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If one considers the range of instruction from the Volkschulen and Fortbildungsschulen up through the skeleton list I have mentioned to the universities, and then on beyond that to the thousands still engaged as students in the commerce and industry of Germany, as, for example, the technically employed men in the Krupp Works at Essen, or the Color Works at Elberfeld, to mention two of hundreds, it is seen that Germany is gone over with a veritable fine-tooth comb of education.
If one were to make a genealogical tree of the German schools which educate the children from the age of six up to the age of entrance to the university, it might be described as follows: First are the Volkschulen, which every child must attend from six to fourteen.
The elementary schools, or Volkschulen, are free, and attendance is compulsory from six to fourteen; in addition, the Fortbildungsschulen, or continuation schools, can also be made compulsory up to eighteen years of age. There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools with over 10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private elementary schools with 42,000 pupils who pay fees.
For boys intending to go on through the higher schools, there are schools taking them on from the age of nine, with a curriculum better adapted than that of the Volkschulen to that end.