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Universities whose families are not sufficiently affluent to be able to furnish their sons with the means necessary for their education. Such societies are generally local, a number of men from the same locality (men, probably, who have been poor students themselves) meeting together and constituting a society to aid poor scholars from their own locality. The scholars thus assisted afterwards return the money thus lent them, with or without interest. There are hundreds of societies of this description, and the good which they have done and are doing for the cause of higher education is incalculable. And, then, in the families of higher officials and of professional men one generally finds one or two young men who are found to be in attendance in some Government or private schools. These young men are lodged and boarded in the families—indeed, sometimes all expenses paid besides—and sent to school, they, in return, doing odd services for the families when not at school. A great many of the higher officials and professional men themselves passed through the life of shosei, as the life of such a student is called, and the system has been of so great a service that it is to be hoped that it may long continue.

There are eight higher schools, all of which are under the direct control of the Minister of Education. Some of them used to have, besides the preparatory course for the Universities, a department of medicine, which, however, was last year made an independent school. One at Kumamoto has a department of engineering. Excepting the Kumamoto Higher School, all the others are now purely preparatory schools. As has been remarked before, the number of applicants for admission is far above the number that the shools can accommodate, and a competitive examination is held to select the best-fitted students. Each candidate sends in a written application to the Minister of Education through any one of the higher schools, designating the college in the University which he wishes to enter, and naming the higher schools in order of his choice. The examination takes place in July, and the subjects of the examination are made known in April or May by the Minister of Education. They are taken from the lists of subjects studied in the middle schools, and are not to be the same from year to year. The subjects were, at the last examination, Japanese and Chinese languages, mathematics, a foreign language, physics, chemistry, and geography. The ‘foreign language’ is to be in all cases English, except for those who wish to take the courses of German law and German literature in the University course, when German is accepted instead of English; and for those wishing to study French law and French literature French is accepted as the foreign language of the examination. Besides this, German is accepted instead