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ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.
339
people. Great have been the sacrifices in the service of cultural aims
willingly made both by private persons and the State authorities.
Sweden possesses, in proportion to her population, a large number of
universities, and her higher educational system as a whole is well developed.
Scientific work exercises a powerful attraction on Swedish youth, and the
endeavours of poor students to acquire scientific training are facilitated
in various ways.
By reasons of the circumstances thus touched on, scientific production
in Sweden, considering the population of the country, has been
remarkably abundant, and the employment of a scientifically trained staff in
the varied fields of culture is perhaps more extensive than in any other
conntry. There are, however, divergent opinions as to whether the
national energies thus consumed are being utilized in a manner accordant with
wise economj7.
The change in the method of teaching above alluded to has a certain,
and a rather close, connection with a change that has taken place in
scientific method. The constructive, or deductive, character that in former
clays characterized science in most civilized countries was in Sweden
enhanced by the influence of the brilliant Swedish speculative philosophy
during the past century. Nowadays it is the inductive methods
inaugurated by the natural sciences, and based on exact and minute investigation,
that dominate scientific work in most domains, and this closer contact
with reality has exercised a renewing and stimulating influence on
scientific research.
Sweden possesses an ancient reputation for her contributions to
natural science. Nowadays Sweden not merely with, regard to the natural
sciences and their application, for example, to medicine, but also as regards
history and philology, might be said to assume a frontrank position among _
civilized countries.
Among publications whose object it is to present in a popular form the results
of scientific research may be mentioned the encyclopaedia called Nordisk
Familjebok, which in content as well as volume may fairly be compared with
most works of a similar kind published by larger countries.
1. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.
In the middle of the seventeeth century, thanks to the efforts of the
priests, the people were able to read in many parts of Sweden. However,
it was not till the Ecclesiastical Latv (kyrkolagen) of the year 1686
that definite regulations were issued with regard to public elementary
education, which thus became a State concern, and not merely a Church
concern.
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