students in colleges requiring the passing of college entrance examinations for matriculation, the figure had grown in 1939 to 9,218 students, an increase of over 100%.

In educational work in general, independent Finland's most significant achievement was the implementation of the compulsory education law of 1921. It has brought a huge increase in the number of schools, teachers and pupils : 1915 statistics for elementary public schools showed 6,044 teachers and 181,112 pupils, while the 1938 figures showed 13,810 teachers and 491,989 pupils.

Since the Finns did not have complete freedom of action in the political or even the economic fields in the period before independence, there was more intensive focus on the various cultural fields, science, art and literature. In all these fields there had been significant achievements by the turn of the century and in the early 1900s, and many individuals who had achieved recognition in these fields continued their activity into the years following Finland's independence.

In the sciences, the present has received from the earlier age an heritage of both men and methods. For example, the historian Johan Richard Danielson-Kalmari, whose extensive work, "Finnish Political and Social Life in the 18th and 19th Centuries", was not published until the independence era, had begun his research almost half a century earlier. Similarly, historian Gunnar Suolahti, whose main field was cultural history, had begun his research at the beginning of the century. On the other hand, the work of the specialist in medieval history, Jalmari Jaakkola, has taken place entirely in the period of independence.

A sociologist who achieved international fame, Edward Westermarck, had published his most important works before the era of independence, but he continued his scholarly activities up to his death in 1939. The same can be said of his contemporary, the philosopher Arvid Grotenfelt, who died in 1942. Of Finland's younger philosophers the best known is Eino Kaila, while mention should be made of the sociologist Uno Harva, who died in 1949.

Of scholars in the field of law, mention must be made of K. J. Stahlberg, who became the first president of independent Finland.

In the natural sciences, there should be mentioned geologists Pentti Eskola and Matti Sauramo, the geographer Gabriel Granö, and chemists Gustaf Komppa and Arthur I. Virtanen, Finland's first recipient of a Nobel Prize in the sciences. Well-known philologists were E. N. Setälä and Heikki Paasonen.

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