fore 5, left the hotel in a carriage at 5.30, and started on the train for Rio at 6. The trip occupied the day-say twelve hours, the train going at moderate speed, and stopping at stations about every ten miles. The fare for three of us was ninety milreis, and ten milreis more for a trunk, making in all about forty dollars. Considerable of the way was down the valley of the Parahyba, which varies from two to twelve miles or more in width, is of medium fertility, has long been settled, contains many plantations and populous villages, and is inclosed on each side by forest-covered mountains on whose sides, however, are occasionally to be seen coffee-plantations. The river, which is dark-colored, is generally broad and shallow, but here and there is shut in narrow banks with rapids. The scenery is frequently picturesque. We reached Rio at 7.10 P.M. in the midst of a very heavy fall of rain, and before eight o'clock were safely at our residence.

CHAPTER XI.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

WHILE the Pedagogical Exhibition held at Rio in 1883 was a success, the friends of education very much regretted that a congress of teachers from all parts of the country could not have been held at the same time. The plan which the Government proposed for the congress was that, in each province, the Inspector-General of Instruction should assemble all the male teachers of that province, who should select three of their number to attend the congress, the inspector himself to select three female teachers to attend, making six teachers from each province, or, for the twenty provinces and the capital, one hundred and twenty-six members. The necessary expenses were to have been paid by the central Government, and the estimate to cover the expense of the congress was thirty contos, or twelve thousand dollars. The national legislature, however, declined to vote the money, and so the congress was not held. Under these circumstances the Government appointed a commission, or congress, of distinguished educators, who served gratuitously and furnished some able papers on educational subjects. It is now the wish of the Government soon to hold an international congress of teachers of American countries.

The Pedagogical Exhibition was under the presidency of his Royal Highness Count d'Eu, husband of the Princess Imperial, and was opened in presence of the Emperor and Empress, and a numerous public, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, July 29th. It remained open for the free admission of visitors for several weeks, and was visited by many thousand people, and, in this way, was itself an educator of taste and ideas of very great value. Several foreign countries were represented in the exhibition; but the United States, for some reason, was very scantily represented. Belgium took the lead in the exhibit of technical work of pupils and in school-room apparatus and fixtures. Her display was admirable, and calculated to inspire admiration for the country making it, and thus indirectly to benefit her commercial interests. Germany came next; and the exhibit by France was respectable.

The exhibition finally developed into a permanent Educational Exposition of school-furniture, fixtures, maps, text-books, etc., all being well arranged in spacious rooms in the second story of the National Printing-Office building, and where it now forms one of the most creditable displays that can be found in Brazil.

The literature of the exhibition was also creditable. Conselheiro Leoncio de Carvalho, first secretary of the commission appointed to organize a teachers' congress in connection with this Pedagogical Exhibition, contributed an interesting and able introduction to the report on the exhibition, in which he first expresses regret because the expected congress of teachers did not take place owing to the failure of the legislature to provide means, pointing out, at the same time, the many foreign countries, beginning with Germany in 1848, in which teachers' congresses

have been successfully held. Thanks, however, to generous private contributions of money, and to the active cooperation of the Government, an exhibition was held, and many valuable written opinions or essays contributed to educational literature. These opinions are printed in a large quarto volume issued at the same time with the introduction and reports of awards by committees.

This introduction by Conselheiro Carvalho contains much information on the subject of public instruction in Brazil. The condition of primary instruction, he says, is deplorable. Taking the free population at upward of seven millions, there is but one school in proportion to every 1,356 inhabitants, which is far from satisfying the needs of a population scattered over a vast territory, and separated by great distances. Many of the schools, too, are not provided with teachers; almost all are kept in hired houses, and badly situated in sanitary regards. Pupils of different sexes can not attend the same school. In the whole country there are 1,315 schools for girls. The school population, composed of boys and girls from six to fifteen years of age, amounts to 1,902,454, of whom only 321,449 are registered as pupils, leaving 1,581,005 who do not go to any school. No one can teach a private school without being subjected to the tests applied to teachers of public schools. Many of the latter, Mr. Carvalho says, are deficient in the necessary qualifications. The pay is frequently inadequate; nor do women have the proper facilities for teaching. Religious intolerance closes the school to all but Catholics. The school sessions are divided by long intervals, obliging the father to send his boy to school twice a day, which is inconvenient for all and impossible for many.

Mr. Carvalho has not sought in this introduction to

give a rose-colored sketch of popular education that would gratify the vanity especially of the statesmen of the country; but he has had the courage to speak the truth like a manly patriot, knowing that such a course would, in the end, prove the most serviceable to the public welfare. He tells us that popular education is in a deplorable condition, which, no doubt, is the honest truth as regrads many of its features.

Brazil has for many years maintained a system of public instruction, and some of her enlightened statesmen are now devoting special attention to its improvement. Naturally, the great extent of the country and sparseness of its population have been serious drawbacks to common schools in the rural districts, and it will be found that, in the endeavor to overcome these, practices have grown, such as keeping schools in private houses, which would seem novel in the United States, where a separate building for a public school is the universal custom. More than ordinary interest was manifested in educational matters by Minister João Alfredo when at the head of the department of the empire about ten years ago. Among other things he caused the erection of the fine schoolbuilding in the Largo Machado, where the Emperor frequently, on Sundays, attends lectures. He also changed the rules of the Polytechnic School so that students could undergo examination without attendance on the lectures. Educational reform began under him, and was effectively continued by his successor, Conselheiro Leoncio de Carvalho, who was appointed Minister of the Empire in the early part of 1878, in the Sinimbú Cabinet, and who in the course of the year and a half that he was in office caused the enactment of the law of April 19, 1879, reforming primary and secondary instruction in the municipality of