eign exhibitors shall be taken into due consideration, and protected by way of appointing foreign members into the jury.

In the name of the general committee of the Budapesth GeneralNational Exhibition, 1885. MATLEKOVITS, President. COUNT EUGEN ZICHY,

Second President.

BUDAPESTH, February 15, 1884.

CONSULAR VISIT TO KUMAMOTO, JAPAN.

REPORT BY CONSUL JONES, OF NAGASAKI.

The province of Higo, which roay be said to adjoin that of Nagasaki on the south, and which is separated from it by the gulf of Shimabara, is one of the most productive and prosperous provinces on the island of Kiu Shiu. The greater portion of it is a gently undulating plain, about 40 miles in extent in each direction, and is watered by several rivers, which flow through it from the mountains to the sea. These rivers are navigable by small flat-bottomed boats bat(eaux), which are propelled by sculls and by polling, where the water is shallow, and serve the purpose of transporting the produce of the province from point to point with great convenience and at very little expense. The climate is slightly softer than at Nagasaki, because of its sheltered position from the high winds of the sea, and the vegetation is more luxuriant. Its capital city, Kumamoto, will probably be one of the next ports opened to foreign commerce.

Nagasaki, Osaka, and other open ports have already, through native merchants and their lines of transportation, much and valuable traffic with this province. As it is populous and the people thrifty it will become, in all probability, a ready market for articles of foreign manufacture, and for none more so, I should think, judging from the character of the country, than the agricultual implements of the United States.

The roads are good and level, and in time carts, wagons, and carriages will, no doubt, come into use, superseding the old time custom of the man as a beast of burden. The value of time and the economy of labor must, however, first be learned, which, from the ready adaptation of the people, will not be long, when brought in contact with another and newer civilization, and the necessities of trade, &c., show the advantages of modern appliances.

As the crow flies, the distance is not great from Nagasaki to Kumamoto, but by small Japanese steamers, down the coast and up the gulf, the voyage occupies about seven hours. A more direct route is to walk across the hills from Nagasaki to Mogi, a distance if 4 miles, and there take a fishing-boat, with four or five men to scull, or if the wind is fair to sail. This route saves distance, but not time, as being master of the situation one is apt to loiter in the midst of such picturesque surroundings and to stop at inviting places on the way.

The gulf of Shimabara, or the inland sea of Shimabara, as the natives love to call it, is a magnificent water-way, little inferior in its charm of scenery to the inland sea of Japan. The characteristics of bay and inlet, fairy-like islands, and picturesque mountains are the same, but on a minified scale, so to speak. Here, however, the scenery is set off or emphasized, as it were, by the volcano of Shimabara, which looms up in the air from every point of view, grim and rugged, with a vapory

17 A-No. 42—10

cap on its summit, a slumbering giant of suppressed and terrible power that once within the memory of living men overwhelmed and devastated this whole region of country. The last eruption of this volcano, in 1792, which spread terror and destruction around, and, according to the description given of its terrific display of violence, might well have filled every one with dread and alarm. Dr. Von Siebold, at that time the physician and naturalist of the Dutch factory at Desima Island, now a part of Nagasaki, in his account of the event, says that at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the 18th of the first month the summit of the Ungen (Shimabara) suddenly sank and smoke and vapor burst forth. On the 6th of the following month an eruption occurred in the mountain on its eastern declivity, not far from the summit. On the 2d of the third month a violent earthquake, felt all over Kiu Shiu, so shook Shimabara that no one could keep his feet. Terror and confusion reigned. Shock followed shock, and the volcano incessantly vomited forth stones, ashes, and lava that desolated the country for miles around. At noon on the 1st of the fourth month another earthquake occurred, followed by reiterated shocks more and more violent. Houses were overthrown, and enormous masses of rock rolling down the mountain crushed whatever lay in their way. When all seemed quiet and the danger was believed to be over, sounds like the roar of artillery were heard in the air and from under the ground, followed by a sudden eruption of the Mioken Yama, on the northern slope of the Ungendake. A large portion of this mountain was thrown up into the air, immense masses of rock fell into the gulf, and boiling water bursting through the crevices of its exploded sides poured down, overflowing the low shore. The meeting of the two waters produced a phenomenon that increased the terror. The wheeling eddies formed water-spouts that annihilated all they passed over. The devastation wrought in the peninsula of Shimabara and the opposite coast of Higo by these united earthquakes and eruptions of Ungendake, with its collateral crater, is said to have been indescribable. In the town of Shimabara every building was thrown down except the castle, the cyclopean walls of which, formed of colossal blocks of stone, defied the general destruction. The coast of Higo was so altered by its ravages as to be no longer recognizable. Fifty-three thousand human beings are said to have perished on this occasion.

Shimabara is now a favorite resort for invalids, foreign and natives. There are a number of hot sulphur springs along the slopes of the mountain, which have the reputation of wonderful curative properties in various diseases, and houses of entertainment, with sulphur baths attached, have sprung up to meet the requirements of visitors. By boat and jinricksha, these springs are distant only a few hours' ride from Nagasaki.

