Studies in foreign education, with special reference to English problems

.:r STUDIED jiN,:

CLOUDESLEY BRERETON

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Studies In foreign education

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3 1924 030 561 553

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STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Board of Education Special Reports on
Educational Subjects.
Vol. 7. The Rural Schools of North-west France.
Vol. 24. A Comparison between French and Eng-
lish Secondary Schools.
United States Bureau of Education.

Report of the Commissioner of Education for
the Year ending June 30, 1910. Vol. I, Chap-
ter XV, Education in Ireland.
Reisn's Encyclopedia of Education.

Article on Higher Education in England and

Wales.

The Teaching of Modern Languages, with

Special Reference to Big Towns. London:

Blackie & Son.

Memorandum on Modern Language Teaching.

Cambridge : The University Press.
Pitt Press Series. Appendix to (i) Remi en
Angleterre, (2) Le Blocus. Cambridge: The
University Press.
SiEPMANN's French Series. London : Mac-
millan & Co.
Une Annfe de College i Paris— Andrd Laurie (in

conjunction with Fabian Ware).
Marchand d'Allumettes — A. Gennevraye.
Un Saint — Paul Bourget.
Little French Classics. London : Blackie &
Son.
Histoire de I'Adjudant — A. de Vigny.
Le Philosophe sans le Savoir — M.-J. Sedaine.
Oxford Modern French Series. Feuilletons

choisis. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
Translation of " Underground Man," by G. Tarde.

London : Duckworth & Co.
Translation (in conjunction with F. Rothwell) of
"Laughter," by H. Bergson. London: Mac-
millan & Co.

STUDIES IN
FOREIGN EDUCATION

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
ENGLISH PROBLEMS

BY

CLOUDESLEY BRERETON

M. A. CANTAB. L.-&S-L. PARIS

OFFICIER DE l'INSTRUCTION PUBLIQUE

CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE NAT. EDUC; ASSN. (AMERICA) ETC.

AUTHOR OP "the ORGANISATION OP MODERN LANGUAGE TEACHING" "RURAL EDUCATION

IN PRANCE " (board OP EDUCATION SPECIAL REPORT) ETC.

TRANSLATOR OP " LAUGHTER '* (BERGSON) " UNDERGROUND MAN " (tARDE) ETC.

LONDON
GEORGE G. HARRAP 6- COMPANY
3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.

1913

S

GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSS AND CO. LTD.

PREFACE

A KIND of tidal wave of unrest is at present sweeping through
the English educational world, and the future outlook is
still more unsettled, as the Government, through Lord
Haldane, have recently indicated a possible reorganization
or at least readjustment of our system of national education.
The spirit of inquiry and discontent has invaded even the
most cloistral of our schools, and time-honoured methods
and traditional aims are everywhere being challenged and
criticized. Instinctively we look abroad to see how our
neighbours are faring, not without a hope that a careful
investigation of their methods of dealing with similar prob-
lems may in some cases indicate a solution or a way out
of our growing difficulties.

The present volume of collected studies is concerned with
a large number of such thorny questions. The first and
longest, which has already appeared as a Board of Education
special report, deals with some of the principal controversies
connected with secondary education in France and England.
It discusses, for instance, the relations between State and
local control, the supervision of private schools, the quaU-
fications, salaries and tenure of assistant masters, the en-
forced ceUbacy of many of the EngUsh teachers, the position
and powers of the headmasters in the two countries, the
merits of yearly or terminal promotions, of the " set "
system versus the rigid class organization, and the kindred

vi PREFACE

problem of class or specialist teachers. The burning ques-
tion of external examinations is dealt with at considerable
length and the " ungodlx4Mnbk/^-D£JexaIIUIW3^bodies,in
Ene ;land expo sed, as well as the too , mechani cal nature-of
mar]yjpi_Qur. examiaaliQi^, which a study of French methods
might correct. A good deal, too, may be learnt, it is be-
lieved, from the French method of studying the mother
tongue and from the naorgJintHlprtual atmosj^ier-e -that
pervgdes-the -Exench --school, while the superiority of the
English ^public school in forming .character is also insisted
on. An attempt is made throughout to indicate that while
educational machinery — or rather organization — ^is an abso-
lute necessity, its whole raison d'etre is not to lessen and
hamper the living thing it deals with, but to ensure that
life may be diffused and distributed more abundantly.
In these days when the majority of our views and con-
ceptions are sicklied o'er with a philosophy too exclusively
based on the quantitative and mechanical sciences it is
well to remember that the school is not a factory but a
nursery, and that its products are not standardized auto-
mata manufactured and turned out by the gross, but are
or should be subtly differentiated human beings. Edu-
cation in its final analysis is really a problem in psychology ;
and perhaps in support of this view I may cite a letter from
Monsieur Henri Bergson, the well-known author of L'£volti-
tion creatrice :

" I have at last finished the reading of your study, and
I want to tell you how much it has interested and instructed
me. Not only is it full of material information which one
can find in it alone, but, moreover and above all, it contains
a complete comparative psychology of the two systems
of education, which is of the highest interest. It is the
first time to my knowledge that a work of this kind has
been undertaken, or at least has been pushed to such a

PREFACE vii

degree of thoroughness. One will be able, I am sure, to
derive from it useful lessons both in France and in England."

As for its general accuracy as far as France is concerned,
I- may perhaps quote from a letter of Monsieur A. Ribot,
formerly Premier and chairman of the Commission on
Secondary Education in France, which reported in 1899 on
the subject in sevea volumes :

" It is not possible, I believe, to treat this subject with
a greater competence, or a more perfect knowledge of all
the details. The sojourn that you have made in France in
order to understand our methods of teaching has allowed
you to go to the bottom of things and not to stop short at
superficial views."

Many of the leading educationists in England, France,
Germany and America have expressed themselves in equally
favourable terms, so it is to be hoped that the facts and
views contained in the report are reasonably correct or at
least well founded.

The article on French Universities is an object-lesson of
the way in which the French, in spite of their excessive
centralization, have developed a system of local univer-
sities. That on Rural Education deals with a question of
capital importance for us at the present time. The system
of giving the dwellers in the country a " townee " education
is gradually passing away, and perhaps this article may
help to hasten the necessary transformation, by recognizing
the child's actual environment and experience as the prin-
cipal basis of its education. The article on Moral Instruc-
tion in France deals also with another burning problem,
which is more and more coming to the front in this country.
It attempts to show that the subject as taught in that
country is not a dry-as-dust collection of moral maxims, but
an organic and natural outgrowth of that intellectuaUsm
touched with emotion that is the predominant feature and

viii PREFACE

element in French education. The article in question has
had the honour of being translated into French for the
Revue pedagogique, the official organ of French education,
at the instance of Monsieur Louis Liard, Vice-Rector of
Paris University and the head of French education.

It is unnecessary to speak on the importance of school
hygiene at the present day and on the question of some sort
of physical training for the young, whether miUtary or not.
The monograph on " Physical Education in France," pre-
sented to the Royal Commission on Physical Training, deals
with these and other similar topics which are stiU warmly
debated in this country. The other reports on French
institutions are sufficiently explained by their titles.

" A Look Round German Schools " and " The New Way
of Teaching Classics in Germany " emphasize various points
where we may with advantage copy German methods,
especially in respect to teaching the mother tongue and the
classical languages, while the article on " Toward France
or Germany : EngUsh Education at the Crossways," sums
up in favour of the former rather than the latter as the more
worthy of our example in those departments of education
in which our own system seems to be weak. If America,
on the one hand, seems more remote than France or Ger-
many, as far as distance is concerned, it is in regard to some
of its educational problems far nearer than any European
country. The munificence of its millionaires in the cause
of education, its rapid assimilation of the alien, and the
cult of individuaUty rather than of results in its schools
are all points that we in England would do well to imitate.

We cannot go to school with any nation, or in other
words we cannot bUndly adopt the organization or methods
of any of our neighbours, for each nation has evolved its
own particular way of dealing with its educational flora,
the result of long years of trial and experiment ; but as

PREFACE ix

ardent pueri-ciilturists, to use the French term, we can try
to study and understand the methods and above all the
loving care and insight that each nation lavishes on the
coming generation. If we know our own country well, we
can with a certain diifidence say what is practical in the
way of imitation, whether it be adoption or adaptation ;
we can also see what it is advisable to safeguard against
— for prevention is a large part of educational practice,
and the teacher who says " Don't " to himself saves himself
from having to say many " Don'ts " to the children ; and,
lastly, we may catch what is perhaps the most difficult,
yet the most precious thing of all, a portion of that divine
spirit or afflatus that pervades a great national system, and
make it not merely our own, but communicate its inspiration
to our fellow-countrymen, whether they be administrators,
teachers, or parents.

I have to thank the Comptroller of His Majesty's Sta-
tionery Offlce for leave to pubUsh the first article, which
formed part of volume 24 of the Board of Education series
of Special Reports and Enquiries. I have also to thank
the Editors, past and present, of The Monthly Review,
Nature, The Journal of Education, The School World, School,
and The Practical Teacher for similar permission to re-
publish articles which have appeared in their pages.

CLOUDESLEY BRERETON

CONTENTS

PAGE

A Comparison between French and English
Secondary Schools i

[Reprinted from Vol. 24 of Special Reports on Educa-
tional Subjects, published by the Board of Education.]

Thirty Years _ of University Education ' in
France 173

[Nature, August 6th, 1903 ; reprinted in The Educa-
tional Review of America.]

French Rural Education 185

[Address delivered at the Society of Arts, December
loth, igo2.]

The True Inwardness of Moral Instruction in
France 214

[Journal of Education, February, 1908; translation in
Revue p4dagogique.'}

Physical Education in France .... 223

[A monograph included in the Report of the Royal
Commission on Physical Training (Scotland), June
20th, 1902,]

The Infant Schools of France . . • /^ • 245

[The Practical Teacher, September, 1898.]

xii CONTENTS

PAGE

The Paris International Guild .... 250

\The Journal of Education, December, 1902.]

A Look Round German Schools .... 253
[The Journal of Education, April, 1904.]

The New Way of Teaching Classics in Germany 263

[The School World, Mq,y, 1904; reprinted in The
Educational Review of America.]

Toward France or Germany? English Educa-x-

TION AT THE CrOSSWAYS . . . . /. 274

[Lecture delivered at tlie Sorbonne ; The Moiithly —

Review.]

A Bird's-eye View of American Education . 291

[The Monthly Review, December, 1901.]

A COMPARISON BETWEEN FRENCH AND
ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

Introduction.

Difficulties of making a comparison — extent of ac-
quaintance with French schools— the recent educa-
tional reforms in the two countries — coming prob-
lems in England — contrast rather than comparison
— each may learn of the other .... 9

I. Administration.

(i) Relation to the State and to the Locality.

France : {a) Relation to the State — (&) to the locality —
the lyc^e autonome — Uablissements libres — England :
relation to the State and the locality — ^non-local
schools — local schools — ^the private schools — op-
tional inspection — superiority of France in central
control — redeeming points in England — local con-
trol : superiority of England — to encourage private
initiative in France 13

(ii) Proviseurs and Headmasters : their Relative
Positions.

The proviseur (or directeur) — his position — defects in
his position — partial reforms — a lycSe autonome :
Lakanal. — The English headmaster : his inde-
pendence — his position as regards the boys — his
personal influence . . . .22

(iii) Teachers : their Appointment, Qualifications,
and Position.

Professeurs and maUres-r6pHUeurs — (a) Professeur —
his high qualifications — the licence — the agrdgaiion
training — the ficole Normale — the doctoral — connec-
tion with the University too close ? — need of caution
in making financial comparisons between France and
England — the hours of work — prospects — fixity of
tenure — penisions — salaries — (6) Maitre-ripMiteur —
his position — proposed reforms — the English teacher
— the French teacher best off — the English teacher's
qualifications — registration — qualifications, in theory

4 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

PAGE

nil in practice varied and extensive — dangers of
asking too much of teachers — training — salaries :
their infinite variety — prospects — lack of leisure —
tenure — social position — marriage prospects 3°

II. Internal Economy.

(i) Formalities on Admission — Age of Pupils — Super-
annuation.

Formalities on admission, age limits : (a) France^(6)
England — Superannuation 41

(ii) Maintenance of Standard — Organization of
Classes, Sets, etc.

Maintenance of standard — class organisation — sets :

(a) France — (6) England — standard maintained in
England by external examinations — a possible alter-
native — sets : their raison d'etre — possible extension

of the system ........ 42

(iii) Form Masters or Expert Teachers.

(a) France : preponderance of the specialist teacher —

(b) England : visiting specialists a pis aller — possible
increase in speciaUst teachers — the form master : his
degrees of excellence .... -44

(iv) Average Length of Time spent in each Class —
Promotion.

Stay in each class — promotions : (a) France — (6) Eng-
land — promotion by seniority . . . -47

(v) Examinations : their Conduct and Aim — Prepara-
tion FOR THE Higher Examinations — Radical
Differences between French and English

Examinations.

(a) France — the lower classes free from public ex-
aminations — certificat — baccalauriat — difficulty of
examination — the first part (formerly rhitorique) :
subjects— caynei scolaire — aim of the first part — the
subjects in philosophy — conduct of the examinations
in the two parts — the aim of the second part, and of
the examinations as a whole. — The rhitorique supi-
rieure — mathimatiques spioiales and the cours
spiciaux de matMmatiques — the special schools —
entrance age — a case for co-ordination — the chauff-
age. (fi) English examinations : the present chaos —
external examinations ; the Trojan horse — multi-
plicity of examinations in the schools — multiplicity
of entrance examinations — evil effects on the schools.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 5

PAGH

— The uses of examinations — ^possible remedies —
radical differences between French and English
examinations — English examinations mainly an
audit of knowledge — a verification of facts — French
examinations an audit on the art of production
rather than of reproduction — the best method
probably a compromise between the two ideals. —
Oral examinations — superiority of the French — the
merits of oral examinations — probable revival of
oral examinations in England 48

(vi) Privileges attached to Completion of Full School
^^-^ ~ Course.

In France : one general leaving certificat which is an,
entrance to all the professions — far-reaching effects
of this new reform — In England : school leaving
certificate in its infancy — equivalents . . .62

(vii) School Hours.

(a) France : school hours — length of lessons — (6) Eng-
land : school hours — length of lessons . . .64

(viii) Home Work.

(a) France : little or no regulation — (6) England :
some regulation. — Desiderata — comparison between
hours in French and English schools . . .66

(ix) The Teaching of Subjects.

Only a partial comparison possible — the mother tongue
— the French essay — the real meaning of composition
— the effect of this literary excellence on modern
language teaching in England. — Position of the
mother tongue in theFrench schools of to-day. — Latin
and the mother tongue (France) — The mother tongue
in England — reform tendencies — classics in French
schools — methods — classics in England — attempted
comparisons with France — ^English and French Latin.
— Modern languages : (a) France — (6) England — a
word for translation — history and geography : (a)
France — (b) English history — geography : (a) France
— a point for English schools to consider — mathe-
matics : France — two great advantages — points
worth noting — science : France — comparative lack
of practical work — superiority of England — other
subjects 70

Appendix. — Comparison of the teaching of subjects by
M. Duhamel entitled " Une Experience p6dagogique
franco-anglaise " . . . ... . .90

6 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

PAGE

(x) General Teaching Methods — Marks.

(a) France : the methods — (i) old style — (2) new
style — (6) England : the two aims of questioning un-
differentiated. — Marks : their pros — their cons — the
cult of marks — good servants, bad masters . . 94

(xi) Standard of Mental Maturity and Intellectual
Attainment.
Comparatively early mental maturity of the French
boy — influence of education — of race — of milieu —
the absence of a schoolboy atmosphere as it exists
in England — the home influence in France . . 97

(xii) Rewards and Punishments.

Rewards — punishments — {a) France — (6) England-
impositions — their abuse — the ethics of " caning " —
its philosophical basis . . . . .101

III. Relations between Home and School.
(i) Day Boys and Boarders.

/ (a) France : carnet de correspondance — ties between

^ parents and teachers — the French mother — ^Pfere

Didou on the subject — (6) England : growth of tie in
the day-schools — the schoolmaster a foster-parent- —
tie between home and boarding schools — parental
pride in the schools — the " old boy " and the school
— social ties between headmaster and parents —
parents' meetings . . . . . . .104

(ii) Hostels.

In France : hostels — In England : hostels and houses
— the female element — which ideal ? — State or
family ? . . . . . . . . .110

(iii) The Religious Question.

Provisions for religious instruction in France — (i) the
aumdnier — a new departure : (2) la morale — a speci-
men lesson — la classe de philosophie — England : the
Broad Church spirit in the schools — a noteworthy
tendency . . . . . . . . .112

IV. Boy Life.

(i) School Games.

School games in France — their history— obstacles to
their spread : (i) Fear of accidents — (2) parental
indifference and opposition — (3) premature recruit-
ing by the clubs — the real value of games appreciated

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 7

I'AGE

in some quarters — games in England — dangers con-
tingent on the excessive pursuit of athletics — the
athletic master — the degradation of the intellectual
life — the remedy— Mr. Benson on the subject . ■ H7

(ii) Gymnastics.

Gymnastics : their limited vogue in French schools —
les bataillons scolaires — England : gymnastics — cadet
corps. — Anthropometric developments . . .124

(iii) Opportunities for Intellectual Self-development.

France : school libraries — class libraries — England :
school libraries — the school and the pubUc library —
school reading-rooms — comic papers too much en
Evidence — original prize competitions in England —
the concours gdnSral . . . . . . .126

(iv) School Societies.

