doubly sure index. Of the 145,973 pupils in Servia, 31,938, or less than 23 per cent, were girls. Of the 252,880 pupils in the public primary and secondary schools of Greece, 65,162, or less than 26 per cent were girls. Of the 405,472 pupils in Bulgaria, the girls numbered 151,031, or more than 36 per cent. I have no statistical data covering this point for Rumania, but the following comparison of secondary schools will show, I think, how the Rumanian woman fares culturally.

The 1,136 girls enrolled in the secondary public schools of Rumania form less than 8 per cent of the total number of students. In Greece, the 1,221 girls in the secondary public schools form barely 4 per cent of the total. In Servia of a total of 9,899, the 2,335 girls form less than 24 per cent. In the public gymnasia and progymnasia of Bulgaria there are 38,585 pupils; of these, 12,382 or 32.6 per cent, or almost one-third, are girls. The Serb is the poorest educator in the Balkans, treating his boys and girls with fairly equal indifference, and a comparison of the last two tables shows also just where Greek and Rumanian public school education of women usually ends: with the primary schools.

If we turn next to higher education, the data are no less striking. The University of Bucharest, Rumania, registers 3,398 students, of whom 203, or less than 6 per cent, are women. In the University of Belgrade, Servia, only 65, or barely over 6 per cent, of the 960 students are women. I have found no record of any women students whatever at the Greek National University at Athens, with its enrollment of over 2,800. The University of Sofia, Bulgaria, is attended by 371 women, forming over 22 per cent of the total. Bulgaria is the only Balkan country in which womankind partakes normally of the advantages of public education: 37.5 per cent in the primary schools, 32.6 per cent in the secondary schools, 22.2 per cent in the university. And the tendency is to increase these percentages; the percentage of girls in primary schools, which today is about 38, was only 22 in 1888.

The position of girls and women in the educational life of the various Balkan nations may be understood also from

the following table. Of Servia's 1,305 primary public schools, 1,151 are for boys and 154 for girls. Greece has 3,418 public primary schools, of which 1,224 are for boys, 623 are for girls, and 1,571 are for both sexes. Bulgaria during the year 1908-09 had 18 primary public schools for boys only, not a single one for girls only, and 3,334 "mixed schools" for boys and girls together.

This universal policy of coeducation in the Bulgarian primary schools is characteristic of the Bulgar attitude toward womankind generally. A mere glance at the Greek secondary public school statistics (30,178 boys; 1,221 girls), will make unnecessary any further discussion of this matter touching Greece, nor is there any coeducation whatever in the Rumanian or Servian secondary schools. In Bulgaria, as early as 1900, secondary school coeducation was to be found in 14 department centers and in many large villages and small towns. In 1908-09 Bulgaria had 22 progymnasia (incomplete high schools) for boys, 22 for girls, and 50 for both sexes. Coeducation is farther advanced in Bulgaria than in most European countries. In the Bulgarian gymnasia young married men instruct girls seventeen and eighteen years old, and in the progymnasia young women are often the teachers of young men. I am not here urging the educational wisdom of the coeducation policy; its success, however, is conditioned by and indicates a certain relation between the sexes, which exists in Bulgaria and does not exist in any other country in Eastern Europe.

We turn now to the illiteracy statistics of the four nations. During the period of Turkish dominion, up to 1878, Bulgaria was as illiterate as it is possible for a country to be. In 1887 Bulgaria's illiteracy was 89.3 per cent (82.9 per cent for the men, 95.9 per cent for the women). Eighteen years later, in 1905, the illiteracy had been reduced to 72.1 per cent (59.3 per cent for the men, 85.3 per cent for the women). These figures are encouraging as they stand, but they require some interpretation, which will show how misleading the general statistics of illiteracy are concerning Bulgaria.

In the first place the population of the country before the Balkan wars (4,337,516) included some 576,014 Turks

and Gypsies, and a considerable number of Tartars, all of whom are still 96 per cent illiterate (and their women 98.4 per cent illiterate) in spite of Bulgaria's efforts to civilize them. In the 24 Bulgarian gymnasia (complete high schools, which are open to Turks and Bulgars alike) with a total enrollment of 11,650 boys and 5,953 girls, there were in 1908-09 only five Moslem boys and not a single Moslem girl. These people are in Bulgaria what the Indians and negroes are in the United States. If the degree of intelligence of the Bulgarian people is to be discovered, these illiterate Moslems should be excluded; and then we find that the general illiteracy of the remaining population was in 1905 67.9 per cent, and of the population above seven years of age 60 per cent. This figure is lower than that of most Eastern European countries.

