Dutch school

“ As in all Continental countries, there is nothing in Holland corresponding to the English public school System. The 'Gymnasia' prepare boys for the Universities, and the 'higher burgher' schools train them for commercial life and some professions, somewhat in the same way as English modern schools, but there the resemblance ends. As a rule, a Dutch boy's school life is limited to the hours he spends at lessons; the rest of the day belongs rather to home life. There are a few boarding schools in Holland, but the life in such schools in the two countries is different in almost every respect. ”

“ This want will be remedied in time, so that colonists may be spared the trouble and expense of sending their children to Europe; but the only Dutch schools in Java that I know of are the 'Gymnasium' at Willem III (Batavia) and one high school for girls. Native schools are more numerous, and are being multiplied not only by the Government but by the missionaries. ”

“ The Dutch and Flemish school, to which you next advance, possesses merit, and is distinguished by a character of a very different description. It was the well-known object of this school, to present an exact and faithful imitation of nature; to exaggerate none of its faults, and enhance none of its excellencies, but exhibit it as it really appears to the eye of an ordinary spectator. ”

“ The painters of the Dutch school have still more locality. With them a history-piece is properly a portrait of themselves; whether they describe the inside or outside of their houses, we have their own people engaged in their own peculiar occupations; working or drinking, playing or fighting. The circumstances that enter into a picture of this kind are so far from giving a general view of human life, that they exhibit all the minute particularities of a nation differing in several respects from the rest of mankind. ”

“ In the morning early, what first meets the eye in the white and silent streets are the innumerable prints of the wooden shoes of the children going to school - footsteps as of elephants, so large are the shoes - and succeeding each other in a straight line, plainly demonstrating that the scholars take the shortest way to school, like sedate and zealous Dutch children. ”

“ The Parochial Schools in New Netherlands.—A second type of colonial organization of education appears in the New Netherlands, as the country between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers was called during the period of Dutch control (1621-1674) . In contrast to the laissez faire attitude of Virginia, the foundation of schools was parochial. Instead of the chance endowment of schools wherever the benefactors happened to be located, a school was founded in connection with Calvinistic conception of universal education, as in Holland. every church. ”

“ A devotee of the modern school of Dutch art never paints to paint a "picture," but endeavors to portray some simple phase of nature or some quiet sentiment of every-day life. The work of the school is chiefly remarkable for its purity of color, its decided individuality, and its originality of conception. ”

“ BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS The Dutch school of painting has one quality which renders it particularly attractive to us Italians; it is of all others the most different from our own, the very antithesis, or the opposite pole of art. The Dutch and Italian schools are the two most original, or, as has been said, the only two to which the title rigorously belongs; the others being only daughters, or younger sisters, more or less resembling them. Thus, even in painting Holland offers that which is most sought after in travel and in books of travel ”

“ Dutch civil engineers are educated at Delft, at the Polytechnic School, after having passed their final examination at a 'Higher Burgher School.' Boys of sixteen or seventeen are not fit to digest sciences by the dozen, and, however pleasant and convenient it may be to become a walking cyclopedia, a cyclopedia is not a living book, but a dead accumulation of dead knowledge, which may inform though it does not educate. Happily, the majority of Dutch engineers are saved by the Polytechnic School, where they have about the same liberty as undergraduates at the Universities to go their own way. ”

“ Foreign teachers are not very plentiful, as the diplomas are not easy to get, and a native, who has to relearn much of his own language from a Dutch point of view, has little or no advantage over a Dutchman in the examinations.
No sketch of Dutch schools would be complete without some reference to the way in which modern languages are studied, for this is the most striking feature in the national education, and is of great importance when we are considering the national life and character of Holland. ”

“ The night-schools are intended for those engaged in agricultural or industrial work; the "higher schools" for technical instruction, and much attention is paid to the study of the vier talen—French, English, German and Dutch. In connection with these there is an admirable School of Agriculture, Horticulture and Forestry at Wageningen in Gelderland. To the teaching at Wageningen is largely due the acknowledged supremacy of Holland in scientific horticulture. ”

“ Some of these, as Isaac Israels, ten Cate, Bosch Reiz, and others, have studied in Paris, and have interested themselves in the problems attacked by the modern Frenchman; others, as De Zwart, Offermans, De Bock, and indeed the majority of the coming men, while distinctly original, belong virtually to the Dutch school as we know it, either in color tone or in subject. Still, among all this procession of the men of tomorrow there are no direct pupils or imitators of their elders, and some are seeking new and adventurous paths. ”

“ Besides having the oldest school in the United States, still in daily operation, the Dutch of New Netherland organized and maintained academies and colleges in the Raritan, Hudson, and Mohawk valleys, most of which have been in continuous existence to the present time. Modern immigrants from Holland in the West show the same love for education. ”

“ Again, one does not expect much of a country school, and the majority of the men who preside over these institutions in the Dutch Republics are there simply because they can obtain no more lucrative an occupation. ”

“ Although there are others who are noble-minded and rejoice.
In many cities small Dutch schools have sprung up like mushrooms, and they are filled with little children as well as with grown men, who have been for years in the service of the state. ”