School societies in France — the English debating
society — its merits — literary societies — school
theatricals — other societies — the school magazine . 129

(v) School Surroundings — Social Life — Manners —
Code of Honour.

France : the milieu — (a) moral surroundings — signs
of a change — the saving virtue in French education
— (6) material surroundings — no gathering of the
classes in the French schools — hence little sense of
community — caution against exaggerating the situa-
tion — manners and character . . . • 131

England : the life of the boarder — its untroubled joys
— need of choosing a career — the day boy — the pubfic
school tradition — manners — attempted sketch of the
typical boy ........ 138

Appendix.—" L'Honneur chez le Lyceen franjais,"
by M. Veillet- La valine ... . . 143

■. New Experiments in Secondary Education.

(i) The Chorus of Critics — PfeRE Didon.

The chorus of critics — new experiments — P6re Didon
— his life-purpose — criticisms of the present system —
the needs of the age — how to meet them in the
schools — PSre Didon in England — his premature
death — the extent of his influence .... 146

(ii) M. Demolins and his Imitators.

M. Demolins — A quoi tient la supSrioriU des Anglo-
Saxons — an interesting comparison — L'&ducation

8 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

PAGE

nouvelle and the ficole des Roches — the school at
work : a visit — its future — the ficole de I'lle de
France — its programme 152

(iii) M. DUHAMEL.

M. Duhamel — his profession of faith — the raison d'Hre
of the new departure — French education as it is — a
health catechism — the new rigime on education —
the College de Normandie — sumptuary laws — a
modest beginning essential — general regulations —
vices secrets — their prevention — subsequent history
— English influence in France- — imitation should not
be all on one side . ..... 159

Bibliography . . 167

INTRODUCTION i

A COMPARISON betw een any branch of English educa tion
and Its corres ponding equivalent in some loreign syste m can
never^gleiasy-'- The elasticity and variety that prevail in
evSy grade of English school make it difficult in many cases
to say with absolute definiteness what is really tj^ical and
representative. At practically every point of comparison
one could cite schools which in the particular matter under
review can vie successfuUjt-with the best that obtains in
the best schools elsewherej But English secondary edu-
cation, like the English climate, is made up of a very large
number of samples. If its specimens when good are very,
very good, it is no less certain that when they are not they
are often horrid enough in all conscience.

Still no doubt a rough and ready estimate can be framed
of the management, methods, aims, and ideals of the general
run of English secondary schools, and to provide such an
approximation will be the earnest endeavour of the present
writer.

1 Note. — The second draft of this report was finished in November,
1903. It was revised by means of notes in January, 1909, and Jan-
uary 19 1 3, and to these footnotes the date has been prefixed. I have
to thank especially for aiding me in making these revisions M. Liard,
Vice-Recteur de I'Universit^ de Paris ; M. Bayet, Directeur de
I'Enseignement Sup6rieur ; M. Gautier and M. Lucien PoincarS,
successively Directeurs de I'Enseignement Secondaire ; M. Brissou,
private secretary to M. Gautier ; M. Darlu, Inspecteur-G6neral au
Ministfere de I'lnstruction Publique ; M. Gabriel Lippmann, Membre
de rinstitut, Professeur k la Sorbonne ; M. fimile Boutroux, Membre
de I'Academie franfaise ; M. Henri Bergson, Professeur au College
de France et Membre de I'lnstitut ; M. le Docteur Mathieu, President
de la Ligue fran9aise pour I'Hygifene scolaire ; M. Brunot, Professeur
d'Histoire de la Langue franjaise k la Sorbonne ; M. Belot, Inspecteur
de I'Academie de Paris ; M. J. Demeny, Official Director of Physical
Exercises ; M. Alfred de Tarde {Agathon) ; Mr. J. E. C. Bodley, the
author of France, from whom I have received many valuable hints.

10 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

HappDy the selection of normal types is far less arduoiis
in the case of the French schools, owing to the uniformity
of standard which State control and State oversight con-
tribute to maintain, though it is probable the writer could
hardly have ventured on the task if he had not had the
exceptional privilege, through the kindness of the late M.
Greard, formerly Vice-Recteur of the University, of passing
more than a year in a well-known lycee, first as an eleve de
rhitorique and afterwards de pMlosofhie at the mature age
of thirty-two.

Thanks to his exceptional position he thus enjoyed the
friendship and confidence of boys and masters alike. With
the former, once the excitement attending his apparition
had evaporated, he quickly found himself on terms of the
most charming cordiaJity. He saw them not only at school
but in private life and in their own homes, to wluch he was
not infrequently in\'ited. He was thus able to study the
French boy in a close and thorough fashion, and, while not
blind to his failings, to appreciate his many excellent quali-
ties and sympathize with the disadvantages under which
his education often labours.

Again, from his close intercourse with the professors he
learnt to realize their high standard of culture, the con-
scientiousness and lucidity of their teaching, and their pro-
found sense of the high intellectual task entrusted to them,
even if on the educational side there seemed large lacuna
for which the system itself was rather to blame. ^ As far
then as his experience goes, the writer can speeik with con-
fidence, though from the very nature of things the com-
parison on the French side must necessarily be very largely
confined to the State schools.

Even with these reservations the hst of difficulties is by
no means exhausted. Both P'rance and England have just
gone through an educational revolution, the effects of
which are far from being as yet complete. Each scholastic
system is therefore in a state of unstable equilibrium,
though no doubt once it has found its new centre of gravity

' C/. Coubertin, L'^ducaiion anglaise en France, p. no : " Ce n'est
pas I'ouvrier, c'est I'outil qui ne vaut rien."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS ii

it will ultimately come to rest in a stronger position.^ In
France the revolution has mainly affected curricula ; ^ with
us it has been above all administrative. While our neigh-
bours across the Channel have been recasting their pro-
grammes from top to bottom, we have been reconstructing
and consolidating our whole system of national education,
in which for the first time secondary education finds definite
official recognition.

It must be owned that in spite of the new complexities it
introduces, the reform presents at least one advantage for
anyone attempting to institute a comparison, inasmuch as
it allows us to say with, more certainty than before what
is and what is not secondary education.^ Here, however,
the advantage ceases. These far-reaching administrative
changes are bound to produce in their turn a crop of other
reforms before the schools settle down into something like
stable conditions. The mere fact that henceforth the
localities are responsible for the supply of secondary
education in their midst must not only influence the
financial, administrative, and pedagogical condition of
the schools under their control, but also of the bigger
schools, which, though virtually independent, are obhged
to a certain extent to keep step with the local authorities'
schools.

To mention only a few of the questions which must shortly
come to the front, we have the cost of secondary education,
involving * proper staffing and proper salaries ; the tenure

iNoTE. — (1913). This prophecy seems likely to come true as far
as France is concerned. In France certain readjustments have
taken place in the curriculum, and others seem possible. But the
actual division into four optional courses will in all likeUhood remain
untouched.

^ Note. — (1909.) Since 1903, a new factor has appeared in the
definite separation of Church and State. The efiects of this change
will be noted in the course of the report.

' An instance of the difficulties of defining secondary education may
be seen from an article in La Revue internationale de I'Enseignement,
February, 1899 : Chronique de I'Enseignement, Angleterre. Les Re-
formes prochaines dans I'Enseignement secondaire, by Cloudesley
Brereton.

* NoTB. — (1909.) Many of these necessary reforms have been
taken in band and solved to a certain extent. See notes on the
section entitled " Teachers " and elsewhere.

12 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

of teachers and their relations to the headmasters ; the need
of properly thought-out time-tables with an eye to the needs
of the district, involving on the one hand a definite challenge
to the supremacy of Greek in the higher schools and on the
other the necessity of rehabilitating literary studies ^ in the
lower secondary schools. In these circumstances it seems
more than probable that not a few of the contrasts made
in this paper will shortly be more or less out of date. One
says contrasts advisedly, because the points of difference
in the two systems are infinitely more numerous than the
points of resemblance. This is really a gain for both
countries. Where one is strong the other is often weak.
Where the one has made mistakes the other is often in the
happy position to profit by them, if it will. Each, in fact,
has much to learn from the other, both in the things to copy
and in the things to avoid.

I have to thank, for their valuable assistance in aiding
the completion of the report, M. Rabier, Conseiller d'£tat,
Directeur de I'Enseignement Secondaire ; M. Chariot, In-
specteur-Gdneral au Ministere de ITnstruction Pubhque ;
M. Hovelaque, Inspecteur-General au Ministere de 1' In-
struction Pubhque ; M. H. Lemonnier, Rapporteur de la
Classe III (Enseignement secondaire) a I'Exposition de 1900,
Professeur a I'ficole Normale et a la Sorbonne ; M. Izoulet,
Professeur au College de France, ancien Professeur de
Philosophic au Lycee Condorcet ; M. Picavet, Redacteur-
en-chef de la Revue internationale de I'Enseignement, Secre-
taire au College de France ; M. Blanchet, Proviseur au
Lyc6e Condorcet ; M. Ponee, Secretaire de la Direction de
I'Enseignement Secondaire au Ministere de I'lnstruction
Publique ; M. Duhamel, Directeur du College de Normandie
the late M. DemoUns, Directeur de I'Ecole des Roches
M. Scott, ancien Directeur de I'ficole de I'lle de France
M. J. Manchon, Professeur au College de Normandie
M. Veillet-Lavallde, Professeur au College Stanislas; and
many others.

' See Report on the Teaching of Literary Subjects in some Secondary
Schools for Boys, by J. W. Headlam, Esq., M.A., in the General
Reports on Higher Education for the year 1902, published by the
Board of Education, Cd. 1738.

I. ADMINISTRATION

(i) Relation to the State and to the Locality

The secondary schools of France are divided into two cate-
gories, the ecoles d'etat and the Scales libres. The State
schools are divided into lycees and colleges ; ^ the former, which
only exist in the more important towns, are entirely at the
charge of the State, the colleges are supported in part by the
town, but the position of the teacher as a State servant is
the same in both types of school with the exception of one
or two schools in Paris. All lycees and colleges take day-
boys ; many also have a boarding house attached.

The lycees and to a great extent the colleges are managed
direct from the Ministry, which inspects all State schools
through its inspecteurs-gineraux or through its represen-
tatives on the spot {recteurs or inspecteurs d' academie. (It
settles everything from the appointment of teachers ^ to the
fixing of fees in the day and boarding departments, except
that in the case of the colUge the towns in which they are
situated have also a voice in the matter. The colleges are
in fact divided into two categories, those en regie, in which
the State and the locaUty are severally responsible in certain
agreed proportions for the financial conditions of the day
and boarding departments.

About 14 per cent, of the colleges are under this regime,
the rest, some 200 odd, are d, la charge du principal — that
is to say, the State and town are responsible as heretofore
for the finances of the day department. They also decide

^ The comparative importance of the lyUe and college may be seen
from the following figures. About 38 per cent, of pupils are in the
colUges arid 62 per cent, in lycies (statistics of 1901 and 1908). There
are 107 lycies and 233 colUges (in 1909, 108 lycies and 237 colleges).

* The Sconome in the colUge is appointed by the town, and his
appointment is confirmed by the Ministry.

14 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the maximum fee that may be charged in the boarding
department, which is handed over to the 'principal of the
school to be conducted at his own risk, the town being
ultimately responsible for any deficit that may occur. In
general there is a separate agreement between the town and
the principal, which deals specifically with these matters.
Except for these financial arrangements the locality has but
Uttle part in the management of the school ; an effort has
been made recently to remedy this defect, and the official
authorities on the spot are urged —

" To adapt the organization of the teaching to the local needs and
possibilities by remembering that if it is incumbent on the colleges
to offer the most varied resources and programmes to a clienUle,
which does not wish to dissociate itself from them, and which seeks
to find what it needs on the spot, this variety renders indispensable
a flexibility in organization which has perhaps hitherto not received
sufficient consideration."

The idea is to encourage the localities to provide extra
funds for such special courses as it desires to see introduced
into the school teaching. These courses have to be sanc-
tioned by the rector of the local university, though this
difficulty does not seem to be very serious, as the word has
gone forth that these new departures are to be encouraged.
So far apparently several towns have availed themselves
of the privilege. Attempts have been made at co-ordina-
tion in connection with the college, a higher primary school,
or an ecole pratique de commerce or an &cole pratique d'agri-
culture.^ With a view to lessening further the present
excessive centraUzation, a new departure has recently been
made by the creation in different university regions of a
certain number of lycSes autonomes, which are allowed to
make experiments within certain limits.

' For a beginning in these matters see Special Reports on Educa-
tional Subjects, Vol. 7, Rural Edtication in France, page 180. Note. —
(1909.) In no less than twenty-four instances in the provinces an
icole primaire supirieure has been placed side by side with a colUge
under the same principal, in order that the pupils may pass freely
from one to the other, the colUge, of course, giving a general education
and the icole primaire supirieure a technical, commercial, or agri-
cultural training. I was also informed of a colUge in the north whose
principal had successfully adopted an experimental course adapted

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 15

The greater number of Mablissements libres are schools
which were formerly conducted by religious orders,^ but
have been transferred to private owners or to companies,
as a result of the Law on the Associations.^ The others
consist of " free schools " like the ecole alsacienne, or of
ordinary private schools, including those which have been
recently founded on more or less English lines. In all these
schools the right of the State is restricted to a sanitary ii;-
spection of the buildings and to an inspection of the text-
books and note-books of the pupils. The object of this
last-named safeguard is to prevent anything being taught
which is contra bonos mores or against the Government. The
inspectors have no right to be present at any of the lessons.

to the needs of his district. But such experiments are apparently
rare, as M. Maurice-Faure complains there are now in the lycies no
supplementary classes preparing pupils for commerce, the Post OfBce,
or tile railways. He further points out that there exists, apart from
the higher primary schools, a so-called " regional " and technical
education, but it is given in free schools, some of which receive State
and municipal grants. There is, apparently, still need for greater
elasticity in respect to local requirements, in spite of the trade schools
established by the Ministry of Commerce.

1 Note. — (1909.) This is no longer true, as these schools have lost
a very large number of pupils. The latest figures available (1906)
give the number of pupils in the quondam religious schools as 20,820,
as against 35,049 in the enseignement libre sSculier, and 98,963 in the
State schools. The latter have, since 1907, lost a certain number of
pupils (96,289, fljoS), though their net gain since the passing of the
Association Law is still very great, as the numbers (82,000 in igoi)
show. Part of this decrease is due to the fall in the birth-rate ; part
is due to the opening of a certain number of religious schools on the
Belgian frontier and in England. It is considered probable by com-
petent judges that the younger brothers of the boys who now go
abroad for their education will frequent the State schools in ever-
increasing numbers, owing to the enormous pressure indirectly
exercised in all spheres of life by the State. — (1913.) The religious
schools have recovered some of their lost ground — 56,836 in Nbvem-
ber, 1912, as against 17,563 in the enseignement libre sdculier {laique)
and 98,399 in the State schools.

^ There are still under consideration proposals for drastic changes
in the conditions of the enseignement libre, as far as secondary schools
are concerned, even if the loi Falloux is not abolished outright, and
thej so-called woMo^o/e established instead. Note. — (1913.) These
revolutionary changes seem less likely to occur : a certain apaise-
ment has set in, and people are frightened at the prospective expense,
of which they have already had a foretaste by the compulsory closing
of the religious elementary schools.

i6 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The head teacher in the secondary portions of these
schools must possess the title of hachelier, but no professional
qualifications are required for the rest of the staff. Com-
phance with similar conditions is a sine qua non for opening
a private school, and infraction in their maintenance may
entail the compulsory closing of the school either for a time
or indefinitely. Every French parent knows that to what-
ever school he sends his son, that establishment possesses
the Government guarantee that the sanitary conditions
comply with a certain definite minimum, and that the head
teacher is at least a qualified person.

This regard for quality and standard is carried to such
a pitch that no free school can call itself a lycee. The
general public are, however, so alive to the needs and
standards of education that the various " flat-catching
titles " of Academy, Academical Institution, High School,
etc., are unknown in France. Whatever may be the state
of some of the ecoles libres, they do not apparently need a
fancy signboard to attract the attention of ignorant parents.
It is rumoured that the Government intend shortly to
demand that the teachers in the "higher parts of these schools
should be licencies ; ^ such a state of things is, however,
already the rule in not a few etablissements libres.^

In England the different categories of secondary schools,
either within or without the full purview of pubhc control,
are still very numerous. Matters, again, are complicated
by the dual control which is exercised by the State and the
locahties over many of the schools. The Education Act of
1902 in fact divided up the non-private schools into local
and non-local schools according to whether they were aided
or not from the public funds. Under the latter heading
fall the so-called great public schools such as Eton and
Harrow, and such of the smaller endowed schools as do not
accept State or rate aid. The majority of these non-local
schools are, however, to a certain extent under the Board
of Education, in respect to their endowment and finance
as well as their educational functions, though this control,

1 Note. — (1913.) Nothing so far has been done.
' At least for the school year 1903-4.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 17

owing to the lack of any organized system of compulsory
inspection, is largely nominal. These schools, therefore,
enjoy a large measure of autonomy.^

The so-called local schools are' far from being a homo-
geneous body. They include in their ranks the grammar
schools in receipt of pubhc aid, trust schools, which retain
a sum not exceeding 4 per cent, per annum on the capital
expenditure for the purpose of repaying the amounts origin-
ally subscribed, and the growing number of municipal and
county council schools which have been founded during the
last ten or twelve years by the local authorities. In the
case of grammar schools, the Board of Education exercises
a certain amount of oversight in respect to the purely ad-
ministrative side of the endowments, etc., as well as over
the curricula, or those parts of it which are inspected and
receive grants from the central authority. It is clear that
through the action of its inspectors, who freely criticise the
methods and equipment, it has a considerable influence on
the schools.

