he asked me to guess the rent. It was thirty pounds! I found in that city, where there is a university, every article of life surprisingly low, and the charge at the chief inn where I was several days, amazed me beyond measure, not by its great but by its little amount!

People need not go abroad, if mere general economy were the object. My house here in the suburbs of London, with stabling, garden, conservatory, pleasure-grounds and paddock, costs me very little more than did my suite of rooms in Heidelberg, where I had not a foot of garden, but simply the privilege of walking in one. Nay, only fourteen miles from London, in the immediate neighbourhood of Claremont, my house, with ample garden and orchard, stables capable of stalling seven horses, and all other offices, with fourteen acres of meadow land lying on the celebrated fishing river, the Mole, with right of fishing and boating, was much lessbut 701. a-year. But it is not mere general economy which takes people abroad-at least people who have no necessity to bind themselves to the expensive neighbourhood of large cities, and especially of devouring London-it is the one great economy of education; and that is consideration enough. A man who, in this country, has his four or five children to educate, cannot do it, if he wishes to give them a really first-rate education, at less than 100%. a-year each for his boys, and for his daughters 801. This is not merely reckoning the

actual school-wages, but the extras, those formidable appendages to every boarding-school bill in England. If he average the yearly charge of boys and girls at really good boarding-schools, he cannot estimate this at less than 80l. per annum each. And out of such schools he has no means of giving them a complete education at all; for any private system of tuition in this country will be very confined, and require the addition of a variety of masters by the hour, which will bring up the sum total, where such masters are available, as for instance, for teaching French, German, music and singing, to pretty much the same amount. Now in one of the German cities you may, if you are residing in the place, send your children as day-scholars to boarding-schools of the first quality, or to the Gymnasium, the public school, preparatory to the University, as is the every-day practice, at the rate of 51. per annum each. The contrast is so striking, that one does not wonder at the multitude of English families who go and reside abroad during years of their children's education.

the

Five children at school in England, at £80 each, £400 Ditto, as day scholars in Germany, at 5 do.

Difference per annum

25

£375

Now, out of this difference, there has only to be deducted the expense of mere eating and drinking for their five children; clothes and other things they still require in both cases. Add also to the

foregoing advantages, that your children will, besides the best general education, be well grounded in French and German, and in music and singing, which they cannot possibly be here, except at an enormous expense. Our children in England learn a certain quantity of French and German, and three-fourths of them lose it all again from want of practice; but in Germany, during a course of four or five years, the language of the country is so thoroughly familiarized by daily and hourly use, that it will not readily be lost again. It is acquired too by children, almost without an effort, or without consciousness, by their association with German children. This is a great saving of time, for this acquisition is made not so much in school-hours as in play. French too is much more spoken there. There is a greater intercourse with foreigners, and the language is more in daily use. Or you can send your children at a little expense into the evening circle of a French family, and this gives them full familiarity and fluency. For the acquisition of music and singing, an abode in Germany is equally advantageous. These are so much the daily and hourly enjoyment, they are so much the universal accomplishments of both ladies and gentlemen, that young people seem to live in a musical atmosphere, acquire a thorough appetite for it, and not only feel the necessity but the thirst for its acquisition. In all these particulars, as well as in that of a thoroughly good and cheap education for

any track of life, Germany certainly offers the most decided advantages. But then, in my opinion, these advantages are almost entirely bound up with your going thither yourself.

The sending of children to a foreign country, I consider so full of dangers, that I am not prepared to recommend it at all. On the contrary, it is, in my eyes, so hazardous both to the physical and moral constitutions of youth, that it ought not to be done, except with the utmost care and caution, and is what I could not undertake to advise.

In the first place, the saving in price is not so striking, for those very schools which educate your children at 51. a year, will not take them as boarders under 401. or 50l. In the second place, as you are far away, a long time must elapse before you really can judge that your children are making the best use of their time, to say nothing of other considerations. If you are on the spot, you not only can watch their progress, can see that they are well fed and are made happy, but you have a first-rate education for 51. per annum each, or can have what masters you please at home at twenty-pence per hour in the cheaper parts of Germany.

The first and best of all plans, therefore, where there is a family, and you can do it, is to go and see your children educated yourselves. The striking amount saved in this one grand article will enable you, during these usually expensive years, to live, on the whole, very reasonably. Here it is that a

most decisive saving can always be made by a family which can go out; and at the same time gather advantages not to be gathered at home. You thus give both yourselves and your children all the enjoyments of novelty, change, and knowledge of new people and things, while they are educating themselves in the most perfect style, wholly unfelt by you. For while the younger children are attending the boarding-schools, your elder ones may attend the classes of the university, and study any one science or branch of learning, for 10. or 151. per annum; in some universities for less than 101. If you save only twenty per cent. on your ordinary expenditure in England, this will cover, in fact, all the expenses of education.

The price of household articles and charges, to a family that may thus wish to go to Germany for the purposes of education, are always a matter of interest, and may be stated here. Families will then be able to compare them with what they are paying at home, live in whatever quarter of our empire they may.

Beef is about 4d. per lb.; mutton, 3d.; veal, always very bad, being killed when a few days old, 3d.; butter, from 7d. to 10d.; sugar, brown, 5d., lump, 7d.; bread, just one-third of the present London price-a brown quartern loaf, 2d.; the small white rolls, called wecks, of which German white bread almost always consists (no large white