Steamers of the heaviest draft can navigate through all parts of the Gulf of Shimabara, though at present only two or three small steam vessels of a hundred tons or so ply between Nagasaki and its chief ports.

There are many villages and several considerable towns on its shores, and much elegible table land. Here and there, in sailing by, you have glimpses of wide-spreading, fertile valleys, capable of sustaining large populations. The gulf is the outlet of three or four provinces, and will in time, when the interior of the country is opened to foreign trade and is further developed, become an important and thronging highway. Kumamoto is an inland city, about 7 miles from the gulf. Its seaport, Hiyakwan, a small village, but of considerable activity, has the drawback of a bad harbor. Vessels of the lightest draft cannot ap

proach nearer than half a mile. I am informed, however, that a new and excellent harbor, lower down the coast, has been found and surveyed, from which a road to Kumamoto will be built by the time the province is opened.

Kumamoto is a very attractive city. It is situated on a plain with two fine rivers running through it, over which there are many curious, old stone bridges. The houses have terraced gardens to the water's edge and the streets are planted in shade trees. In the summer evenings the rivers are alive with pleasure boats. Of an afternoon you may see half the population, of both sexes, bathing together, in high glee, innocent of any garments and unconscious of any shame.

Just outside of the city is a public garden of considerable extent, laid out in the inimitable style of the Japanese, in lake and grove and mountain and waterfall, which was once, I believe, the pleasure grounds of an ancient daimio.

In the center of the city, built on a high conical hill, is a famous castle that commands the approaches in all directions. A broad, swift river sweeps its base on two sides, and wide, deep, walled ditches defend the other sides. The castle walls, of massive stone-work, rise on terraces, rampart after rampart, from the base to the summit. It was built in 1592 by Kato Kiyomassa, a celebrated warrior of the time, and has withstood more than one obstinate siege. The last was in 1877, during the Satsuma rebellion, when General Saigo threw his artillery against it in vain.

The governor of Kumamoto, who was an inmate of the castle and one of its defenders in this siege, is the authority to me for the story that the garrison having entirely exhausted their supplies had killed and eaten their horses, and these being finished, were again reduced to the famishing point, when one night, at their direst extremity, every cat in the neighborhood swam the river, and, with a patriotic self sacrifice never known before in the animal world, swarmed through the port holes and saved the garrison.

It is related on authority that Kato Kiyomassa, when this castle was completed in 1592, put to death all the workmen engaged in its construction, several thousand men, that none might know the secrets of its interior arrangements.

The castle is now garrisoned by imperial troops. The Japanese army, numbering 35,000 rank and file, has been under instruction of French officers in all its different arms for several years. The headquarters are at Tokio, and several thousand troops are always retained there. The others are stationed throughout the country, and for the most part garrison the old castles. The uniform and arms are after the French pattern. The garrison maintained at Kumamoto is a source of considerable revenue to the various industries of the city, and the daily parades and drills of the different arms of the service and the officers and soldiers off duty mingling with the population add more or less to its bright and busy appearance.

A cotton manufactory has recently been established here which gives employment to four or five hundred female operatives. They receive a compensation of 10 seus a day, the establishment providing them with their mid-day meal of rice, fish, and vegetables, and are entirely content with this remuneration. The manufactory is termed a school, the operatives being required to teach the art to others throughout the province at the expiration of their service. They use the old-fashioned simple loom and shuttle, and handle them with marvelous dexterity. The manufactured cloths are of the kind of which the native garments of

the people are made, and are sold at a price easily within their means; that is, about 2 yen for a bolt or piece of twenty yards. In one department of this establishment silk cloths are manufactured. Silk culture is an important industry in this province. Plantations of mulberry trees are extensively cultivated. At nearly every farm-house the women of the family are engaged in rearing silk-worms.

Rice is the chief produce of Higo, and commands the highest prices in the markets of Japan.

Cotton and tobacco are also cultivated. The fine-cut smoking tobacco of Kumamoto is second only, in favor to that of Satsuma.

The tea plant is grown in abundance everywhere. The timber of Kin Shiu is very fine, and adapted to almost any use. Bamboo grows to a very large size, and is utilized in numberless ways, besides the root being a favorite article of food.

Wheat, barley, millet, and all the vegetables known to Japan are produced in Higo. When its chief port is opened to the foreigners its people will become more than ever prosperous.

ALEXANDER C. JONES,

CONSULATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

Nagasaki, April 17, 1884.

Consul.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN SPAIN.

REPORT BY CONSUL-GENERAL REED, OF MADRID.

It is not an easy task to write a report on the state of public instruction in Spain, as well for the want of statistical data, especially in regard to superior instruction, as for the continuous changes to which this important branch of the public administration has been subjected by the political state of the country for many years past.