But the real control is more and more passing into the
hands of the local authority, which acts not only as a receiver
but as dispenser of the grants earned in these schools, and
in addition sometimes subsidizes them out of moneys re-
ceived from local sources.^ The power assigned to the
locaUties under the recent Act to frame for themselves their
own system of education, subject to the approval of the
Board of Education, again gives the localities a strong voice
in the framing or re-casting of the programme of studies in
these schools. The Board of Education has indeed divided

1 (1909.) — It would appear that the comparative autonomy of
these schools is likely to be challenged in the near future, the Board
having recently announced its intention to inspect one of the largest
of these schools (St. Paul's) . It is noteworthy that a motion at the
Headmasters' Conference, December,. 1908, welcoming inspection by
the Board under certain safeguards, was only lost by 25 to 20. —
(1913.) A certain number of these schools have since voluntarily
accepted inspection by the Board, notably Harrow, Wellington,
cEfton, Bradfield, Dulwich, etc. In fact, over half the schools on the
Headmasters' Conference have asked the Board to inspect them.

' NoTK. — (1909.) The position is now roughly as follows : The
county councils aid an increasing number of these schools, but no
longer receive the Government grant. Their own subsidies are,
B.B. B

i8 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

up the schools in question into two classes, A and B, i.e.
into schools which are roughly technical and scientific, and
those which rather give a more Uterary and general educa-
tion. For a school to pass from or be placed in either one or
the other class requires its sanction, but the lines are so elasti-
cally drawn that a school in either category, and especially
in B, possesses a wide latitude in .framing its programme.^

Outside these schools come the so-caUed private schools,
which are likewise a very heterogeneous body. They in-
clude a large number of first-rate ^ preparatory schools,
which serve as nurseries and feeders to the big public schools
and the private schools generally, good, bad, and indifferent.
The classification of these schools has as yet not got beyond
mere enumeration. In the only comprehensive statistics
on secondary education which have so far been compiled
and published, all private venture schools have had perforce
to be included, down to the veriest dame school and private
kindergarten,* it being quite impossible to find a line of
demarcation.

All these schools, however, now have a right to demand
to be officially inspected at the public cost, both in respect
to their teaching and buildings, provided they fulfil certain
conditions. Both they and some or aU of the teachers in ..
them may be recognized as efficient by the Board of Edu-
cation. It seems possible that this optionsd inspection

however, framed in consideration of the amount of the Government
grants. At the same time, the number of municipal and county
council secondary schools has largely increased.

1 NoTK. — (1909.) Important reforms have taken place of recent
years which should lead to the codification of secondary education.
The Board has issued a list of secondary schools, has abolished
the division between A and B schools, given the schools greater
liberty to draw up their time-tables, and has made a start towards
providing for the training of secondary teachers.

" A competent authority, Mr. Tarver (in The Nation's Need), esti-
mates the amount expended by parents on preparatory schools in
England at about a million and a quarter per year.

' Even in France the difficulty of classifying what is and what is
not secondary education is not unknown, as tiiere is no official de-
finition. Thus it has been held at law that a boarding-house kept
by a dame for children attending a free school was an establishment
of secondary education. (Gobron, Ligislation ei Jurisprudence de
I' Enseignement public . . . en France, 1900, § 1664, p. 466.)

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 19

may prove the thin end of the wedge in the way of bringing
all the private schools in the country under a limited form
of public control. When the majority of efficient private
schools have received pubUc recognition, those who still
hang back may possibly be legally forced to submit to
inspection or else be compulsorily closed.

In this way we may see the end of the charlatanism which
is still too rife among our private schools. At present any-
one in England, even a ticket-of-leave man, may, as Matthew
Arnold has remarked, open a school in England. The
question is not merely a question of instruction, it is also a
matter of public health. It is indeed curious to observe
that while we have done as much as any nation towards
improving the sanitation and hygienic conditions of public
and private buildings, not a single legal enactment has been
passed for laying down certain definite minima in ventilation
and sanitation for such premises as are intended to be used
for school purposes for which no public money is claimed.
Overcrowding, foul air, insanitary conditions may be
rampant. The authorities are powerless to interfere.

On comparing the two systems it would seem in the case
of France that State control has produced one great ad-
vantage. By maintaining a thoroughly qualified staff corps
of teachers, supervised by a body of competent and ex-
perienced inspectors, it has estabUshed a uniformly high
standard of intellectual efficiency in the State schools to
which our secondary schools in the mass can afford no com-
parison. Again, in requiring certain minima in matters of
sanitation and school hygiene, as well as in the qualifica-
tion of head teachers in private schools, France is certainly
ahead of England as far as the bulk of the private schools
is concerned.

On the other hand, the greater hberty enjoyed by our
almost autonomous public schools has not been without
compensation. It has saved us from the opposite dangers
of excessive uniformity, and tied our hands less in the
making of new experiments. Again, in such cases in which
public inspection has been only optional, it has been ren-
dered more elastic by giving the local authorities or the

20 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

schools themselves a choice of inspection either by the
State or the Universities, thereby interesting the Univer-
sities at the same time in those institutions which supply
their future recruits.^

This last advantage also obtains in France, where the
State and the University are one, but at the same time in
the absence of such a latitude in choice, variety and elasti-
city are far more difficult to attain. In fact the French
secondary school, being an integral part of the University,^
it is possible that the connection between the two is rather,
if anything, too close. In France the locality has had
hitherto but Uttle or no voice in the management of the
schools, to which it often contributes a considerable sum.
As has been already stated, an effort has been lately made
to give it an interest in the subjects taught, but the experi-
ment is stiU too recent to pass a judgment on the results.

In England, while introducing or extending the principle
of State control, we have attempted to guard otirselves
against the danger of excessive centralization in the future
by giving to the locahty a very definite suzerainty over its
schools with a view to allowing it to make experiments and
work out for itself the particular organization and kind of
education which best accords with its particular needs. We
have, in fact, applied on a large scale the principle enun-
ciated by M. Ribot : On connatt mieux sur place ce qui con-
vient a chaque localite. No doubt we run the risk of the
locality making a certain number of mistakes, but there is
little doubt that such a measure of decentralization will con-
tribute to the advantage of English education in the long run.

In France the State in its struggle with the religious

' Note. — (1909.) This, no doubt, has been an advantage in the
past, but there are signs that in the future it will be necessary to take
steps to standardize the different inspections by making the inspec-
tion a joint matter between the University, or locality, and the State
— if not between all three.

2 (1913.) — It is worth noting that the French term Universiti has
two meanings. In addition to the ordinary English one, it signifies
in ordinary parlance the whole corps enseignant in the secondarv
schools and the Universities under State control. It also technically
includes the elementary teachers who are under the University for
teaching purposes, though nominated by the prefect.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 21

schools has tried to cover the whole ground with a network
of secondary schools. There are, however, certain regions
where no State college exists and the towns refuse to support
one or prefer to assist a religious school. In his report on
the Secondary Education Commission M. Ribot proposed
that the State should actually subsidize a society formed for
creating a local school or even a university professor, who,
while accepting fuU inspection and the usual State cur-
ricula, would be willing to run a big school as a private
venture. Such a school in his opinion " will perhaps have
more of a Ufe of its own than an ordinary college, it will
adapt itself better to local necessities."

The suggestion received further sanction by being adopted
by the Parliamentary Commission itself as one of its pro-
posals, with the additional rider that any State professor
employed in such a school sliould preserve his rights of pro-
motion and pension. Finally the law of July, 1900, em-
bodied the proposal in its fifth article, but up to the present
time nothing has been done, as the State is busily engaged
in preserving and putting on a better footing the colleges,
but according to M. Rabier ^ there is good reason to believe
the permission wiU be turned to good account. It is very
significant to see, in a country where the public authorities
are accustomed to do far more than in England, the locality
already has the right, and the State now further proposes
to assist private initiative from motives of economy, apart
from the reUgious question, which, of course, has a certain
weight in the matter.

It is curious that we in England, on the other hand, who
owe a great debt to initiative, should seem indisposed to
subsidize even the efficient private schools. Perhaps our
local authorities have not yet realized, like their French
compeers, the enormous cost of an efficient system of secon-
dary education. At all events, putting aside all other argu-
ments, there seems/ to judge by the French, a certain amount
to be said for giving pubHc assistance to efficient private
schools, or for allowing them to be attended by county

' See E. Rabier, Instruction publique : Enseignement secondaire,
p. 32.

22 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

council scholars in places where no proper facilities for
obtaining a public secondary education ejdst/ "

12

(ii) Proviseurs and Headmasters : their Relative
Positions

In the State schools the official head, who in a lycSe is
called the proviseur and in a college a directeur or a principal,
is above all things the administrator, the director of the
school, the titular head of the professeurs and surveillants,
or repStiteurs (ushers).' He has two other officials at his
side, one the censeur, who looks after the discipline and is
responsible for arranging the hours in the time-table, and
the other the econome, who acts as bursar or steward, an
office which in smaller schools is held by one of the teaching
staff. His pay, even in a Paris lycie, does not exceed, in-
cluding free quarters and allowances, £360 per annum.*

' This has, of course, been done in some places in England.

' Note. — (1909.) Connection between the Elementary and Secondary
School. — It is curious to note that in a democratic country like France
the number of scholarships assigned by the State to secondary educa-
tion only amounts to about 1,000 a year (or, roughly, 5,500 scholar-
ships in all). Of these, only some 1,580 are held by pupils coming
direct from elementary schools, i.e. about 25 per cent, of the whole.
The total number of scholarships obtained by elementary children
per year is under 300. While in country districts the number is
therefore quite inadequate, there is apparently in the bigger towns
a sufficient supply owing to the action of the municipality. In
England there are no State scholarships, but in country and town
alike the number (in London alone over 3,500) is large, not to say
lavish, especially as the overwhelming majority of our scholarships
are given for purely literary attainments. It is to be hoped that in
the future we may be able to endow constructional and artistic
aptitudes, even if it be to some extent at the cost of reducing the
number of our purely literary scholarships. It is significant that
changes in this direction are foreshadowed in the new scholarship
scheme of the L.C.C. In both England and France efforts have
been and are being made to co-ordinate the curricula of the elemen-
tary and secondary schools, but the break in the gauge, though
lessened, still remains. According to M. Steeg (Rapport Steeg),
" L'enseignement secondaire ne se superpose pas k I'enseignemen't
primaire, il s'y juxtapose " (p. 72).

3 Note. — (1909.) The two categories have now become four :
professeurs, professeurs adjoints, maitres-ripititeurs, surveillants.

* See Report Kirkman, p. 632. Note. — (1909.) It has now been
raised to £500. — (1913-) £i^o-

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 23

He has no pecuniary interest by way of a capitation fee or
otherwise in the financial success of the establishment if
it be a day school, and he can make nothing out of the
licensed victuaUing if it be a boarding school, unless it be
a colUge au compte du principal.^

At the time of Matthew Arnold's visit to France in 1859 ^
the position of proviseur was looked on as one of the prizes
of the profession. Since then the position has apparently
lost many of its advantages. Its present unsatisfactory
state was brought out in a startling way by the ParUamen-
tary Commission of Enqiiiry into the Condition of Secondary
Education of which M. Ribot was chairman. In the volume ^
in which he summed up the general conclusions of the Com-
mission he writes : * " Every effort has been made to
deprive the proviseurs of what freedom of action was left
to them." A proviseur whom he quotes says : " A mourn-
ful uniformity reigns in our schools." There is no solidarity
between the different officials. Each one shuts himself up
in his special compartmerit, in his restricted sphere of duty.

The proviseur entrenches himself too much within his ad-
ministrative functions. His freedom of action is extremely
limited. He cannot decide on his own responsibility on the
purchase of a book or a piece of scientific apparatus. He
cannot give the smallest tip to a school servant out of the
money at his disposal. The boarding fees, the tuition fees
are fixed without his being even consulted. He has been
deprived of the right he once possessed of reducing the fees
under certcdn conditions. The programmes in all their
details are settled for him by the consultative council
(Conseil Superieur de 1' Instruction Publique). The number
of his masters is fixed without his having a voice in the
matter. If he wishes to form classes in any particular
subject he has neither the right nor the means to do so.

" No wonder," M. Ribot says, " a good proviseur is pretty
rare." How can it be otherwise, when " many professors
refuse the post because they do not wish to exchange their

* See above, p. 13.

' See Matthew Arnold, A French Eton, p. 11.

' See R. E., Chapters I and II, passim.

24 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

independence for the worries of a situation full of responsi-
bilities and devoid of initiative ? " At present a proviseur
has no voice in the appointment of his staff. A proviseur
informed the present writer that at the very most if he
knows the recteur of the university he can go and see him in
a friendly way, ask to be allowed to look at the Ust of candi-
dates, and suggest to him So-and-so as specially suitable
for fiUing the vacancy. But sometimes a professor arrives
and presents himself to the proviseur with the words, " I
present myself to you as your new professor of philosophy,"
etc., and that is the first occasion of their acquaintance.

According to M. Ribot a proviseur should at least have
the right to fill up the inferior posts. Again, to win the
confidence of famiUes one must live for some time in a place ;
the fashion has been to shift the proviseurs about far too
frequently. " In fifteen years," said the recteur of Caen
University, " I have seen 28 different proviseurs in 8 lyc&es,"
M. r Abb6 Follioley stated before the Commission that before
his arrival at the lycee of Nantes there were 25 proviseurs
in 24 years. The average stay of one proviseur in a lyUe
is three years, whereas in a " free school " the directeur
often stops 15 or 20 years. M. Ribot attributes these fre-
quent changes to political influences. The extraordinary
law which rendered the proviseur responsible for all
accidents to the pupils on the premises naturally pre-
vented most proviseurs from encouraging games.^ The
law ^ still exists in a modified form, and acts no doubt
as a great deterrent to the organization of school athletics
on a large scale. On this side, therefore, the moral influence
of the proviseur over the boys is naturally restricted.

' Probably the most extraordinary case on record in which the
courts held the headmaster of a school pecuniarily responsible to the
parents for damage done to their child was that in which one boy was
seriously injured by another in a fight which took place more than a
quarter of a mile from the school premises.

' The State accepts responsibility, reserving to itself the right of
rendering the proviseur liable if in its judgment the latter is to blame.
This naturally makes the proviseurs take all sorts of precautions in
order to be on the safe side. A series of unpreventable but untoward
accidents for which the State had been mulcted would naturally have
a bad effect on his official career. — (1909.) The law still exists. The

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 23

In the big lyc&e, on the other hand, the complexity of his
duties makes the proviseur " the head of an administration
much more than the director of a house of education."
How can it be otherwise when, as in some cases, the school
population under him amounts to nearly two thousand
souls ? ^ One proviseur of such a lyc^e received in a single
year 30,000 visits. No wonder he had a good deal of trouble
even to know his staff by sight ; and as for knowing the
bulk of the pupils, that was clearly impossible. Every
morning, however, he held an enquiry, like the colonel of
a regiment, into what had happened the day before. He
thus came to know the names of those who figured with
sufficient frequency on the black Ust. To combat this difS-
culty M. Ribot would reduce the limit for each lycie to 300
to 400 pupils. And he cites with approval the phrase of
another witness before the Commission : " What is wanted
at the head of each of our establishments is an apostle;
too often there is only an official."

M. Ribot and his fellow commissioners made certain re-
commendations for amending these defects in the proviseur' s
position. The Ministry have taken note of them, and in
certain University regions they have created the so-called
lycees autonomes, of which Lakanal, just outside Paris, may
be taken as a specimen type.

The proviseur in this case is far more like a real com-
mander-in-chief than merely primus inter pares among the
other officials and professors. The boarding arrangements
and general management are in his hands instead of being
entrusted to a separate official (the Sconome). The balance
of any moneys he does not expend, instead of being returned
to the Treasury, can be devoted by him to any purpose he

results are sometimes very curious. This year the Ministry forbade
Rugby to be played at the lycde of Rouen, owing to the dangers to
life and limb. The boarders were obliged to give up the game, but
the day boys apparently owing to its prohibition played with greater
zest than ever.

'•Note. — (1913.) In Paris six lycees have over 1000 pupils, and
three over 900. Bordeaux, Marseilles and Lyons have over 2000,
seven more towns have over looo, and two more over 900. In
England the only school with over 1000 is Eton, which has about
1200.

26 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

pleases. Thus, in 1902, he constructed a winter garden with
the surplus. The lyUe, which cost 10,000,000 francs, is
surrounded by a magnificent park, which, however, requires
draining. The Government have made him a grant of
25,000 francs to carry out the necessary work.

He has had the same free hand in rearranging the sleeping
arrangements in the boarding house. In place of open
dormitories he has built cubicles which are tall and well
ventilated. Each boy is shut in for the night, but by break-
ing a httle " Judas," not unlike the glass covering of a fire
alarm, he can let himself out in case of necessity. The pro-
viseur has given up the old system of surveillants for the
dormitories and enlisted in their place young students who
are working for special examinations or surveillants who are
only appointed from year to year. He has thus got rid of
the permanent official with much of the unpopularity and
dislike attached to the calling in the eyes of the pupils. On
the other hand, he has tried to break down the party-
wall between teachers and ushers by making the latter
take part in the work of the lower classes — an excellent
innovation.

