excellent idea to be sure that the children of the poor get at least
one warm meal every day. In the city of Christiania, 711,302 meals
are served annually in the primary schools. The average attendance is
22,750, so that only about 24 per cent of the children take advantage
of the free dinner. Only 18,341 of these meals are paid for, and those
are taken on stormy days by children of well-to-do parents.

The Norway school teachers must be graduates of normal schools, of
which there are twelve in the kingdom; they must pass examinations and
serve a probation of three months before they are definitely engaged,
but when they have once received an appointment, they are settled for
life and sure of a pension at the end of the long term of faithful
service. The same rule applies to all civil service employees, for the
school system is a part of the government. There is no such thing as
rotation in office. Promotion is expected by all who deserve it. A
worthy and efficient teacher, having begun in youth at the lowest
grade, expects advancement to the highest, according to the judgment
of the school boards and supervisors. School teaching is a career,
just as a government clerkship is a career. People enter both
professions with the expectation of making them their life-work,
although from our point of view they offer very little inducement.

The average salary of the school teachers in Norway is only about $220
a year, the men receiving a little above the average and the women
a little less. The highest salaries are paid in the city of
Christiania--$756 for men and $434 for women. Head masters to the
number of 1,992, like parsons, are furnished with houses to live in
and little tracts of land, three or four acres, where they can raise
vegetables for their families and keep cows; and nine hundred and ten
of them add a little to their incomes by serving as parish clerks.