There can be no political movement in Spain, and unfortunately such movements are of frequent occurrence, without inflicting a serious blow upon public instruction, since traditionalisın persists in keeping instruction under the control and direction of the state. It is true that certain reformers have worked without rest in the endeavor to emancipate it from the yoke of state, but on account of the frequent political changes, their efforts, generally speaking, have been of little avail, as will be seen later on.

The law of the 9th September, 1857, which is still in force, may be considered as the basis of the present system of public instruction; and I cannot better illustrate the provisions of this law than by the following extract taken from a report made in 1883, by Mr. de Bunsen, second secretary of the British legation at this capital. The extract also contains interesting data in regard to matters connected with the public primary schools:

The design of the author, Don Claudio Moyano, who has recently been elected as the representative of the Central University of Madrid, in the Upper House of the Cortes, appears to have been to establish. by means of this one act, a comprehensive and highly complex system, according to which every child in Spain should pass through a regular course of instruction, laid down in all its details by law, and be turned out at the end endowed, after his capacities, with the knowledge to which the state might think fit to limit his studies. Every Spaniard was to be educated, but none might presume to teach or be taught in a school at variance with the strict conditions of the law.

All were to be cast in the same mold, and the existing state of things in Spain was not to be exposed to the reforms and revolutions which had elsewhere sprung from the indiscriminate and unrestricted education of the masses.

The nominal head of the Spanish system of education is the minister of fomento, a department of the Government which further includes agriculture, public works, and other objects connected with the development of the resources of the country. It is among the duties of that cabinet minister to advise the Crown to countersign royal decrees relating to education, and to issue the diplomas for the university degree of doctors.

But the practical supervision and working of the educational machine is intrusted to the director general of public instruction, whose offices form one of the leading divisions of the ministry of fomento. The gentleman occupying that post exercises a general control, through the regular channels described below, over the primary, secondary, and superior instruction of the whole country. He is assisted by the royal conncil of public instruction, composed of thirty members, besides its president. Among the ex officio members of that body are the director-general himself and the rector of the Central University of Madrid. The majority of the council is named by the Government from men possessing certain special qualifications of university teaching, &c. The whole constitutes a consultative body, to be heard by the Government in drawing up new general regulations, establishing or suppressing educational institutions and professional chairs, and sanctioning programmes of instruction and text-books.

Spain is divided, for educational purposes, into the following university districts: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Granada, Valladolid, Santiago, Saragossa, Salamanca, and Oviedo; and the rectors of these ten universities are the connecting links between the educational systems of their respective districts, and the Central Government of Madrid. It is the duty of a rector, independently of his more immediate concern with the university of which he is the chief, to see that all the schools and colleges within his district are managed as the law directs; to report on their condition to the director-general, and to give publicity to the decrees of the executive relating to education. He presides over a consultative university council, composed of the deans of the faculties, directors of superior schools, and other nominees of the Government. The functions of that board are analogous to those of the Royal Council.

Each university district has likewise been provided with a Government inspector by royal decree of the 4th March, 1832. Before that date there existed only five such inspectors, who were quite unequal to the task they were expected to perform. Each of the new inspectors is now required to visit every educational establishment within his district, with the exception of the primary schools, at least once in the course of every year. The salary is £100 a year, besides traveling expenses.

A university district includes several provinces, at the capital of each of which the central government, or, rather, the rector of the university at the head of the district, is represented officially by the civil governor of the province, who is the chairman of a provincial school board (Junta de instruccion publica), consisting, besides himself, of a provincial deputy, a member of the municipality, the school inspector of the province, an ecclesiastical nominee of the bishop, and several fathers of families. These members of the board are all approved by the Government, which chooses most of them from lists of three submitted by the civil governor.

The arm of the Government reaches the separate municipal districts in the person of the mayor (alcalde), who is assisted by a board of primary instruction, nominated by the civil governor of the province, one member of which must be a priest. Such was the educational hierarchy provided for by the act of 1857.

The different kinds of instruction obtainable were classified under three main headings, viz, primary, secondary, and superior instruction.

Primary schools were placed under the special charge of the municipalities, every town of 500 inhabitants being obliged to maintain at least one, and every town of 2,000 inhabitants at least two such schools, besides an equal number of schools for girls. An additional primary school, private or public, was imposed by law for every additional 2,000 inhabitants. Villages of less than 500 souls were to combine to form school districts.

Parents or guardians were called upon by the act to send their children or wards, between the ages of six and nine years, to a public primary school, unless adequate provision should have been made for their education in a private establishment or at home. Defaulters were to be first admonished by the municipal authorities, and finally punished, if necessary, by fines of from 5d. to 48. 5d. But the articles relating to this part of the subject remained a dead letter from the first, and no parent is, in point of fact, compelled or even asked to send his son to school.

Public primary schools are paid for by the municipalities, in so far as their maintenance requires funds over and above any endowments they may possess and the quota paid by the pupils. As the revenne derived from these independent sources