Furthermore, the proviseur has thrown himself heart and
soul into the moral education of his pupils. Every month
he holds a separate meeting of each of the sections into
which the school is divided, discusses in general terms the
besetting sins he has observed, and discreetly distributes
praise and censure. The effect on the tone of the school is
already very marked. There is an undoubted growth of the
spirit of esprit de corps. It is further fostered by school
entertainments which are held from time to time in the large
reception rooms, and which are attended by parents and
friends of the boys.

What cannot fail to interest English people is the fact that
at the moment of my visit I found two English boys in the
school of whom the proviseur spoke in the highest terms as
being an excellent influence in the school. A private con-
versation with the boys themselves showed that the good
feeling and good opinion were by no means one-sided. Both
the boys had been at an English school, so they were able

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 27

to make comparisons. They spoke of the kindness of boys
and masters, and, what seemed a specially t37pical trait,
they dilated on the excellence of the " grub." ^ It was
certainly very interesting to come across such a pleasant
example of the entente cordiale.

The headmaster is extremely keen on the interchange of
pupils with other countries. He thinks, with apparently a
good deal of reason, that English boys who want to have
a year at French before going into business cannot do better
than come to him, while at the same time he pays us the
comphment of thinking that our boys will in many ways be
an excellent influence for good among their French fellows.
Certainly the idea has much to commend it. The cost is
not excessive, and the sanitary arrangements which I looked
over appear to be thoroughly up to date. If this is a speci- '
men of the average lycee autonome, it ought soon to become,
by force of example, the rule and not the exception.^

In comparison with the position of the French proviseur
or directeur the English headmaster is a far more important
person. He is often a veritable -pastor agnorum, a pontifex
maximus, in comparison with whom the French educational
chief seems a mere rex sacrificulus. He has no censeur on
his right hand with whom to share the power of the fasces,
no iconome on his left with whom to divide the financial

1 Note. — (1913.) Such an authority as Mr. J. E. C. Bodley
informs me that this is typical. This view is confirmed by an article
of M. leTDocteur Mathieu, president of the International Congress
on School Hygiene, in HygUne scolaire (July, 1911), on the results of
an ofiScial inquiry into the feeding, ventilation, sanitation, etc., in the
lycSes from 1900-1910. Dr. Mathieu's chief criticism is that the fare
might be in some cases reinforced from the point of view of vegetables
and sugar products.

a Note. — (1909.) All lycies have now become lycies auionomes.
Unfortunately the reform, which was intended to be first and fore-
most pedagogical, has become mainly economical. As M. Maurice-
Faure in his report says, the root idea was excellent. It was meant
to give the administration of the lyc4e more liberty, to inspire a sort
of corporate responsibility ; with a possibility of catering for local
needs, and securing financial economy. The latter ideal, however,
has prevailed to the practical exclusion of the others in the great
majority of lycdes. A very grave mistake was made, at the outset,
by excluding the professors from the' meetings of the administration.
This, however, has been remedied (November 25th, 1908).

28 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

control. His power over his assistants is, at least in theory,
absolute.^ He can dismiss at three months' notice, without
cause assigned, a master who has served the school faithfully
for thirty years. Until recently he was appointed for life ;
now he is usually appointed for a fixed period indefinitely
renewable, and in actual practice he is rarely if ever ejected
unless he has proved himself impossible as a headmaster.

Like bishops and judges he is never supposed to grow old,
and superannuation is a word which as regards himself is
wellnigh unknown in his vocabulary.^ This may at times
lead to abuses, but the merit of the system is very great.
Without freedom there can be no responsibility. The
English headmaster is no mere caretaker, but a business
manager put in to run the concern by his governors, who
wisely allow him like any other business manager a wide
latitude. Nominally, of course, he is under the control of his
governing body, but in the great majority of cases he is really
the moving spirit of the board. They recognize that he must
naturally know far more of the inside working of the school
than they, and it is only in matters of finance that they
exercise a preponderating voice.

The headmaster's position towards the boys is very largely
a matter of his own making, apart from the prestige he may
have inherited from his predecessors;^ His school is not so
large as a rule as the average lycte, though Thring ^ would
consider more than one of our public schools far too big.
His routine duties are probably considerably les^ /As a

1 Note. — (1909.) This is still true of the general run of secondary
schools. But the position has been modified in the so-called endowed
schools by the Endowed Schools (Masters) Act, 1908, which makes
the assistant master the servant of the governing body and regulates
the terms of dismissal. Again, in the majority of the schools main-
tained by the county councils the local authority reserves to itself
the right of dismissal after a year's probation. This, in practice,
considerably adds to the security of tenure on the part of the assistant
master.

2 Note. — (1909.) In certain schools, notably those belonging to
the county councils, this is no longer the rule.

' See Parkin's Life of Thring, vol. i. pp. 73, 74, where 330 is laid
down as the ideal number. The late Dr. Haig-Brown was strongly
of opinion that 500 should never be exceeded. See Biographical
Memoir (p. 69).

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 29

rule there is no Government office to which he has to make
returns. He has thus a greater opportunity for taking an
active part in the work of the school. He nearly always
devotes some of the time to teaching, and in the more
modem schools supervises to some extent the teaching of
his assistants. This brings him into real contact with the
boys in school.

As a rule he takes the highest class, though he does not
necessarily neglect the little boys.^ He is thus able not
only to keep in touch with the most advanced work done in
the school and by setting a good pace in the VI Form to
ensure that the teachers below must follow suit or be found
out, but also he is able to exercise a personal influence on
those boys who are most influential in the school. He does
not merely aim by precept and example at giving tone and
character to the school. He interests the head boys directly
in its good government by making them prefects and treat-
ing them as responsible beings to whom certain privileges
are attached^for he is no beUever in the civitassine suffragio.
-J(Nor does his sphere of influence end here. As often as
not he is an old athlete, and outside the class-room, even if
emeritus, he still takes a paternal interest in the games and
expects his assistants at least to do the same. Here again the
moral aim comes to the fore. The doctrines of honesty and
loyalty he has upheld either in the class-room or the school
pulpit find constant appHcation in the tradition of fair
play and straightforwardness which rules the plajdng field.)/^

Naturally in a day school his influence is less paramount,
yet there is no difference other than a difference of degree.
If he is reaUy a strong man his influence is over the whole
school, not merely in the school-room and in the games, but
it passes out into the daily life of the pupils and forges in
their yet untempered hearts beliefs and ideals that can
never be broken. This is the great glory of the English

1 NoTE.^ — (1909-) If he has a besetting sin it is that he undertakes
too much teaching, and is apt to allow himself to be cumbered by too
much serving. He becomes, in fact, so immersed in details that he
at times loses sight of those wider issues which no school can afford
to disregard without finding itself out of touch with the deeper needs
of the nation.

30 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Public School, which the Thrings and Arnolds have hved.
and died foi^ They took up the ideal of the education of
a gentleman, based very often on a strong Christian beUef
and moulded into a modern form, raising it beyond the level
of mere rule and precept till it became the very hfe and
atmosphere not only of our ancient and rehgious founda-
tions, but of those great public schools which sprang into
existence during the latter half of the nineteenth century.^

(iii) Teachers : their Appointment, Qualifications,
AND Position

The staff in a French State school is divided into pro-
fesseurs and mattres-rep&titeurs.^ The broad distinction
between the two, as has already been indicated, is that the
former teaches, and the latter looks after the boys in pre-
paration and out of school.

The standard of attainment in the professorai has so risen
that a candidate for the post, except in the purely prepara-
tory classes,^ must be at least a licencit, that is to say, he
has not only passed the baccalaureat or entrance examina-
tion in the university, which is generally taken at 17, but
he has also passed the licence which roughly corresponds
to a degree in honours at Oxford or Cambridge or the London
M.A. He cannot, however, become a full-blown professor,
that is, a professeur titulaire, in a lycee, unless he has also
passed a very stiff competitive examination, called the
agregation, in some special " School," such as Philosophy,

^ Thomas Arnold believed that a school could be a Christian society,
and Edward Thring believed every boy had a soul to be saved :
quotation from an anonymous writer in Skrine's Pastor Agnorum,
p. 13, an excellent book, which may be consulted on the ideals which
underlie the calling of an English headmaster.

^ Note.— (1909.) Four categories : Professeurs, professeurs ad-
joints, maUres-ripititeurs, and surveillants.

' In the classes enfantines and priparatoires (pupils 6-8) the teachers
are primary masters and mistresses. In the classes iUmentaires,
especially in the lycies, the professors possess either a certificat d' apti-
tude for teaching in secondary schools or a university degree {bachelier
or licenciS) . For a fuller account of teachers' qualifications see Report
Kirhman.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 31

Letters, Mathematics, etc. Success in this examination
definitely entitles the teacher to permanent Government
employment.

Pedagogical training has hitherto been confined to a term's
residence in a school as a teaching student. According to
the proposals of the Parliamentary Commission aU future
teachers wiU have to go through a stage of student-teacher
in a lycee or elsewhere, and no one wiU be allowed to assume
the title of agrege tiU he has obtained a certificate of teaching
proficiency. The ficole Normale, which prepares a limited
number of students, the pick of the secondary schools of
France, for the university and school teaching, has hitherto
neglected pedagogics. The Parliamentary Commission has
recommended that the school should be henceforth con-
ducted not merely as a school of advanced study but as a
veritable pedagogical institution. Recently the various
professors have given lectures on the teaching of their own
particular subjects,^ and still wider reforms are in contem-
plation.^

Over and above the agregation comes a purely voluntary
examination, the doctoral, awarded mainly on the merits
of a thesis involving original research. All secondary
teachers who aspire to be fuU university * professors must
take this examination. It will be realized, therefore, how
high the standard of scholarship is of the more brilliant pro-
fessors in secondary education. This is not, however, with-
out its drawbacks. There is a certain restlessness on the
part of the young and able professor to get into the univer-
sity enclosure, together with the feeling that the public
school is only a lieu de passage.

1 Note. — (1909.) All students at the :tcole Normale are obliged to
pass a space of three months or more with one of their professors.

* Note. — (igog.) The number chosen each year for the ficole Nor-
male has been increased. Formerly, only twelve were taken, later
there were twenty, and now the number has been raised to forty.
All these cannot be accommodated at the school a.s boarders. Those
who live outside receive a bourse d'agrSgation. This has robbed the
local universities of some of their best students.

' Only a docteur can be a professeur titulaire in a university. An
agrigi can be matire de confirences or chargi de cours, but in the latter
case at least he is supposed to be working for a doctoral.

32 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

One cannot expect in such persons, any more than in the
future curate who takes up teaching for a year or two in
England, much of the sentiment of giving up their lives to
the work, and perhaps the aloofness that exists between
professor and pupil in France is due in part to this somewhat
too intimate connection between the school and tmiversity.
There is, nevertheless, a good side to the medal. The French
university professor has won for himself by his stay in the
schools some notion of the standard of attainment other
than that obtained by the setting of scholarship papers.
In any case it seems more logical to start as a teacher and
to finish as a don, than to begin as a don and go on as a
headmaster.^

It must be remembered that a true estimate of salaries
can only be made by comparing them with those of other
civil servants in France. It is certainly not an exaggeration
to say that State salaries in England are half as much again
as they are in France, and in some cases they are more than
double.^ Again, there are no " extraneous tasks." ' The
teaching hours are also comparatively short. In the lycBes
the maximum number of hours' class work per week re-
quired of the professors in the two highest forms varies from
twelve to fourteen hours, with a possible two hours' overtime
for which extra pay is given. The maximum number of
hours is not always exacted, especially in the classe de
rheforique* in which the number of pupils is often very large.

"^ The Teacher. On this point see " Organised Education and the
Teacher and the State," by J. C. Tarver, M.A., in What is Secondary
Education ? pp. 309, 310. " To our largest and richest schools men
are not infrequently appointed as headmasters who have had no
personal experience of school work and school organization. We not
only make appointments equivalent to suddenly promoting a sub-
lieutenant to the command of a regiment ; we do worse. We are not
shocked when, to continue the parallel, a general is put in command
of a ship, for a successful university tutor need know no more about
school work than a line officer about the organisation of a man-of-war. "

* This Is due to the fact that in some cases the salary has remained
the same since the beginning of the last century.

' Note. — (1913.) This of course implies no supervision or de-
tention or oversight of any kind out of school. A professor would
not feel necessarily obliged to take cognizance of two schoolboys
fighting or misbehaving themselves in the street.

* Note. — (1909.) Or premiire, as it is now generally called.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 33

The maximum number of hours in the second and third
class amount to fifteen, with a possible two hours' overtime
for which extra pay is given. In the division eUmentaire
the maximum is nineteen, with two possible additional hours
of overtime. In the colUges the corresponding maxima are
an hour and occasionally two hours longer, with the same
possibiUty of overtime. The number of pupils per class
or per professor, however, is often considerably less than in
the lyc&e. These comparatively short hours allow of private
study, which renders the pursuit of the doctorat possible or
permits the professor to increase his income by private
lessons or by hterary work.

It must not be forgotten that the out-of -class work in the
way of preparation (which is a very serious thing in France)
and in the way of correction is very heavy. Thus in the
classe de premiere (formerly rMtorique) the professor may
have fifty French essays to look over, many of them eight or
ten pages long. The correction itself is very carefully done.
It not only deals with speUing or grammatical errors but
with faults of style. There is Uttle doubt that the new pro-
grammes have for the moment at least added to the work of
the professors by increasing the number of lessons which they
have to prepare for the different sections, with a correspond-
ing increase in the amount of written work to be corrected,
and also by raising the actual number of teaching hours.

Apart from the university professorships to which the
doctorat is a stepping-stone, the full professor can also become
an inspecteur-general, a rector of a university, not to mention
a -proviseur?- His position is in fact a highly honourable

1 Note. — (1909.) During the last few years, however, the desire
to enter the teaching profession has considerably slackened. This
is clearly indicated by the decrease in numbers of those trjdng for
the cerHficat d'aptitude and the agrigation (for statistics, see Rapport
Steeg, pp. 44-47) ; the level of the examinations themselves has also
fallen (un sensible dichet, according to M. Maurice-Faure) . The
causes, no doubt, are multiple. First and foremost is that while
the cost of rent and Uving has largely increased (in some towns M.
Steeg estimates it a third), the salaries, in many cases, have remained
at the same figure as in 1872. The wave of economy that has passed
over the lycies has meant, in many cases, more hours' work and less
chance of extra remuneration for overtime, the supplementary lessons
being handed over to the ripititeurs for economic reasons. This has
B.E. C

34 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

one. A professeur in a lycSe or college is as much a professeur
de r University as a professor at the Sorbonne {Report Kirk-
man, p. 632). One and all the professors are members of the
learned professions in the most literal sense of the word.

The average teacher is appointed about the age of twenty-
five. He becomes there and then a State servant with the
ordinary fixity of tenure, with a right to a pension after
thirty years of work or at sixty years of age. He can, at his
own request, be continued on till sixty-five. He is appointed
by the Minister. Promotions are made in proportion of (i)
on the grounds of seniority, and (2) at choice.^ As we have
seen, the headmaster has no voice in his appointment. The
latter has but Uttle more power in the matter of dismissal.
In the case of disagreement between proviseur and professeur,
an inspecteur-general makes an inquiry into the rights and
wrongs of the case and distributes his criticism accordingly.
If the relations between the two are very strained, the pro-
fesseur is moved to another school.

The following is the scale ^f pay in the lycSes and coU&ges:

LycSes (Seine and Versailles)
Professors in the preparatory classes — initial . ;£i2o rising to £192 '
Professors in the other classes — initial . . ^^200 rising to £z°°-*

Lycies de Province

Professors in the preparatory classes — ^initial . £100 rising to £tst.*

Professors in the other classes — ^initial . .£128 rising to ;£2 1 8 .

Professors charges de cours (all classes) — ^initial . £84 ' rising to ;£i92.'

led to a cry against I'enseignetnent au rabais. Fewer private lessons
are obtainable, as many religious schools have been shut, and a large
number of cours dejeunes fiUes have been formed into regular colUges.
A Parliamentary Commission has reported on the subject, and the
Minister is preparing a Bill. The situation is summed up by M.
Steeg, who says : " It is easy in effect to show that the Third Re-
public has assured to the^eysoMwei of secondary education a treatment
which can only be considered inadequate " (p. 55). — (1913.) There
has now been a general rise of salaries (see notes on this page).

1 Note. — (1909.) This has been modified. After four years every
professor has his class.

» Note. — (1909.) ;£2oo.

3 Note. — (1909.) Professeurs chargls de cours, £180, rising to £240.

* Note. — (1909.) £200. ' Note.— (1909.) £92.

' Depends on the class.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 35

The Colleges
Class I. {licence or certificat d' aptitude) — initial . /loo rising to ;£i36.
Class II. (bachelier) — ^initial . . . £^6 rising to £103.
Class III. {brevet) £6^ rising to £83.^

All the above salaries are non-resident. For a few other
perquisites see Report Kirkman, p. 629.

The maitres-rSpSiiteurs are appointed in the same fashion
as the professors. They must be at least bacheliers. More
than one-third are Ucencies. They have fixity of tenure and
the right to a pension after 30 years' service.

