Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/282

of English for some fifty students passing for the medical course. All these are admitted only to the First Higher School (Tokyo). All the applicants are examined on the same days and hours, in the different higher schools, each one being examined in that school through which he had sent in his application. The answers are collected and sent to the Department of Education, where a specially appointed committee examines the papers and assigns the marks. The aggregate of marks, due weight being given to the different subjects, determines the applicant’s standing. A list is made of all those who wish to enter a particular college, in order of their merit. The applicants are then admitted to the schools of their first choice, in the order of merit. If the number of applicants for a particular school reaches the fixed number of admissions, those with the lesser marks have to go to the school of their second choice, and so on. This system was tried for the first time last July, and proved to be undoubtedly the best way of selecting the most completely prepared applicants. For their competitive examinations, young men exert themselves to the utmost during their fifth year in the middle schools, and also during the time between their graduation in April and the examination in July. It is to be feared, however, that many young men lose their health by this overzealous application to study, and this is another argument for the advocates for the increasing of the institutions for higher education. This competitive examination is one of the causes which raise the average age of University graduates to over twenty-six, instead of twenty-three or twenty-four. In the ordinary way a child enters a primary school at six years of age; six years afterwards he enters a middle school (at twelve); five years afterwards he enters a higher school (at seventeen); three years after he enters a University, and after three or four years he must graduate (at twenty three or four).

The course of the higher schools is divided into three sections. The first section is the preparatory course for those who wish to enter the Law and Literature Colleges of the University, the subjects taught being: Morals, Japanese and Chinese languages, foreign languages, history, logic and psychology, elements of law, elements of political economy, and gymnastics. The foreign languages are English, German, and French, of which any two are to be selected; but for those who wish to take the course of German law or German literature, and who studied English only in the middle school, German is not only obligatory, but the time devoted to it is much increased; this is also the case with respect to French. Also there are some slight differences in the curriculum according to the courses of study that they are to follow in the University. In the second