seventh year the child _must_ enter some school or receive elementary
instruction at home. So far is education compulsory; beyond, it is
optional. When duly prepared, he enters, if the parents desire it, the
Government Gymnasium or Lyceum, answering pretty much to our College; it
fits the youth for entering the University. It confers no degrees; only,
at the conclusion of the studies, an _Examen Maturitatis_ takes place.
The youth is then declared ripe for matriculation. Without having
undergone this examination, he can never become a regular student. Even
should he have attended regularly any of the many private academies, or
the _Realschule_, where thorough instruction is given, but with less
special, though no slight attention to Latin and Greek, and more to
mathematics and practical branches, even then he must acquire from
one of the gymnasia the exemption-and-maturity-right. In the slang of
student-life, the gymnasiast is styled a _Frog_, the school itself
a _Pond_; between the time of his declaration of maturity and his
reception as student, he is called a _Mule_.

The course is no light one the candidate has gone through,--nine or ten
years of classical training, Latin the whole time, Greek the last six or
seven years, Hebrew the last four, generally optional, though in many
cases required at future examinations. The modern languages have not
been neglected: French he has pursued seven years, English or Italian
the last three or four. Beside all these, the elements of Philosophy,
Moral and Natural, History, Mathematics, etc. In fine, the certificate
of maturity would in most cases equal, in many surpass, what our
colleges is styled the degree of A.M. Of course, the parallel must not
be understood as existing with respect to many of the older institutions
in the United States, which presuppose, in the entering freshman, a
preparatory course of several years.