Their position does not appear to be altogether satis-
factory either to themselves or to the schools. During the
last few years they have formed an association to formulate
and demand the abolition of their grievances. M. Ribot
has clearly perceived that their anomalous position is one
of the Brennpunkte ^ in the whole question of reform. He

1 Note. — (1913.) The present classification and rate of pay of the
secondary teachers are as follows :

Lycies {Seine-et-Oise)
Professors in the preparatory classes ... . . £i6o-£2/^q.

Professors (Including one-fifth of those in the prepara-
tory classes) ....... ;£i8o-;f26o.

Full professors {agrigis) ...... 222o-236o.

Lycles de Province

Professors in the preparatory classes . . . . ^ii6-;£i96.

Professors (including one-fifth of those in preparatory

classes) ........ ;£i28-;£2o8.

Full professors (not agrdgds) ..... £n?i-£22(>.

Full professors {agrigis) £148-2248.

Marseilles and Lyons give from £^£2,0 more in each class.

ColUges

One-fifth of professors assimilated to lycie professors . ;f i8o-;f26o.

Professors (ist category) ...... ^104-2184.

Professors (2nd category) ..... ;£8o-2i6o.

Professors {bachelier) (no 6th or 5th class) . . . £i2^~£i'j2.

Elementary teachers (fij-ewe/) (no 6th, 5th, or 4th class) . ^i 16-^140.

Professors in the first and second category receive £^ a year more
in Lyons and Marseilles, and £12 more in Seine and Seine-et-Oise.
Elementary teachers receive £12 more in Lyons and Marseilles, and
from £32 to £^o more in Seine and Seine-et-Oise.

' " C'est le point faible dans V organisation des lycies et des colliges."
— iJ. E. p. 31.

36 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

devotes an entire chapter to the consideration of their case.
To begin with, their social position, subordinate as it is to
that of the professor, is an open sore. " Every moment,
even when licencii, the ripMiteur is reminded that there is
a profound demarcation between the professeur and him-
self." He takes no part in the teaching, though formerly
he not infrequently became professor.

Of the 2,319 rtpititeurs in the schools, only eighty in the
year 1897 became professors. The reason lies in the fact
that to get into a lycee one must practically be an agrSge
nowadays. According to M. Ribot, the reform of their
economic position is not the most important matter. They
are practically paid at the rate of college professors minus
certain deductions which are not, however, equitable. The
duty of maintaining order in " preparation," at meals, in
the playground, and in the dormitory is enough to ruin the
disposition of any highly educated man.

The remedy clearly lies in uniting the dual functions of
discipline and teaching.^ In this way only can the repUUeur
lose his present gaoler-like air. Much may be done by
utilizing the services of the professeurs stagiaires. In most
schools the whole question of surveillance has been handed
over to the proviseur, who arranges the matter according to
his own ideas. The rSpStiteurs have generally been replaced
by surveillants selected by the proviseur.

Not possessing the French passion for S3niimetry and
distinctness which has led them into that thoroughgoing
classification which ends by not only separating duties but
also by putting asunder the persons who perform them, we
have been saved from establishing such a fatal division as
that which exists between the bras rdigieux of professors
and the hras siculier of surveillants.^

' This element of weakness was clearly seen by Jules Simon as far
back as 1848, when as rapporteur for the Budget of Primary Instruc-
tion he expressed the hope that in the near future closer relations
would prevail between the maitres d'Studes and the professeurs, and
that a certain number of functions would become common to both.

2 Note. — (1909.) There are now, as has already been noticed,
four categories : professeurs, professeurs adjoints, matires-rlpititeurs ,
and surveillants. The maUres-ripititeurs can now become professeurs
adjoints, and owing to financial reasons there is a distinct tendency

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 37

But, on the other hand, the balance of comparison as far
as the teacher's standard of attainments go is immensely
on the side of France, and certainly the teachers' position,
speaking generally, and their social position and standing,
are distinctly higher.

To begin with, what are the qualifications required of a
teacher in England ? A few years ago they were theo-
retically nil. The registration ^ of teachers is gradually
introducing a minimum standard,* but, as things are at
present, a ticket-of-leave man may still open a school.
A fortiori, he may naturally be an assistant-master. In
practice, however, each headmaster sets out what he wants,
and certainly the list of requirements must often seem to a
French teacher inordinately long.

The following are two specimen advertisements culled
from the educational press.

May, 1904. — Wanted, after the Easter holidays, an Assistant
Master for classics, English, and drill. Ability to take part in the
games will be considered an additional qualification.

June, 1904. — Assistant . . with university qualifications and
experience in teaching in classics, science, and mathematics, modern
languages, and music. Candidates must be members of the Church
of England.

to give them work rather than the more highly paid professeurs when
extra lessons are needed. The result is that the gap between the
two grades is considerably less, and it would appear to be merely a
matter of time as to when the ripititeurs will one and all receive the
title and functions of professeurs adjoints. See Rapport Maurice-
Faure, pp. 239, 240, in which the ideal to be aimed at is spoken of as
the " identification progressive des fonctions de professeur et de ri-
pHiteur," the latter not merely giving lessons but acting as a sort
of understudy to the professor. The surveillants have now been
abolished, except in the boarding schools, in which they are appointed
by the headmaster, and are regarded as largely oiseaux de passage.

1 Note. — (1909.) The registration of teachers is unfortunately in
a state of suspended animation. More may be expected from the
registration of efficient secondary schools, a list of which has been
issued by the Board. — (1913.) Recently a Teachers' Registration
Council has been formed containing representatives of the univer-
sities, secondary, technical and elementary teachers, as well as of
teachers of art, music, physical exercises, shorthand, and of those
engaged in teaching the blind and the deaf.

* In addition, all State-aided schools are now obliged to possess a
staff adequate in number and qualification for providing instruction.

38 STUDIES m FOREIGN EDUCATION

In the first advertisement the foreigner, no doubt, would
be startled at the great prominence given to athletics, and
would vaguely wonder whether the school must not rather
be a gymnasium in the modern sense of the word. In the
second he would probably be struck by the stress laid on
the moral side of the teacher and by the requirements of a
religious test. The former would possibly seem to him
admirable, the latter he would most likely regard as a relic
of ecclesiasticism from which he has shaken himself free.
He would be no less amazed at the vast range of subjects
that the professor is required to teach. In fact, if entirely
ignorant of English education he might well imagine that
Admirable Crichtons were as plentiful as blackberries ; and
in his position as speciahst he might— agrege though he was
—admire the encyclopaedic range of subjects that the
English teacher apparently has at his fingers' ends.

As regards training, the matter, as in France, is stUl in
its infancy. StiU, the regulations for the registration of
teachers seem likely to change the present state of cifEairs
in the future.^

Coming to the question of salaries and emoluments, there
is no doubt that the masters in the big public schools are
higher paid than the professor in a similar school in France,
especially if one takes into consideration the profits that
are made out of the hcensed victualling business by those
masters who are fortunate enough to possess a boarding
house.* It should be noted, nevertheless, that, once the
smaller schools are reached, the salaries tend to decrease

* Note. — (1909.) This hope has not been fulfilled, but much may
be expected from the new Regulations for the Training of Secondary
Teachers issued by the Board of Education, and the introduction of
a clause in the Regulations for Secondary Schools requiring a certain
proportion of trained teachers on the staffs of schools receiving
grants. — (191 3.) Something may be expected from the new Teachers'
Registration Council.

'Note. — (1912.) Mr. J. E. C. Bodley tells me of an interesting
case of a professor in a southern lycie who was offered a post in one of
our big public schools at double his existing salary. He refused
because he would be worse off, as (i) the cost of living and especially
the scale of living was higher than in France ; (2) his boys in France
were educated for nothing ; (3) he made money by giving private
lessons to boys unconnected with the Ivcde.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 39

rapidly, till in some schools it will be found that the salary
dpart from board amounts to a merely nominal sum, while in
certain cases the system obtains of what in equine circles is
called "meat for manners," otherwise called "mutual terms."

Compared, therefore, with French teachers, each of whom
is paid a living wage, the general run of Enghsh teachers are
certainly not so well off. For if there are a few bigger
prizes in the lottery, far too many have plenty of chances of
drawing a blank — a condition of things which does not
exist in French State schools. The English teacher can, it
is true, become a house master, a headmaster, or even a
bishop, but once he has left the university he has httle or
no chance of returning as a professor. His prospects, there-
fore, are far more Umited than those of his French confrere.

He has not, either, the leisure of his French colleague. *
Very often, if he is in a boarding school, his work is never
done. How many an English master would be content if
he only had that " excessive " number of twenty hours per
week ! Many have far nearer thirty. How can they find the
leisure for self-improvement, which the French authorities
consider so important ? The English teacher must regard
with feelings akin to envy the position of his Gallic colleague,
secured against every chance of unjust dismissal, with the
certain prospect of a pension at the end of his career.^

In England security of tenure does not in theory exist.^
Most engagements are made by the school year or the term,
with often a half-term's notice. The appointment of a new

1 In many cases the out-of-school work of the French professor is
heavier, but even when allowance is made for this his work is prob-
ably lighter than that of the English teacher.

•Note. — (1909.) Things have considerably improved, especially
in schools connected with or under the county councils, in the last few
years. Regular scales of salaries with proper increments have been
established. In London, all schools accepting the Council's scale
pay the following salaries : — Assistants : initial salary, £150 ; rising
by yearly increments of £io to ;^300. (Heads of departments,
£^$0.) Headmasters, according to the size of the school, are paid
from ;£40o to ;£8oo with ;£20,increments. The evils of capitation fees
are thus avoided. Teachers in the Council's service can also con-
tribute to an adequate pension scheme. There is also a lower scale
for teachers without a degree already in the service.

' Note. — (1909.) See previous note for modifications, p. 28 above.

40 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

headmaster who " knew not Joseph " is sometimes the
signal for a clean sweep of those who have spent their best
years in serving the school. While the French teacher's
salary increases with his years of service, the English teacher
finds his financial value depreciate every year, and if he
wants to change when he has reached what in antiquity was
considered the prime of life, he is told by the school agents
that no headmaster will look at a man over 36.^ Many
headmasters prefer youth, which they can train, to ex-
perience, of which they are sometimes said to stand in awe.

The only member of the profession who triumphantly
withstands the ravages of time is the headmaster himself.
It is not an unknown thing for the hale and hearty principal
of 65 to look down on the assistant of 40 as decrepit and
past work. Fortunately the best of our headmasters have
felt the need of providing for their assistants by means of
voluntary pension systems to which the school funds con-
tribute their quota.^ In position, again, the English master
is certainly less fortunate. Mr. Benson classes him as a
second-class gentleman, the first class being occupied by the
representatives of Army, Navy, Civil Service, and land
agency (!) . In the smaller schools his social status is probably
stiU lower, and he ranks about on a level with the curate.

In France the prestige of the State teacher and his of&cial
standing make him a highly eligible -parti,^ especially in the
eyes of those mothers who wish to choose a steady man for
their daughters in the same way as some mothers in England
have a distinct preference for a clergjrman. On the other
hand, the Englishman, except in a few schools or unless he
is lucky enough to obtain a house-mastership, is often con-
demned by a straitness of means to celibacy, his only
consolation being that of acting as a foster-father to other
people's children.

1 Note. — {1909.) This is not so universally true as ten years ago,
owing to the decreasing number of persons entering the profession.

* Note. — London has established a system of pensions for its
municipal secondary teachers, and State pensions have now been
promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the State contributing
£1 to the teacher's £•].

' Note. — (1913.) This of course assumes that the parties con-
cerned are of the same religious and political complexion.

II. INTERNAL ECONOMY

(i) Formalities on Admission — ^Age of Pupils —
Superannuation

The only formalities to fulfil for entrance into a State
school are the presentation of a demand for admission
signed by the parent or guardian, with a certificate of suc-
cessful vaccination. There is no age limit, as the present
writer himself can vouch for. On their entrance into a petit
lycie the pupils are classed more or less according to their
age. If after a week or two the professors find that one
of the new-comers is not up to the work he teUs the fro-
viseur, who sends the pupil down to the class below. In
the big lycee there is an examination, not for admission,
but for placing the pupU. Boys who are old enough to
enter the rhetorique {classe de premiere) are allowed to do so
without examination, the assumption being that they are
studying for the first part of the haccalaureat. Pupils enter
the petit lycte at the age of five or six, and the lycee proper
at eleven or twelve.
y/\n England some of the big public schools have a very
stringent entrance examination,^ owing to the number of
applicants being far larger than they can possibly accom-
modate. Preference is, however, given to those who have
put down their names beforehand for vacancies. So keen
is the competition in some schools that parents wiU often
put down their children's names many years in advance.
A good many other schools have no entrance examination
at all, or only one for placing the pupils. The age at which
boys enter naturally varies, but speaking generally a boy

1 Note. — (1909.) A certain number of the public schools have
now combined in order to have a joint entrance examination.

42 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

enters the big public schools at thirteen or fourteen, unless
there be a preparatory house or division, in which case he
goes earUer.

In practice boys never stay on much over nineteen, and
this privilege in boarding schools is only obtained by those
who have reached a certain standard of attainment. There
is in fact a regular system for weeding out those boys who
are dunces or who fall behind the others. Unless a boy of
a certain age has reached a certain class, he is superannuated,
as it is called — that is, he is politely requested to leave, the
request, like those of royalty, being equivalent to a com-
mand^ The method does not exist in French schools.
^ Though clearly of advantage to the school itself in making
short shift of stragglers and eliminating its most palpable
non-valeurs and failures, it is doubtful whether this method
of " enUghtened discrimination " is quite fair to the boys
themselves or their parents either.^f

(ii) Maintenance of Standard — Organization
OF Classes, Sets, etc.

In the French State schools the standard is more or less
maintained in the different colleges and lycees and also
between them by the official programme and the baccalaureat
as well as by a system of universal inspection. The classes
themselves are organized for a year's work. In the upper
classes of the first and second cycle the pupils in the several
divisions are as a rule taken together in the subjects common
to the two programmes. There are no sets in the lycees,
but quite recently the mathematical pupils in the third and
fourth classes have been divided up into two sets for geo-
metry.

■jC In England, with no official programme and no universal
'inspection, the standard of work in the upper classes and
between school and school is maintained by external ex-
aminations which have to a certain extent been forced
on the schools by public opinion. As a rule a large number
of boys escape this public test, and in any case nothing like

FRENCH' AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 43

the same degree of uniformity of attainment is possible as
in France. C'^u^i-^j^^^-^- xT

The problem in the future for the headmaster is largely
a question as to whether he will abandon the tyranny of
excessive external examinations for the possibly preferable
alternative of internal inspection and examination, the
latter being largely intermixed under the supervision and
control of the Government, the Local Authority, or the
Universities. In this way the standard in the classes
might be maintained, and the dangers of over-uniformity
be avoided, which a single general examination always
threatens to produce.^

If the same high level of attainment which prevails in
French schools is not to be found in English schools as a
whole, the comparative autonomy of the English school has
allowed it to give a wide extension to the system of sets
which act not only as capacity-catching machines, by giving
the clever boy a chance of forging ahead in his best subject,
but also as incapacity-catching machines, a sort of ambul-
ance for those who have fallen out on the march, being
unable to go the pace of their fellows in some one particular
subject, while able to keep with them in the rest of the
programme. Transferred to a set below the others, they
are able to keep in touch with the subject and even pro-
gress, instead of being put put of the game altogether.

This, as Mr. A. T. PoUard ^ has pointed out, is the real
raison d'etre of the set method. It is, in fact, devised for
the exceptional case, which he puts as low as one per
cent, in a junior school. The percentage is, however,
immeasurably higher in the higher classes, in which the
straggliijg must needs be considerably greater. Judging
by what has taken place in America in the way of estab-
Ushing elective studies, it seems quite possible that we in
England may in the future still more largely employ the
" set " method in order to maintain a middle course between

' Cf. Teaching and Organisation, edited by P. A. Barnett, pp. i8,
ig, quoted by M. E. Sadler in Report on Problems in Prussian Secon-
dary Education for Boys (Special Reports on Educational Subjects,
Vol. 3, p. 129).

44 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the somewhat inelastic allgemeine Bildrmg ideal in Germany
and the extraordinarily wide freedom of the American
schools.^

(iii) Form Masters or Expert Teachers

In the lower classes of the petit lycee the same teacher
takes everything, but from the fourth class upwards of the
lycee the practice obtains of having professors for subjects
rather than for classes. The whole system of the agrSga-
tion favours such a division, as success in that examination
depends on excellence in one particular group of subjects,
such as philosophy, history and geography, letters, etc.
Until recently the French, Latin, and Greek in each class
were taught as a rule by one master, but niaw with Greek
altogether optional and with Latin optional for half the
pupils, the same professor has in some divisions only the
French ; even the history from the sixth class upwards is
henceforth to be taught when possible by a specialist.