But it also is misleading. Bulgaria had her first chance at educating her people only thirty-six years ago. Previous to 1878, as already stated, Bulgaria could not help being illiterate. Even today 81.1 per cent of the total population over thirty-five years of age can neither read nor write (68 per cent of the men, 95.4 per cent for the women). In order to understand the real standard of intelligence of the free Bulgarian nation of today, therefore, we must examine the illiteracy of the non-Moslem population seven to thirtyfive years of age. The figures for 1905 show on this basis an illiteracy of 33 per cent (about 22 per cent for the men and 43 per cent for the women). When we finally approach the military statistics of Bulgaria, we find that in 1888 70 per cent of the army recruits could neither read nor write. Five years ago the young Bulgar soldier illiteracy had dwindled to 10 per cent, and today the Bulgar soldier is fast approaching complete literacy.

To appreciate the significance of this titanic cultural endeavor of the Bulgarian folk, one has to take note of the statistics (supplied by the U. S. Census Report) which show that the Belgian army is 8.5 per cent illiterate, the Italian 30.6 per cent, the British 13.5 per cent, and the army of fair France 3.5 per cent. The younger Bulgarian regiments are as free from illiteracy as the French. Greece,

Rumania, and Servia, whose spokesmen complacently refer to "savage Bulgaria," have systems of public education several generations old. Moreover they have an insignificant number of Moslems, illiterate or otherwise, to queer their illiteracy statistics. Yet according to the U. S. Census Report (quoted in Paul Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education, Vol. 3), 30 per cent of the Greek army recruits are illiterate and the illiteracy of the Rumanian army recruits is 64.5 per cent. The Rumanian army, which in the summer of 1913 brazenly claimed the praise of Europe for pacifying savage Bulgaria, is in fact the most illiterate army in Europe, more illiterate indeed than the army of the Czar. Even in Bulgaria the Rumanian residents are today the most ignorant non-Moslems (84.9 per cent illiterate). I have no statistics about the Servian army recruits, but the Serb population over eleven years of age shows an illiteracy of 78.9 per cent.

In one brief generation, the free Bulgarian people has made a cultural advance which challenges a parallel. In twenty years the enrollment in the Bulgarian schools trebled, and the percentage of girl pupils almost doubled. There are as few men who cannot read and write in the Bulgarian regiments formed today as there were men who could read and write in the Bulgarian regiments of thirty-five years ago.

Neither has Bulgaria's astounding progress been limited to public education. During the twenty-five years preceding the war, without augmenting her territory, she increased her railroad mileage over 883 per cent, the number of her telegraph offices more than 255 per cent, the miles of wire over 162 per cent, and the number of messages sent 343 per cent; the number of her post-offices has increased 2,149 per cent, and the pieces of mail matter handled 2,136 per cent; her imports have increased over 223 per cent, her exports almost 400 per cent, and her total foreign trade over 280 per cent; the number of vessels entering and clearing her ports has increased 2,915 per cent and their tonnage almost 1,000 per cent. What Balkan country, or indeed what country anywhere, can even approach such a record of rapid all-round progress during an equal period of time?

Nor has the Bulgarian overreached himself in his cultural endeavor. Bulgaria has shown good economic sense; she has invested her resources well. Expressed in round figures Greece had, before the war, a public debt of 162 million dollars; Servia, 132 millions; Rumania, 313 millions; Bulgaria, 122 million dollars. This means a debt of approximately 60 dollars for every Greek, 45 dollars for every Servian, 42 dollars for every Rumanian, and 28 dollars for every Bulgar. Bulgaria has outdistanced her neighbors culturally without wrecking her credit.

Bulgaria's progress has been the progress of the mass, and has only emphasized the innate democracy of the nation. Rumania is a land of wealthy landed gentry and down-trodden serfs; Greece has rich merchants and povertystricken peasantry. Five-sevenths of Bulgaria's sons own the farms which they cultivate. Bulgaria has no rich classes and no poor masses. In spite of the fact that Bulgarian industry is still young, the nation has sought to anticipate the dangers and evils incidental to industrial life and so safeguard the coming generations. Woman's toil and child labor in Bulgaria have been regulated by the sort of legislation which reformers are still trying to put on the statute books of the United States. Bulgaria has no aristocracy of birth or of wealth, and it is no unusual thing for the sons of farmers to hold cabinet portfolios in Sofia.

The energetic democracy characterizing Bulgaria's education and Bulgaria's economic and political life finds also a clear expression in her racial and religious tolerance. Bulgaria is the only Balkan country in which tolerance is more than a word. The 250,000 Jews in Rumania, forming 4.3 per cent of the total population, are without any political or social rights; they are oppressed as systematically as their brothers in Russia. Religious freedom is a dead letter in the lands of Bulgaria's neighbors. Protestant missionary work is outlawed in Servia; the Bible may not be read in Greece in the vernacular, and Queen Olga precipitated a riot in Athens, which endangered the Hellenic dynasty, when she circulated the New Testament in modern Greek among the soldiers during the war of 1897.