives the names of the 21 universities, the dates of their respective foundations, the number of their professors and other teachers for the winter half-year 1908-1909, and of the students attending their lectures during the winter half-year of 1907-1908:

Date of
Foundation.		 Professors
and
Teachers.		 Students. Total.
Theology. Law. Medicine. Philosophy.
Berlin 1809 493 326 2747 1153 3934 8220
Bonn 1818 190 395 833 282 1699 3209
Breslau 1811 189 330 617 284 840 2071
Erlangen 1743 77 155 323 355 225 1058
Freiburg 1457 150 219 373 580 642 1814
Giessen 1607 100 63 204 331 546 1144
Göttingen 1737 161 102 441 188 1126 1857
Greifswald 1456 105 68 188 186 361 803
Halle 1694 174 331 450 217 1239 2237
Heidelberg 1385 177 55 357 385 879 1676
Jena 1558 116 48 267 265 795 1375
Kiel 1665 121 35 271 239 480 1025
Königsberg 1544 152 68 317 218 502 1105
Leipzig 1409 234 303 1013 606 2419 4341
Marburg 1527 117 133 400 261 876 1670
Munich 1826 239 169 1892 1903 1979 5943
Münster 1902 95 278 458 . . 870 1606
Rostock 1418 65 48 67 211 322 648
Strassburg 1872 167 241 369 255 844 1709
Tübingen 1477 111 464 467 263 384 1578
Würzburg 1582 102 106 331 625 320 1382

Not included in the above list is the little academy—Lyceum Hosianum—at Braunsberg in Prussia, having faculties of theology (Roman Catholic) and philosophy, with 13 teachers and 150 students. In all the universities the number of matriculated students in 1907-1908 was 46,471, including 320 women, 2 of whom studied theology, 14 law, 150 philosophy and 154 medicine. There were also, within the same period, 5653 non-matriculated Hörer (hearers), including 2486 women.

Ten schools, technical high schools, or Polytechnica, rank with the universities, and have the power of granting certain degrees. They have departments of architecture, building, civil engineering, chemistry, metallurgy and, in some cases, anatomy. These schools are as follows: Berlin (Charlottenburg), Munich, Darmstadt, Karlsruhe, Hanover, Dresden, Stuttgart, Aix-la-Chapelle, Brunswick and Danzig; in 1908 they were attended by 14,149 students (2531 foreigners), and had a teaching staff of 753. Among the remaining higher technical schools may be mentioned the three mining academies of Berlin, Clausthal, in the Harz, and Freiberg in Saxony. For instruction in agriculture there are agricultural schools attached to several universities—notably Berlin, Halle, Göttingen, Königsberg, Jena, Poppelsdorf near Bonn, Munich and Leipzig. Noted academies of forestry are those of Tharandt (in Saxony), Eberswalde, Münden on the Weser, Hohenheim near Stuttgart, Brunswick, Eisenach, Giessen and Karlsruhe. Other technical schools are again the five veterinary academies of Berlin, Hanover, Munich, Dresden and Stuttgart, the commercial colleges (Handelshochschulen) of Leipzig, Aix-la-Chapelle, Hanover, Frankfort-on-Main and Cologne, in addition to 424 commercial schools of a lesser degree, 100 schools for textile manufactures and numerous schools for special metal industries, wood-working, ceramic industries, naval architecture and engineering and navigation. For military science there are the academies of war (Kriegsakademien) in Berlin and Munich, a naval academy in Kiel, and various cadet and non-commissioned officers’ schools.