In modern languages, again, efforts are being made that
the pupil may have the same teacher two years running,
the idea being that one professor should cover the whole
teaching in the subject when possible. In some classical
divisions even the French and Latin are under different
teachers. In the opinion of some, the new reform has gone
too far in thus splitting up the classes amongst so many
masters. The classes have become Hke sheep that have no
shepherd, and the shepherds themselves have been reduced
to the position of drovers who barely know the numerous
flocks entrusted to them by sight. Such at least is the

1 Note. — (1909.) The size of classes naturally plays a great part
in the efficiency of this teaching. The wave of economy that has
followed on the establishment of the lycie autonome has been re-
sponsible for increasing the size of classes which were often already
too large. M. Steeg talks of classes of nearly fifty (Rapport, p. 51),
and there are others bigger still, notably one of 100 in the rhStorique
supirieure at Louis-le-Grand. In England, and especially in London,
there has been a strong movement to reduce the numbers, and in
London the proportion of pupils per teacher works out (irrespective
of the head) at about twenty to one. In many of the Girls' Public
Day Schools Company schools it is still less.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 45

complaint of more than one professor, and it is probable
that something in the nature of appointing form masters
will have to be effected in the near future.^

In England the visiting master has in many schools been
a prominent feature. In fact, most of the subjects which
have since effected a lodgment in the curriculum have crept
into the school on these terms. The system, however,
presents nearly all the inconveniences of special teaching
without the advantages. The visiting master is not " on
the strength " of the educational regiment, he lacks the
prestige and not infrequently the authority of a regular
member of the staff, and his interest in the school can hardly
ever be so intense. It is true an official recognition has been
given to the system by the appointment of regular travelling
teachers to visit groups of schools, but it is well understood
that the chief reason for its adoption has been that of economy.

Still, among regular teachers there is Uttle doubt that the
specialist is likely to become more numerous. Differentia-
tion is the law of the school curriculum to-day, and as each
subject, whether science, modern languages, the mother
tongue, history, or that Cinderella of education, geography,
emancipates itself and claims to be regarded no longer as a ,
" by-subject that anyone can teach by keeping a lesson or
two ahead of his class, but as one that needs as serious and
thorough treatment as classics or mathematics," so the
increase of specialist teachers seems inevitable. ^

1 Note. — (1909.) This has become somewhat of a burning ques-
tionj M. Steeg says in his Rapport, p. 39 : " II n'y a •plus de classe
une et plus de professeur de classe. C'est & nos yeux I'inconvinient le
plus sSrieux de la nouvelle organisation des itudes." Parents are
beginning to complain that owing to the multiplicity of professors
there is no one among them who knows sufficiently about the work
of their son, and can tell them exactly where he needs special atten-
tion. Others accuse the present system of leading to overwork,
owing to the competition among the professors for the pupils' time,
A general r4sumd of the situation is given by Dr. M. de Fleury in
L'Hygiine scolaire for October, 1908, in which he points out that in
one class in a certain lycSe there are seven professors. The remedy
is probably the appointment of definite form-masters like the German
Ordinarius.

2 Note. — (1909.) The ideal seems to be, in the higher classes at
least, while retaining the form master as far as possible, for the

46 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Nevertheless it would probably be difficult to find a
school in which the ideal of the form master had been
totally given up. It is true that his sphere of duties varies
from school to school. He may merely teach the class in
the majority of subjects, sit in the class-room which is called
after the name of his form, and be responsible for the
weekly marks of the boys ; or in the feudal hierarchy that
obtains in the school he may act as a tenant-in-chief to the
headmaster's overlord, responsible for the work and well-
being of the members of his class, corresponding perhaps
directly with the parents and acting in loco parentis towards
their offspring. His influence may spread further, till he
becomes a pillar of the school constitution whose word is law,
an ipse dixit that no boy would dare to question or disobey.

Nay, he may become the uncrowned king of the place,
of wider influence and wider reputation than the head-
master himself, for headmasters come and go but he
" abideth in his place " and receives into his keeping the
children of those he taught as children, maybe dying the
unmitred abbot of the school in which he first made his
profession as a schoolmaster, a novice in the best sense to
the very end, being ever a learner, remaining ever young,
holding no conspicuous post of honour, yet held in honour
by all. It is needless to mention names, for nearly every-
one can recall one of these strong influences for good with
which our big public schools have abounded — these nameless
great ones who saw their greatness realized in others, who
stamped their mark on the lives of a whole generation,
their monument sometimes some class-room or playing-
field called after their name, more often a spirit incorporated
with the genius loci, so that those who seek it find it every-
where in the life around, and know that " he being dead yet
speaketh," and that the thoughts he uttered make every
year a fresh lodgment and nest in youthful hearts that never
knew the heart in which they were first hatched and bred.

specialists to have at leasttwo subjects — a.Hauptfacha.u& a Nebenfach,
as in Germany. This could be easy enough in modern languages,
for instance, if we had not the absurd system of expecting a teacher
to take both French and German instead of one of the two languages
and his own.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 47

(iv) Average Length of Time spent in each Class —
Promotion

In the French schools not only to each class is assigned
a definite amount of work for the whole year, but the work
itself is definitely split up into portions for each of the school
terms. A boy is therefore perforce obliged to stop a whole
year in a form. The removes are made without any further
examination for all pupils who have obtained 50 per cent,
of the marks given during the last term, and of those given
at the competitive compositions at the end of or during the
year. If the pupil has obtained too low a mark for pro-
motion he goes in for a pass examination for which he
has probably been preparing during the hoUdays. This
examination is held at the beginning of term by the pro-
fessor of the class he desires to enter. The professor has
thus the right of accepting or refusing him.

In theory, backward boys are thus obliged to go over the
whole year again. But as a matter of fact those who are
rejected take extra lessons, with the professor himself if
they are wise, and so generally succeed in getting into the
class in the following January, the school year beginning,
as, with us, in September.

/in England, where every school is more or less a law unto
itself, a clever boy may go up two and even three forms in a
year. This is rendered possible by the less amount of co-
ordination that exists between the classes. As has already
been pointed out, the standard of work apart from tradition
is principally set by the requirements of external examina-
tion, while the standard itself is maintained in class by an
elaborate system of marks ^ by which the English head-
master is dispensed from inspecting his own class-rooms. yi^

' Marks are a convenient shorthand method of giving a bird's-eye
view of the progress of the class. Many masters feel the burden and
weight of them — which is not unnatural, seeing they add the duties
of scorer to one who is already bowler, fielder, and umpire, not to
mention the making out of elaborate weekly averages. Many a
master would look more kindly on the presence of the headmaster
and inspector in his class if he realized that it might release him from
serving the weary tables of multiplication and division.

48 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The French system probably errs on the other side of
uniformity, but as long as in a large number of schools the
master's class-room is hke the EngUshman's residence, a
castle, into which the headmaster has by custom only a
limited right of entry, it is obvious that a clever boy can
skip with less danger to himself from class to class than he
could, were it possible, in a French school, for if there are
likely to be lacunce in his educational progress there is more
chance of these being filled up, with overlapping nearly a
certainty in the work of the different classes.
^A less desirable practice which obtains in_some English
schools is the custom of promotions by seniority, or charit-
able promotions as they are sometimes irreverently called,
due in most cases to the headmasters yielding to the unwise
solicitude of the parents. ^(This practice of taking the pupil's
age into account, as if it were a high mark which helped to
swell the general total, seems as logical as the book-keeping
of the. college bursar who showed a balance of over £1,900
by inadvertently adding in the date of his balance-sheet.
)(Its effects are often disastrous. The struggling boy is
' taken clean out of his depth, a certain amount of uimeces-
sary ballast is added to the dead weight the form master
has to move, and an undesirable premium is put on these
" cart before the horse " promotions. VNo doubt there are a
certain number of dull and neglected boys in French schools.
No doubt French professors are not always adamantine in
the presence of parental pressure, but as a general rule
there are fewer of these dunce-promotions than with us.

(v) Examinations : their Conduct and Aim — Pre-
paration FOR THE Higher Examinations — Radical
Differences between French and English Exami-
nations

The lower classes of the French secondary schools are
unharassed by external examinations.^ Matthew Arnold
has remarked on examinations in France being put at the
' Cf. M. Arnold, A French Eton, p. 328.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 49

right age (fifteen to twenty-eight), and on little boys of
nine being free from the drudgery they entail. The stan-
dard is maintained, as has already been pointed out, by the
general uniformity of the programme backed up by State
inspection. The internal examinations are not all squeezed
into the last fortnight or three weeks of the school year,
during which the Enghsh pupil undergoes a veritable
KevoJo-is of knowledge ; as a rule compositions, as they are
called, are set in every subject once a term, and these
compositions are separated by at least a week from one
another.

The system has its drawbacks as well as its advantages.
Teachers complain that once the pupils have been examined
in a subject they are apt to neglect it for the rest of the
term in order to concentrate on those in which they have
still to be examined. Under the new dispensation at the
end of the first cycle of studies, that is to say, in the case of
pupils aged fifteen or sixteen, a certificate of secondary
studies of the first degree can be awarded to pupils on the
result of the marks obtained by them during the four years
of the first cycle, on the dehberation of the professors whose
classes they have followed.^

But the real goal of the full-blown secondary pupil is, of
course, the baccalaur^at. Although the courses leading up
to it are four in number, Latin-Greek, Latin-Science,
Latin-Modern Languages, Science-Modern Languages, no
distinction is henceforth made between them. One and
all they serve at once as a leaving certificate and an entrance
to the universities and the liberal professions. The bac-
calauriat remains as before divided into two parts. The
first, formerly called the rheiorique, is taken b5»1:he pupil of
the first (or rhetoric) class. Then a year after comes the
second part, which is taken by the pupils in the philosophy
or mathematics class. The age for entrance is sixteen ;

1 Note. — (1909.) This certificate does not seem to have been a,
great success so far. " The diplSme has hardly any value in the eyes
of the pupils " (Rapport Maunce-Faure, p. 222). The reasons given
are that many pupils have not stayed long enough to qualify, so that
only a few, and those not necessarily the best, get it. — (1913.) No
improvement to chronicle.

B.B. D

50 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

candidates below this age require a special permission to
enter for the examination.^ The diificulties of the examina-
tion are shown by the following fact, that the number of
passes are well under 50 per cent.^

Leaving out of account the old baccalaureat, which finally
came to an end in 1905, the new baccalaureat, like the old,
is divided into two parts, each part having four separate
divisions corresponding to the different courses in the
schools. In the First Part (classe de premiere) there is a
French essay common to all four divisions. Three subjects
are given, but only one may be chosen. Further, there is a
version latine, i.e. a passage to be translated from Latin into
French, which is common to the three sections in which
Latin occurs ; an exercise in ' mathematics and physics for
thfe sections in which science occurs, and a composition in a
foreign language at the choice of the candidate in the
section in which modern languages occur ; and lastly a
passage for translation from the Greek in the purely classical
section. This gives, then, three written papers in each
section.

All candidates who desire to present themselves for the
oral examination must first pass the written section. Half
marks are necessary for a pass, equal marks are given for
the compositions and versions, with the exception of the
composition in mathematics and physics, which counts
double. At the oral the classical pupil has to translate and
comment on a passage in classics, on another in modem
language, as well as commenting on one from the mother

1 Note. — (1909.) These permissions (or dispenses) are, unfortun-
ately, on the increase, owing to the extra demands made by the
service de deux arts in the army. Thus, while all other countries are
increasing the time devoted to education, France is diminishing it.
The effect on the study of philosophy appears to be very unfortunate.
The pupil who takes up the subject at sixteen instead of seventeen
has not the same mental maturity. — (1913.) The number of dj's-
^ewses seems to have become stationary : in 1909, 1,297; ^^ 1910, 1,308.

2 Note. — (1909.) Last year they varied from 49 per cent, to
40 per cent, n the different courses. — (1913) Between 48 and 40 per
cent.

' For a detailed programme of each subject see the Programme des
Examens du nouveau Baccalaureat de I'Enseignemeni secondaire (Paris,
Imprimerie Delalain).

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 51

tongue, besides answering questions in ancient and modern
languages, geography, mathematics, and physics. The
other sections are examined in the same fashion in the sub-
jects of these sections.

A zero in any subject produces a failure, half marks are
necessary for a pass, the mention assez Men being awarded
to those who obtain 60 per cent.. Men to those who obtain
70 per cent., and tres Men to those who obtain 80 per cent.
A candidate who has failed at the oral is excused for two
sessions from having to take the written examinations. To
ehminate to a certain extent the element of chance from the
examination, every candidate is allowed to present a carnet
or livret scolaire, which gives in a concise form his school
record. If his case is a doubtful one either at the written
or oral examination, he cannot be " ploughed " until the
jury have taken into consideration his " school record "
and decided against him.^

The rhetorique portion of the examination still preserves
its rhetorical aspect. The French essay is looked upon as
the most difficult part of the examination, as being that
part of the examination on which the examiners lay most
stress. The version latine for those who take Latin is
regarded with almost equal awe by the candidates. A mere
word for word translation showing that the student has
grasped the meaning of the passage is insufficient. The
pupil is given some twenty lines from some classical author
and three hours to do it in ; the greater part of those three
hours is intended to be devoted to poUshing the French.

In the Second Part the courses are reduced to two ; the
students in the classical and Latin-modem languages
sections take the so-called philosophy proper. The written
work in this division consists of a French dissertation in
philosophy and a paper in natural history and physics.
The oral section comprises a viva-voce in philosophy, and
explanations of a philosophical author the pupils have read

* NoTB.^(i909.) An examiner of some years' standing states that
the carnet scolaire is of the greatest use in deciding the passing of a
pupil in doubtful cases, and that much practice enables an examiner
to easily allow for the personal equation of the teachers who have
signed it.

52 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

in class, with further viva-voce examinations in modem
history, physics, and natural history.^

The written work in the mathematical division comprises
three papers, on mathematics, physics, and philosophy.
The oral section comprises an interrogation on mathematics,
physics, chemistry, natural history, modem history, and
philosophy. The same rales for passing the written and
oral portions of the examination which obtain in the First
Part also apply to the Second Part, as well as those for
obtaining distinction.

In the First Part the papers in all the sections are for
three hours, except that in mathematics and physics, which
has four hours assigned to it. In the Second Part the paper
for those taking the full course in philosophy is four hours
in length. The same candidates have only a two-hours
paper for their physics and natural history. The candi-
dates in mathematics have three hours for each of their three
papers. In each part the average length of the oral exami-

1 Note. — (1909.) During the last seven years the historical part
in the examination has been abolished, and more stress laid on the
explanation of certain set books, for which a special mark is accorded
at the examination. It is complained that this excision of the past
places the pupil too much at the mercy of the professor's personal
ideas. But the explanation of the set books is held to provide the
necessary counter-balance. The tendency on the part of the pro-
fessors is to leave more and more on one side the logical and meta-
physical side, and to study moral and social questions. Certain
critics remark that this growing variety in opinion may lead in the
long run to a sort of anarchic philosophigue, but the danger seems
somewhat remote. Variety is the indispensable condition of true
progress, and sincerity is, after all, the most precious quality in
teachers and in taught. Speaking from experience, the present
writer can bear witness that the Sorbonne of some ten years ago was
too rigidly orthodox. More serious seems the criticism that the
courses given by some of the professors appear to lack a central idea.
— (1913.) At the present time the metaphysical side is certainly less
studied and the social side more and more, though complaints are
sometimes made that the sociology taught is too scientific and
abstract. On the other hand, the introduction of modem questions
sometimes leads to difiiculties. Quite recently a professor at the
College Chaptal has been attacked in the Press for dictating a passage
from Karl Marx to his class. This development seems inevitable,
and similar difficulties will arise in English schools when the dis-
cussion of present-day questions invades, as it is certain sooner or
later to do, our history lessons. The only safe way will be to give
both sides of the question.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 53

nation is three hours. The jury are composed of members
of the Faculty of Letters and Science, together with an equal
number of teachers either in active service or on the retired
list. No teacher can examine his own pupils.

The introduction of the teaching element is largely due
to a desire to lighten the duties of the university professors,
who find the baccalaurSat a great strain on their univer-
sity work. A German happily summed up the previous
situation by saying that the French apparently thought it
necessary to use their best razors to cut blocks. The exami-
nation itself is held twice a year, at the beginning and end
of the school year.

The aim of the examination in rhetoric is to test an
education which in the main is Uterary and aesthetic. The
aim of the examination in philosophy is an audit of the
pupil's studies, not only in " le beau," but also in " le vrai "
and " le bien." Thus French education covers the whole
field of the mental faculties. No year is more important
in the pupil's hfe than that of philosophy. He finally
learns and realizes that everything in his work so far has
been devoted to the object of making a savant and a man of
him. A rhetorical education by itself has great dangers.
One brought up exclusively under its rigime is more or less
at the mercy of words. It is true that a philosophical
education puts us also at times at the mercy of ideas, but
the danger is certainly preferable. A rhetorical education
gives us in fact the colour of ideas ; the philosophical adds
a sense of their structure.

Certainly one can speak with experience of the extreme
value of this philosophical education. It is not only for the
pupil a resume, an Erkldrung of the past, it is also a base
and groundwork for his future education, providing him as
it were with mental pigeon-holes wherein he may arrange
his subsequent experience. The mere fact of teaching the
pupil to examine, analyse, and classify his ideas, and arrange
them into a coherent whole, seems to me of the highest
value. The most effective personaUties apart from fanatics
are those in whom this unification has obtained the greatest
extension, more especially when they possess in addition a

54 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

strong will as driving power. It would be weU if we in
England had a little more respect and appreciation of general
ideas, which, after all, are but the intellectual names of great
moral principles.^ We should certainly be able to reason out
many of our social and political questions more readily and
be less slaves to the gross sophisms which obtain currency
from the neglect of the ordinary cultivated man to examine
the exact meaning of the terms with which he reasons.