“ It is only regents who do not have to ask permission for their families to go to the European schools: most of the native chiefs are afraid of receiving a "No" in answer to their request and therefore do nothing. Is it presumptuous of Father to call attention to the fact that African and Ambonese children may go directly to the European schools, without understanding a word of Dutch? Stella, I remember well from my own school days that many European children went to school who knew as little Dutch as I, and I hardly knew any. ”

“ The army is so efficient that any of its soldiers might serve as captain in an Italian army, while no Italian captain would be admitted in it as a common soldier. In culture and instruction, as well as in the arts of organization and of government, the Dutch are two centuries ahead of the rest of Europe. Scarcely a man, woman or child can be found who does not know how to read and write (1609) . Every village has a public school. In a bourgeois family all the boys read Latin and all the girls French. Many people write and converse in several foreign languages. ”

“ A boy entering one of the higher schools at the age of twelve or thirteen generally has some knowledge of, at least, one foreign language, acquired either at an elementary school, or at home, and he is never shy of displaying that knowledge. If his parents are well off, he has probably learned to speak French or English in the nursery, and it sometimes happens that he even speaks Dutch with a French or an English accent, having been brought up on the foreign language and acquired his native longue later. ”

“ It is said that as many as sixty thousand Dutch children are getting no regular schooling. About one half of this number live on the canal-boats, and will probably give a good deal of trouble to those who will administer the new Act; for, as we have already seen, the families that these boats belong to have no other homes and are always on the move, so that it must ever be difficult to get hold of the children, especially as their parents do not see the necessity of sending them to school. ”

“ Chapter XIII Schools and School Life
If the Dutch peasant is not generally well educated it is not for want of opportunity, but rather because he has not taken what is offered him. For many years past a good elementary education has been within the reach of all. Even the small fees usually asked may be remitted in the case of those parents who cannot afford to pay anything, without entailing any civil disability ”

“ Culture in Holland is widely diffused. The well-to-do classes [pg.431] usually read and speak two or three languages beside their own; and the Dutch language is a finished literary tongue of great flexibility and copiousness. The system of education is excellent. Since 1900 attendance at the primary schools between the ages of six and thirteen is compulsory. Between the primary schools intermediate education (middelbaaronderwijs) is represented by "burgher night-schools" and "higher burgher schools." ”

“ After being a city of disabled and decrepit churches, Utrecht is a university town, and the seven or eight hundred students in attendance do their best to emulate the early ecclesiastics by trying to keep the place in a state of perennial siege, for it is to be remembered that the drudgery and frugality of university life in Holland is not what it is cracked up to be. In a way, a Dutch college education is a good bit of a farce. The student is under very few obligations except to himself. ”

“ The long fight against Spain and the Inquisition had stimulated the energies of the Church and the people of the Netherlands, and their Universities and theological schools soon rivalled older seats of learning. The University of Leyden, a thank-offering for the wonderful deliverance of the town, was founded in 1575; Franecker, ten years later, in 1585; and there followed in rapid succession the Universities of Gronningen (1612) , Utrecht (1636) , and Harderwyk (1648) . Dutch theologians and lawyers became famous during the seventeenth century for their learning and acumen. ”

“ Only some twenty-four such schools exist at present; the oldest, that at Amsterdam, dates from 1861, and the youngest, that of Nymegen, was established in 1900. Partly municipal schools, partly schools built by the private effort of citizens, they all do their work well. It is only during the last few years that the nation has begun to ask whether technical education ought not to be taken up by the State. The Dutch like private enterprise in everything, and are always inclined to prefer it to State or municipal action ”

“ THE Dutch came to America from it country in which printing was free and books worn cheap. Public schools, for all children to the age of twelve, sustained by taxation and giving free elementary instruction, had existed in most of alto towns from the Middle Ages. There was, besides these, a large number of Church schools, in which the young people of the upper classes received instruction in Latin and the humanities. ”

“ Instruction in the elementary schools supported by Government is in two grades, though the dividing line is not always clearly drawn. In Amsterdam, for example, there are four different grades. In the lower schools the subjects taught are, besides reading, writing, and arithmetic, grammar and history, geography, natural history and botany, drawing, singing and free gymnastics, and the girls also learn needlework, but a large proportion of the pupils are satisfied with a more modest course, and know little more than the three R's. ”

“ No doubt there are some who are in no hurry to leave the attractions of student life, but not many cling to them so persistently as a certain Dutch student, to whom a relative bequeathed a liberal allowance, to be paid him as long as he was studying for his degree. He became known as 'the eternal student,' to the great wrath of the heirs who waited for the reversion of his legacy. For most men the ordinary course is long enough, for it averages perhaps six or seven years, though there is no fixed time, and candidates may take the examinations as soon as they please. ”

“ The centre of Dutch university life, which is non-residential, is the students’ corps, at the head of which is a “senate,” elected annually from among the students of four years’ standing. Membership of the corps is gained after a somewhat trying novitiate, but is the only passport to the various social and sports societies.
All teachers in the Netherlands must qualify for their profession by examination. Under the act of 1898 they are trained either in the state training-colleges, or in state-aided municipal, and private denominational colleges ”

“ As may well be imagined, students are not generally popular with the townsfolk, who resent the unequal treatment of the two classes, not because they wish for the same measure of license, but because anything like rowdiness contrasts strongly with their own habits; and extravagance, not an uncommon failing among students in Holland or elsewhere, is absolutely repugnant to the average Dutch citizen. ”