was retained in its essential features, it was administered with a narrow sectarian and monarchical spirit. Under the cover of zeal for moral and religious instruction, education was placed in large measure in the hands of priests. A priest, M. de Freyssinous, was called to the office of grand master of the university. In a circular announcing his appointment, he set forth the principles directing his administration: "In calling to the head of public education a man invested with a sacred character, his Majesty declares to all France how much he desires that the youth of his kingdom be brought up in religious and monarchical sentiments. . . . The true Frenchman never separates love of his king from love of his country, nor obedience to magistrates from attachment to the laws and institutions which the king has given his people." While Germany was making vigorous efforts to retrieve its fortune through the intellectual development of its people, France, in the hands of a reactionary Government, saw its educational progress effectually thwarted.

LOUIS PHILIPPE.-With the Government of Louis Philippe after the Revolution of 1830, there came a change for the better. The system of Napoleon, as transmitted from the Government of the Restoration, was administered with a vigorous and progressive spirit. The schools were emancipated from priestly control. Each district or commune was required to have a school, and, in order that qualified teachers might not be wanting, normal schools were encouraged and multiplied. Schoolhouses were erected; scientific methods of instruction were introduced; an educational interest was awakened among the people. The basis of popular education was firmly established. For the encouragement of primary teachers in their unappreciated labors, Guizot, as Minister of Public Instruction, addressed

them the following beautiful words: "I know full well that the care of the law will never succeed in rendering the simple profession of district teacher as attractive as it is useful. Society can not make a sufficient return to him who is devoted to this work. There is no fortune to be won, there is scarcely a reputation to be acquired in the discharge of his onerous duties. Destined to see his life pass away in monotonous toil, sometimes even to encounter the injustice and ingratitude of ignorance, he would become disheartened, and perhaps succumb, if he did not draw his strength and courage elsewhere than in the prospect of an immediate and purely personal interest. It is necessary that he be sustained and animated by a profound sense of the moral importance of his labors; that the austere pleasure of having served men and contributed secretly to the public weal become the worthy reward which his conscience alone gives him. It is his glory to pretend to nothing beyond his obscure and laborious condition; to exhaust his strength in sacrifices scarcely noticed by those who profit by them; in a word, to labor for men, and expect his reward from God alone."

PRESENT SYSTEM.-Under the second republic, the school laws were subjected, in 1850, to a comprehensive revision which, with recent minor modifications, resulted in the system now in force. There is a graduated and thorough system of superintendence. The highest educational authority is the Superior Council, which is presided over by the Minister of Public Instruction. The eighty-seven departments or counties of France are divided into seventeen districts, or academies, in each of which an academic council, under the direction of the Minister of Public Instruction, has charge of educational affairs. In each department or county there is another council com

posed of the prefect, the inspector of the academy, the inspector of primary instruction, and several others; while in each canton or commune a local board, with the mayor at its head, has supervision over all the schools, both public and private. Each commune of five hundred inhabitants is required to have a public school in which the following subjects are taught: Moral and civil duties, reading, writing, the elements of the French language and literature, history and geography (particularly of France), arithmetic, the elements of natural science and its applications, the principles of designing, modeling, and music, gymnastics, military exercises for boys, and needlework for girls. The schools are entirely free, and in 1882 the instruction of children between the ages of seven and fourteen. was made compulsory. Any Frenchman twenty-one years of age, who has passed a satisfactory examination, is allowed to teach. Each department is required to have two normal schools, one for male and one for female teachers, with a course of study extending through three years. Since the humiliating defeat of 1870-'71, the French Government has been making vigorous efforts to promote popular education; and in no other country has there been, during the last decade, such marked educational progress.

MORAL INSTRUCTION.-A very significant movement in French education is the present earnest effort to give greater prominence to moral instruction in the primary schools. Though moral and civic instruction has stood at the head of the course of study since 1882, the Government has been recently forced by external pressure, especially from the teaching orders of the Roman Catholic Church, to meet the charge of immorality and to establish moral teaching on a more effective basis. As a result,

the scientific spirit, which for a time dominated the secular schools, has given way to the ethical spirit, and an elaborate scheme of moral instruction has been adopted. The official program says substantially that "moral instruction is intended to complete, to elevate, and to ennoble all the other instruction of the school. While each of the other branches tends to develop a special order of aptitudes or of useful knowledge, this study tends to develop the man himself; that is to say, his heart, his intelligence, his conscience; hence moral education moves on a different plane from the other subjects. Its force depends less upon the precision and logical relation of the truths taught than upon intensity of feeling, vividness of impressions, and the contagious ardor of conviction."

The carrying-out of this program is naturally in the hands of the teacher. He is to impart moral instruction apart from religion, but in harmony with it. He is to join his efforts to those of parents and the clergy "to make each child an honest man." "By his character, his conduct, his example," the program well says, "the teacher should be the most persuasive of examples. In moral instruction what does not come from the heart does not go to the heart. A master who recites precepts, who speaks of duty without convictions, without warmth, does much worse than waste his efforts. He is altogether wrong. A course of morals which is regular, but cold, commonplace, dry, does not teach morals, because it does not develop a love for the subject. The simplest recital in which the child can catch an accent of gravity, a single sincere word, is worth more than a long succession of mechanical lessons."

SECONDARY INSTRUCTION.-Secondary instruction is provided by the lyceums and communal colleges. Previ

ous to 1852 the lyceums, which correspond to the German gymnasia, were exclusively literary, Latin and Greek being the chief subjects of instruction. Since that time they have undergone important changes which bring them into closer relation with the present age. The classes and studies of the lyceums are as follows:

Beginning with the grammar group, or the sixth class, there is now a trifurcation, which provides three courses of study. Accordingly, the student may elect a course with Latin and Greek, or a course with Latin and a modern language in place of Greek, or a course with modern languages in place of both Latin and Greek. The three courses are of equal rank, and lead alike to the bachelor's degree. The communal colleges, which greatly outnumber the lyceums, differ from them only in having less extended curricula.