It is true that philosophy in France wears of all philo-
sophies the least forbidding look. It may not attain the
profundity of German philosophy ; in some cases it may
only be a sort of glorified common sense ; but in its lucidity,
in its close attachment to the problems of daily life it finds
at once its strength and its weakness. Nor is it by any
means so shallow as foreigners are inclined to think. The
depth is there, but the bottom is seen so easily because the
milieu is so transparent. In France the philosophers do
not forget that their subject is a branch of Hterature, and
the whole attitude of the best writers is not to pose as high
priests of mystery and explain the ohscurum -per obscurius,
but rather to show with the greatest suppression of self how
after all the thing is not so difficult to produce. Culture
fortified by clear thinking would appear to be the aim of the
two parts of the baccalaureat.^

In two or three of the big schools classes have beea
started of recent years for those who have already passed
the baccalauriai and are working for the ficole Normale or
the licence. These classes de rheiorique su-pirieure (or pre-
miere) are not altogether regarded with a friendly eye by
the universities, who look on the pupils of which they are
formed as already part of their clientele. France is the
country par excellence of dehmitation, yet even here over-
lapping is not, as we see, entirely unknown.

1 Note. — (1909.) For further development of these ideas see
p. 214, " The True Inwardness of Moral Instruction in France."

2 Note. — (1909.) M. Steeg (Rapport Steeg) thus sums up the
general effect of a French secondary education : " II en subsiste peu
de connaissances pricises et siires. Ce qui demeure, c'est une certaine
maniire de sentir, le souvenir ilevi de nobles Amotions, quelque besoin
de penser, quelque curiositi et surtout une pricieuse modesiie " (p. 40) .

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 55

Pupils who have taken the baccalaureat in the science
course follow, according to the career they intend to enter,
special courses for the Ecole Polytechnique,^ the Ecole
Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, and the ficole Normale
Superieure (Section des Sciences). The courses are two
years in length, and are called respectively Elementary and
Special Mathematics. Those pupils also who are going to
try for St. Cyr, the ficole Navale, the Institut Agronomique,
and the Ecoles Sup^rieures d' Agriculture, attend special
courses directly preparatory for these various institutions ;
such courses are only organized in certain lycees.

The entrance age for these examinations naturally varies.
A candidate for the £cole Navale must be not less than
fifteen or more than nineteen ; for the Polytechnique and
St. Cyr he must be over seventeen and under twenty-one ;
for the Ecole Normale he must be over eighteen and under
twenty-five ; for the ficole Centrale, the Institut Agrono-
mique, and the Ecoles Superieures d' Agriculture he must be
over seventeen, but there is no higher Umit of age. The
work in these classes is naturally dominated by the pro-
gramme of examinations in these schools. A certain
amount of agitation is going on at the present time in
favour of assimilating the requirements of those examina-
tions to those of the baccalaureai whenever they do not but
can be made to coincide. At present, for instance, there is
a lack of agreement between the mathematics required at
the baccalaureat and that required at the entrance examina-
tion of these schools.

Teachers complain that pupils will not get up certain
portions of mathematics which are set for the baccalaureat
because they are not required later on at St. Cyr or else-
where. Clearly the remedy here is greater co-ordination.

1 The ificole Polytechnique corresponds roughly to Woolwich : its
best pupils often become State engineers in the Fonts et Chauss^es ;
the Ecole Centrale is a much enlarged Cooper's Hill, or is rather
equivalent to the new London Charlottenburg ; the £cole Normale
is really a preparatory school for university professors no less than
for secondary teachers ; the Ecole Navale represents the Britannia
(1909, Osborne) ; the Ecole St. Cyr corresponds to Sandhurst ; the
Institut Agronomique is a sort of Cirencester and Rothampstead
combined.

56 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

These big schools cannot be allowed to dictate ad lib. to
the lycSes.

One cause of complaint among others against the bac-
calaurSat has been that it has led to overwork and many
have demanded its suppression. It has been felt, however,
that its advantages are greater than its defects. It is
significant that the proposal to substitute for it a school
examination in the presence of a delegate from the Ministry
was rejected by nearly all the teachers. The examination
therefore has been maintained. It is possible that the
complaints against the baccalaureat on the grounds of
overpressure were exaggerated,^ but there is reason to fear
that the overwork induced by the severe competitions for
the special schools is a very serious evil.

Many competent, persons speak of candidates working
ten and twelve hours a day. M. Berthelot speaks of the
system as the cause of the physical and intellectual deca-
dence of the youths of the country. No doubt something
will have to be done to reduce the present chduffage to which
the unhappy candidates are at present subjected, but what
that something should be is difficult to decide. A com-
petitive examination must inevitably lead to overwork.
The best one can hope to do is to eliminate the unfit at as
early a stage as possible.^

^ It is significant that complaints against the pressure of the new
baccalauriat are already beginning to appear, and it is freely asserted
that the sum total of work demanded is still greater than under the
old system. Matters are compUcated by the recent action of the
Minister of War, who has lowered the ultimate limit of ages for
admission into the army schools. This means that the pupils will
be more tempted than ever to take baccalauriat at fifteen in order to
find sufficient time to specialize for the army examination. — (1913.)
The programmes in all sections have been slightly lightened.

' Note. — (1909.) The hostility to the baccalaurdat has steadily
decreased .since it has been seen that it is essential to have a leaving
certificate for the schools, and an entrance certificate for the higher
forms of education, and that an examination which fulfils this double
function is the last word on the subject. Unfortunately, it still
appears that the form and substance of the examination are dictated
too exclusively by the university, in spite of the presence of a secon-
dary teacher on the Board of Examiners. Other complaints to-day
are the surmenage owing to the extent of the programmes to be
studied, the drop in the age of the pupils who take the examinations,
and the decline in French composition and philosophy.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 57

KTo discuss the English examination system, or rather
chaos, would require a treatise in itself. Its genesis is
more easy to explain. The English school is a close
borough. In many cases public opinion has respected its
privileges, while demanding first of all an audit of those who
leave it and next an audit of those who are within its gates.
Headmasters to save their autonomy have allowed the
introduction of external examination.^ Nay,' some of them
have gone further and in the desire to learn what their own
staff are doing they has:e actually joined in the demand for
public examinations. In any case the acceptance of ex-
ternal examinations has been the introduction into the
schools of a veritable Trojan horse. External examinations
once admitted within the walls of the schools have speedily
ended by dominating the teaching, so that to-day examina-
tions rather control curricula, whereas curricula should
control examinations.

The examination Moloch demands that all the children,
even of the tenderest age, should henceforth pass through
its fires. To-day we have examinations for all ages up the
school. Like the French, we have our special examination
for the Army, Navy, and Civil Service, but instead of having
one leaving certificate like the baccalaureat as the " open
sesame " to the universities and the professions, not only
has each university its own special examination, but many
of the professions have also preliminary examinations of
their own. It is true that the system of equivalences which
partially obtains modifies to some extent the mischief, but
the evils under which our education labours are none the
less very great. The schools themselves suffer, the upper
classes are cut up through pupils working apart at different
subjects, and much of the moral value of the last year at
school derived from work in common is lost. With the
influence of its leading boys thus comparatively diluted, the
moral effect of a strong sixth form is lost to the school.

The curricula of the schools naturally suffer. All exami-
nations imply specialization of a more or less narrow kind,
except those which by tempting the candidate to obtain
honours in as many subjects as possible tend to the opposite

58 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

extreme of diffuseness. In either case subjects not in the
examination Ust are more or less scamped, if they do not
become a dead letter for those who are working for the
examination. The teaching suffers. Teachers are tempted
to neglect everything but what pays in the examinations,
to cut their subject down to its examination Umits. In
their attempt to anticipate the examiner they are apt to
degenerate into the teaching of tips and tricks. Again,
the stereotyped nature of the questions engenders monoton-
ous and mechanical teaching. The boys suffer. Spontaneity
is discouraged, originality is discounted. The iron of the
examination enters into the boys' souls. The ideals of
knowledge are lowered, the mental outlook is narrowed, a
distaste for learning and literature is engendered.

Yet we probably cannot do without examinations. It
is rather their excessive use which is harmful. They have
their uses over and above their mere utilitarian value of
helping us to make selections and of being one of the ways in
which knowledge is audited. To mention only one of these
uses, there is the immense advantage of the habit of being
able to codify, arrange, and mobiUze one's knowledge when
it is wanted. If it were not for the exigencies of examina-
tions, the English schoolboy would often have no notion of
how to put together and set forth what he has learnt. The
art of conveying one's knowledge is hardly taught in EngHsh
schools except for examination purposes.

The remedy probably Ues in the great extension in the
system of equivalences, which might be carried out by a
joint board of the Board of Education, the local authorities,
and the universities, say a sub-committee of the Consulta-
tive Committee. These could act as a clearing house for
diplomas. They might in time be able to get the consent
of the various examining bodies to the estabhshment of
one single leaving certificate.^ Probably something might

i Note. — (igdg.) The Consultative Coramittee issued a scheme
in 1904 (Proposals for a System of School Certificates, Board of
Education Consultative Committee), but nothing much so far has
been done. It is probable, however, that something in the nature
of joint examination and inspection outlined above will come to pass
in the long run. — (1913.) Perhaps the recent report on Examinations
by the Consultative Committee may effect something.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 59

be done on the German system of having joint boards for
districts or groups of schools composed of a certain number
of trained examiners and inspectors to represent the Board
of Education and the local authorities and of the school-
masters themselves.

We want to guard against uniformity, which one single
examination common to the whole country would produce ;
we want to safeguard equivalence of value between the exa-
minations, and we want to bring in the teacher, who knows
more about the pupil than anyone, and who can best put him
through his paces ; and lastly we want to disturb the school
curricula and to cut up the school classes as little as possible.

The French may well congratulate themselves upon the
fact that even if preparation for their higher schools leads
to a considerable amount of overpressure, they are free from
the multiplicity of examinations which hang like a never-
hfting cloud over the Enghsh school, and produce a sort of
depressing examination atmosphere or chmate which is at
least lacking in the lower portions of the French school.
There is, however, another point in which French examina-
tions radically differ from our own, which it would be well
for those who are interested in examinations in England to
consider, if not in part to copy.

'j<The Enghsh examination is too exclusively an audit of
knowledge ; at its worst it is a mere audit of facts. The
competition is above all things a match against time ; the
pupil who can disgorge the greatest quantity of facts in a
given time comes out top. Naturally a certain minimum of
speUing and punctuation is demanded, and the facts them-
selves must be correct. But the workmanship side of the
question, style in the best sense of the word, occupies at
best a secondary position. Who can deny that examina-
tions on the whole are very largely a matter of memory,
either in the actual reproduction of what one has learnt or
in the production of something similar, be it either some
classical " tip " or some tricky solution in mathematics ?
Originality is too rarely sought for or desired. The arts of
exposition and development in composition are compara-
tively neglected, y

6o STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

When a French university professor is shown an English
examination paper containing some ten or twelve questions
he is lost in astonishment, and when he is told that full
marks alone can be obtained for answering them all, and
that only three hours is given for the paper, he is dumb-
founded. On recovering his speech he informs us that the
number of questions to be attempted in the lycee for a three
hours' composition, as in the university for a six hours'
composition, would be one or two. One can only explain to
him that the English ideal largely partakes of Coleridge's idea
of a sponge, which when squeezed returns the water it has
absorbed, not always in its pristine condition, and that in this
competition of sponges the most absorbent naturally scores.

He wiU probably ask. Where does the composition come
in, the art of presenting one's subject in the clearest form
and in the best language ? One can only point out to our
critic that he has misapprehended the Enghsh point of
view, that the English examinee writes on the assumption
that he is writing for those who are acquainted beforehand
with what he ought to say, and who only want to verify his
remarks. In a word, the examiners are already " in the
know," the examinee has only got to prove that he is too in
order to satisfy them. Our French friend wiU then prob-
ably agree that the systems differ, and will point out that
the French examinee writes from the point of view of one
who wants to explain to the ordinary cultured person what
he has to say, and that he therefore tries to state the case
as it should be stated on its merits.

He may further pertinently add that, as far as the actual
value of the two systems goes, his method is superior. It
not only tests the originality of the pupil by laying stress on
the ability to put two and two together, and on the collation
of facts apart from their mere collection ; it is also a first-
rate exercise in quahties which are of real use in everyday
life — to wit, the power to put one's views clearly and
distinctly, not to say persuasively. Direct reply on the
point seems difficult ; for are we not confronted here with
the chronic inability of the average Enghsh boy, and also
to some extent of the average Englishman, to express him-

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 6i

self and his ideas in a coherent fashion ? The common sense
of the latter brings him nearly always to the point ; but it
is only after hunting all over the place like a hound on a bad
scenting day.

A certain amount of composition teaching on French
lines at school would have enabled him to dispense with
much of this discursive thinking aloud. But if direct reply
is difficult, we may still by way of rejoinder point out
certain dangers which lurk in the French system, by showing
that an extreme cult. of the form may lead to undue dis-
regard for the subject-matter, how a skilled rhetorician may,
by his mere brilliancy, dazzle the eyes of his examiners
and conceal his lack of depth and grip of the subject. We
certainly do not want to produce mere writers of the type
of Brougham, of whom someone in discussing his articles
has wittily said : " He used to get into a bath of rhetoric
and splash about."

Probably both we and the French have got hold of
opposite ends of the truth, but on the importance of laying
more stress on the quality of the work apart from the
quantity we have certainly much to learn from them, especi-
ally in matters of composition in the wide sense of the word.

But our French critic has probably not finished with his
objections. He inquires why we have so largely aboUshed
oral examinations in England. We reply that we did so
because of the greater element of chance they contained
in comparison with the written test, and because a clever
but nervous candidate could not under such trying con-
ditions do himself or his knowledge adequate justice. Our
critic will point out that if the object of examination is to
produce learned recluses our second reason has considerable
weight, but that it can hardly be seriously maintained that
this is the usual object of examinations, that in daily life
knowledge is often of little good unless it can be mobilized on
the spot, that presence of mind and quickness of judgment,
provided it is sound, are qualities which are of the greatest
value. He admits that for a general estimate and survey
of the extent of the candidate's knowledge and abilities
a written examination is wellnigh indispensable, but

62 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

he insists that the oral examination tests qualities which
are simply untouched and unassayed by the written
examination.

In suppressing the viva-voce examination we have cut the
Gordian knot, we have not solved it. We have merely
reduced and restricted our powers of finding out what a
candidate is really made of. In a word, for the sake of
obtaining uniformity in our tests, we have robbed them of a
large portion of their value. Anyone incredulous of the
value of oral examinations should attend the oral examina-
tions at the Sorbonne, which are open to the pubUc and are
often very largely attended by the friends and relations of
the candidate. Those for the baccalaureat are relatively
short, though even in these pupils are expected to be able
to give a connected account in those subjects which lend
themselves to narrative, not merely to answer a few names
and dates.

But in the higher examinations " the oral " assumes a stiU
greater importance. In history or philosophy candidates
for the licence are often given a subject to discuss for a
quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and the examiner
looks for something which has at least a beginning, middle,
and end. Happily the spread of the direct method of teach
ing modern languages is bound to bring the question of
viva-voce examinations weU to the front in England, and we
may perhaps hope in the near future to see such indispens-
able tests restored to their proper place in the majorit}' of
subjects taken up for examination. ^

(vi) Privileges attached to Completion of Full
School Course

The new programmes have introduced one very sweeping
revolution. Formerly success in the classical section of the

iNoTE. — (1909.) Viva-voce examinations have already been
established in the London County Council intermediate scholarships,
and the French honour examinations at London University. They
are already optional for the examinations of the Oxford and Cam-
bridge Locals, as well as for the Modern Language Tripos at Cam-
bridge. An influential " Report to the Modern Language Association

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 63

baccalaurSat was necessary for those who intended to study
for certain of the liberal professions. Now, though the
courses have been increased from two to four, the examina-
tion in them all bears the single title of baccalaurSat ; that
is to say, in no matter what examination the pupil has
obtained his baccalaurSat, he has henceforth the right to
present himself for all State and professional examinations,
whether he desires to enter the civil service, or become a
doctor, a barrister, etc.

The choice between the courses of study is left to the
parents. In practice they, as a rule, leave the decision to
the teacher. The Government have in fact instituted a
sort of universal suffrage among French parents on the best
kinds of curricula to follow. So far the one most in favour
seems to be the Science-Modern Languages, while the Latin-
Greek is in some country districts comparatively neglected.
There seems to be some probability that the Government
will suppress or confine to the larger schools those courses
which obtain comparatively few votes. The outlook for
classics is said to be far from brilliant.^

In England the examinations which correspond most
closely to the baccalaurSat are the leaving examination of
the London University, the Oxford and Cambridge Higher

on the Qualifications and Training of Modern Language Teachers,"
published in Modern Language Teaching for April, 1909, demands
that they should be made compulsory for the future master or
mistress in modern languages.

' NoTB. — (1909.) The predictions given above do not appear to
be likely to be fulfilled at present. The classics, though not in the
front, are still holding their own. Here are the statistics of the
results of the first part of the BaccalaurSat Examination held in
July, 1908 (see Journal of Education, December, 1908, p. 820) :

Percentage
of passes.

Science and Modern Languages . 3,897 1,626 42 %

Latin and Modem Languages . 3,058 1,255 4° %

Latin and Greek . . 2,886 1,306 45%

Latin and Science .... 2,766 i,35i 49 %

The greater number taking Science and Modern Languages is to be
accounted for by the fact that the course is very largely chosen by
the scholars who, coming up from the elementary schools, have

Courses. Candidates. Passes.

