ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN SAXONY. INTRODUCTION. I. SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DESIRE FOR EDUCATION IN GERMANT AND OF THE EDDCATIONAL LAWS IN SAXONY . 1 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as the importance of towns in Germany increased, the mercantile and commercial industries re- quired that the children should receive some sort of education which, from existing cir- cumstances, they were unable to obtain in the schools of that date. All these schools were connected with the church, with convents, or withthe cathedral of the town, and were fre- quented almost entirely by those studying 1 Taken from the official introduction to the Educational Law and from the Law itself. B