64 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Locals, and the Joint Board Examinations. The passing
of these examinations provides in many cases partial or
total exemption in the entrance examinations of the uni-
versities and numerous pubUc bodies. The exemption,
however, is far more often partial than total, and each
particular pubhc body has its own Ust of obligatory sub-
jects in which a candidate must pass in order to obtain
complete exemption. Something of the nature of a uni-
versal leaving examination — though not necessarily of a
uniform nature — would be a great boon in England.^

(vii) School Hours

In France as a rule the day schools open at 8 or 8.30, and
morning school lasts tiU 11.30 ; in boarding schools there is
generally an hour's preparation before breakfast. There is
generally a break in morning school about 10.30. Afternoon
school lasts from 1.30 to 4.30. This does not imply that
all the boys are in school during these periods. In fact, boys
of from eight to ten years of age in the preparatory and
elementary divisions have only twenty hours a week.
Deducting the weekly half or whole hohday on Thursday,
this means they have only three and a half to four hours a
day. From twelve to sixteen the boys in the two divisions
A and B have twenty-three and twenty-two hours respec-
tively for the first two years, and twenty-two (plus four

naturally done no Latin. Still, we are told that in some schools the
classical section is being elbowed out for reasons of economy.—
(1913.) The statistics for July, 1912, are as follows :

Courses.
Science and Modern Languages
Latin and Modern Languages
Latin and Science
Latin and Greek

In five years Latin and Greek have lost over 700, or about 25 per
cent. ; Science and Modern Languages have gained within 150 as
many. The other sections, in both of which Latin occurs, have gained
together as much as Science and Modern Languages.

•See School series of articles, January to May, 1904, on "The
Examination Chaos," by Cloudesley Brereton.

Candidates.

Passes.

Percentage.

4.529
3.431
3.039
2,110

1.835

1.475

1.369

970

40%
43 %
48%
46%

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 65

optional hours) and twenty-four respectively in the second
two years.

In the first year of the second cycle the classical boys get
off with twenty-two hours, the Latin-modern with twenty-
three, the Latin-science boys with twenty-six, and the
science-modern with twenty-seven. In the first year of the
baccalaureat the classicals have twenty-two hours plus two
hours optional for drawing. The Latin-moderns have
twenty with two hours optional for drawing and two for
making up ground in Latin. The Latin-science boys have
twenty-five hours, and the science-modern twenty-seven.
In philosophy the hours for philosophy and mathematics
with their two subsections are thirteen and a half with three
optional, twenty-one with four optional, twenty-seven with
two optional, twenty-eight with two optional. These
hours do not look excessive, but the out-of-school work,
especially in respect to the preparation for the Government
schools, St. Cyr, etc., causes, according to all accounts,
great overpressure.^

The normal lesson is one hour in length. Occasionally
classes of an hour and a half are allowed, if the professors
and proviseurs desire it and the rector of the University
approves — a rather large order. The old lessons of two
hours, which were far too long, have been definitely
abolished. In the preparatory classes certain lessons may
be subdivided into half-hours, to wit, geography, etc. In
the higher classes, again, the programme allows lessons of
an hour and a half for chemistry and physics.

In the boarding schools the pupils get up at 6 a.m. and
sometimes at 5 a.m., which seems somewhat early, though
they go to bed at 9 or even at 8. Even the French day boy
gets up as a rule earher than the Enghsh, 6.30 or 7 being the
usual time. He often prepares a large part of his work
before breakfast. This early rising is probably one of the
causes that keep him in health.
yin England the school hours naturally vary, but as a

' Note. — (1909.) This overpressure appears to be growing. —
(1913.) All the four courses have now been slightly reduced, but the
total reduction does not amount to an hour in each year of the course.

B.E. E

66 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

general rule one may take it that the hours of work in a day
school last from 9 to 12 in the morning and 2 to 4 in the
afternoon. There is generally a break of 10-15 minutes in
the middle of the morning, or 5 minutes' interval at the end
of each lesson. The midday interval is given up, as in
France, to a substantial repast. There are generally two
half-holidays a week, and in the summer term a number of
free afternoons for cricket matches. y. With the exception of
the national hoUdays, the French schoolboy has no such
red-letter days in his calendar, i School hours in England
average roughly about twenty-lour to twenty-six hours a
week in day schools and thirty to thirty-two hours in board-
ing schools, though in the latter case some of the hours are
generally devoted to preparation. Boys in for special
examinations have naturally longer hours.

Science lessons in England are often one and a half and
even two hours in length. The other lessons seldom exceed
an hour in length. In some cases the lessons are only fifty,
forty-five, and in some rare cases thirty minutes in length.
The partisans of the shorter hours affirm that the teachers
get comparatively more out of the pupils in the shorter
time ; they also probably take more out of themselves.
While short periods are no doubt adequate for some sub-
jects, they scarcely suit all. A lesson in geography probably
requires less time than one in Latin.H^

(viii) Home Work

In France there are no definite rules and regulations for
settUng the amount of time that pupils of different ages
should devote to their home work. At the beginning of
each school year there is often, however, a meeting of the
professors of each class to discuss the work to be done by the
pupil at home. If one professor fancies that his colleague
has been in the habit of getting the part du lion of the pupil's
preparation time, the matter is threshed out and a friendly
understanding arrived at.

This is certainly good, as far as it goes, but there must be
always a danger of an agreement being arrived at at the

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 67

price of the pupil being overworked. The eight-hours day
would certainly be a popular movement among the senior
students in the French lycSes, in which it is stated the in- and
out-of-school work frequently amounts to ten and twelve
hours a day owing to the large amount of home work
which is set. The new programmes have rather added to
than diminished the amount of work necessary for the
baccalaureat.

In England in a certain number of schools the question
has been seriously tackled by the headmasters. Instead of
considering the amount of work to be done, always a more
or less hypothetical matter, reformers have rather regarded
the number of hours which can be properly demanded from
pupils of the various ages. When that has been decided,
these hours have been spUt up among the various subjects
which require preparation. But even here the determina-
tion of the hours and the distribution of the work are not
a sufficient safeguard in themselves. Much oversight is
requisite to see that the system is properly worked. The
average teacher is always tempted to give the ordinary boy
a bigger tale of bricks than he can complete in the allotted
period, and thereby the work suffers or the pupil's free time
is encroached on.

In fact, it is necessary not only to define the hours but
to arrive at a clear understanding of what a fair hour's
home work really is for the pupils of different ages. Unfor-
tunately in a good many schools the schoolboy is subjected
to all the evils of unrestricted competition among the staff.
Cases are not unknown where the headmaster exacts his
pound of flesh from the class, often a very liberal pound, and
expects his staff to go and do likewise. Under the principle
of " pull baker, pull devil," the strongest master gets the
lion's share, and the others come off as best they can.

Happily this theory of getting the last ounce out of the
pupil is defeated by the natural inclination of the average
boy to " knock off " when he is healthily tired, but its effect
on the conscientious is distinctly detrimental and cannot be
good for any of the boys concerned. A healthy boy has
only^so much stored-up energy to expend per diem. You

68 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

can probably get all you ought to get out of him, allowing
for growth, in four, five, or six hours at the most. To
spread the work over nine or ten merely means that you
exhaust him and probably produce less effect. Long
hours in the school do not lend themselves to greater pro-
ductivity in the long run, any more than they do in the
factory.

What is wanted in England and France is the formation of
a small class of medico-schoolmasters knowing both sides
of the question and able to speak with equal authority on
the medical and on the pedagogical side.^

We have already in both countries school doctors who
have done a good deal for school hygiene. The study of
school fatigue has been started, but we want experts who
understand not only the medical but the pedagogical diffi-
culties. The medical man who is not a schoolmaster can
hardly realize that under the stress of present competition
it is not so much how few hours' schooling the pupil should
have, but how many one may safely give him without
injuring his health or physique.

It would certainly be a great advantage if the State could
erect a few experimental schools in which among other
interesting questions the problem of short hours in class
and preparation could be studied by trained experts.
Experimental stations have immensely benefited farming;
why should they not benefit puericulture ? In capable
hands the children experimented on would take Uttle harm,
and the result of successful experiment would be of the
greatest value. No doubt the question of long hours,
especially in boarding schools, is largely bound up with
the problem of finding boys something to do, but that
something need not necessarily be " head work." There

1 Note. — {1909.) A great step forwaxd has been made in both
countries in the way of interesting the medical profession, the local
authorities, and the parents in school hygiene, notably by the holding
of Congresses at Paris and London. The new medical inspection
of the Board of Education will probably make medical inspection
universal shortly in the secondary schools. In the great majority of
London schools there is already not only a medical inspection of the
pupils, with remedial drill in the case of girls, but regular weighing
and measuring records are being compiled.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 69

are plenty of forms of manual employment to take its place
either as work or recreation.^

M. le Docteur Hogg, writing in 1892, gives the following
interesting comparative table of the work and play in
English and French schools (see L'Hygilne scolaire dans
les £iablissements de I'Enseignement secondaire de la Grande-
Bretagne.p. 55):

England

From 9 to 14

Hours.
Work .... 6
Play .... 4*
Sleep . . . loj

France
Preparatory Lycie
Hours.
Work (Summer) . 10 ■
Play . • 2 55 mi"
Sleep ... 9

From 14 to 19

(Mondays, Wednesdays, and

Fridays)

Work .... 6

Play . . .3

Sleep (Summer) . . 8J

Work (Winter)
Play .
Sleep .

Lycie
Work (Summer)

II
3i

12

(Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays)
Work .... 8
Play . . 6
Sleep (Winter) . . . gj

Play .
Sleep .

Work (Winter)
Play .
Sleep .

2i

8

Hi
2

9

In most English schools the third half-holiday a week has
been suppressed and added to the work. A competent
authority states that the French hours have rather increased
than diminished.^ The advantages on the side of the

' Note. — (1909.) See School, February and March, igo6, " Hand
Craft and Brain Craft." The practice of earmarking every hour of
the pupil's day not only undermines his self-reliance and self-initia-
tive, but precludes him from any chance of acquiring personal tastes,
and the power of independent work and thought. In some of our
schools a beginning has been made to meet this grave defect by
giving pupils in the school certain hours when they may read books
out of the library under the supervision of a teacher who merely sees
that quiet is maintained, and places himself at the disposal of any
pupil who desires explanation on any point.

*NoTE. — (1909.) Cf. M. Ma.Tirice-Fa.UTe, Rapport, p. 22g : "Les
professeurs se plaignent aussi de la surcharge de certains programmes,"
and he compares classes in Sections C and D with twenty-six and

70 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

English boy in the shape of more sleep, longer hours of play,
shorter hours of work, are still very marked.

(ix) The Teaching of Subjects

The teaching of subjects is obviously one which cannot be
treated exhaustively. Here more than anj^where else in the
report, an effort will be made to describe what to the author
has appeared most typical in the two educations, but in any
case the treatment must necessarily be fragmentary and
incomplete.

Mother Tongue

In the classical and Latin sections pre-eminently, and in
that of science-modern languages, though in a less degree,
French is the central subject of the programme, inasmuch as
the classical teaching, though not the modem language
teaching, is to a large extent ancillary to the teaching of the
mother tongue. The great difference between the study of
classics in an English or a French school is that the English
boy mainly studies the classics for their own sakes, the
French boy for the assistance they give to a fuller and more
complete expression and understanding of his native lan-
guage. The mother tongue is often sacrificed to classics in
England, in France classics no doubt are sometimes sacri-
ficed to the mother tongue ; ^ but the converse is never true.

French seems to be the one modern language which has
not only definitely emancipated itself from a servile imita-
tion of classical idioms, but also built up for itself a national
style of its own, freer and less involved than Latin, from
which it sprang, and therefore more in accord with the spirit
of modern life. The emancipation of German prose seems
yet to come. For who can believe the long-winded German

twenty-seven hours a week with others in A and B with twenty-two
and twenty-four. M. Steeg {Rapport, p. 39) also admits " quelque
surmenage."

1 Note. — (1913.) The principal persons responsible for this cult
of the mother tongue are RoUin, the Jesuits, and, in later times, Hatz-
feldt (the master of Taine, Boissier, and other brilliant scholars at
the ]£cole Normale) and Jules Simon.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 71

sentence is the last word on the subject, even if there were
not numerous signs of a change ? We in England have had,
no doubt, many admirable prose writers, but we have no
traditional school for the writing of prose such as has long
existed in France, and probably never shall have, till prose
writing comes by its own in the schools themselves.

In France even small boys of five and six in the classes
enfantines are encouraged to compose, though naturally
their compositions are only oral. Among the three principal
methods for the teaching of the mother tongue insisted on
in the programme comes the direction : " Very short stories
to be read aloud in class and told over again by the children."
In the class above a beginning of written composition is
made, and the twofold practice of oral and written com-
position is thenceforth continued right up the school. The
Men dire and bien ecrire are thus taught from the very outset
to the close of the school career.

It is curious to find persons in England who seriously
dispute the use of French as a mental discipline, when the
French themselves consider it in this respect equal to Latin
or Greek, one might almost say superior, because being their
own language it is naturally the better medium for their
children. The French — pace these English critics, who have
often but a superficial smattering of the language — are prob-
ably right. To begin with, their language possesses the best
traditions of ancient rhetoricians, handed down in an un-
interrupted apostolic succession through the Schools of
Lyons, Bordeaux, and Paris, or recovered by scholars at
the Renaissance. It is to-day a finished product which
has been worked up by generations of native Longinuses
and Quintilians.

While in England the word " composition " too often
means a mere reproduction in a Latin or Greek medium of
some passage taken from an English writer, a matter of
hitting on the right phrase or word, of reproducing in a
classical mosaic a design already given in English, it has
retained in France its fuller, truer, and really classical mean-
ing, of composing, of putting together, of construction. It
calls into play not merely the talent of the mosaic maker, of

72 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the reproductive workman, but of the architect, the master
builder, the original designer and artist.

In a word, the French writer is not a mere framer of happy
phrases. His chief glory consists in his skill in building up
phrases into paragraphs, and paragraphs into one single
harmonious, symmetrical, architectural whole. And herein
lies for us, if we are only able to grasp it, the supreme value
and importance of the study of French for ourselves. As
our artists go to Paris to learn technique, so our school-
masters may well go to France to study composition. We
do not want to create in our English schools a sort of bastard
French style. There is ijideed little danger of such an
eventuality. We have too much of nationality, of racial
mother stuff in us ever to succumb to that temptation. But
we certainly may learn a good deal by studying structure
under the great French masters. To judge by many of our
composition manuals a vast deal more attention is stUl
given to botching the pupil's EngUsh and correcting his
punctuation than on insisting first and foremost that his
essay should be a member of the vertebrate famUy.^

It seems impossible to insist too much on the Uteraxy
excellence of the French language, when we consider what
the teaching of modern languages in our higher classes
should be, when our pupils have acquired a fair working
knowledge of the tools of the new learning, understanding,
speaking, and writing. We shall not have profited much if
we surrender the shackles of the old-fashioned grammarian
for the fetters of the new philology. Here again the example
of the French teacher should come to our rescue and show
us a more excellent way.

Philology does not appear at all in the school course. In

1 Note. — (1913.) In connection with the above remarks one may
perhaps mention two books which have recently appeared on the
actual teaching of French composition and literature. They are by
M. J. Bezard, and are entitled La Classe de Franfais and De la
MHhode litUraire (Journal d'un Professeur dans une Classe de Pre-
miere) — the publishers being La Libraire Vuibert, Paris. They
should prove a veritable gold-mine of hints and suggestions to EngUsh
teachers of composition and literature, while the copious quotations
from the pupils' work reveal the high standard reached by French
pupils tramed on these methods.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 73

its place we find a well-graduated course in the national
literature based especially on the actual study of great
masterpieces which are discussed on critical and aesthetic but
not on philological grounds. For foreigners, as for French
students, some knowledge of philology may seem desirable,
but a small manual wiU give aU that is required for a hterary
appreciation by an intelligent person of the evolution of the
language. Philology should come at the conclusion of our
hterary education in the language.^ It is in fact, as the
French hold, essentially a matter for late university or
post-graduate study.

Possibly under the old system which preceded the present
reform the study of formal grammar was overdone. To-day
the use of short grammars both in French and other lan-
guages from which the exceptions are largely excluded is
de rigueur in all the State schools, to the despair of many
publishers and second-hand booksellers. They, however,
are not the only discontented persons. The teachers in
some schools are also complaining.

They give as their reasons — (i) that less attention is
given than formerly to the art of expression ; the cultiva-
tion of I' eloquence frangaise, which pushed to excess enabled
a person to write weU on any subject whether he was
acquainted with it or not. This does not seem a great loss.
(2) They complain that the new method of reading by sight
has lowered the standard of orthography in the schools,
because under the new system pupils are no longer obliged
to spell their words. They learn to read more quickly, but
the education of the eye, on which spelhng depends, is
neglected ; (3) less attention is given, as mentioned above, to
grammar.^ This does not apply very much to the pupils doing
Latin and Greek, as, owing to the amount of classical gram-
mar they do, they get sufficient drill and practice in the rules.

1 Note. — (1909.) The recent reforms of the MediEEval and Modern
Language Tripos at Cambridge, which partially came into force in
1909, are largely based on these lines.

2 Note. — (1909.) The old method of studying grammar seems
doomed. Much may be expected from such new methods as that
outlined by MM. Brunot and Bony (Milhode de Langue frangaise,
3 vols., Armand Colin), based on historical grammar and closely
correlated with composition.

74 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Moreover, during the classical lesson the mother tongue is
being studied concurrently in the shape of translations, and
the class itself is conducted in French. On the other hand,
the grammar in the modern language lesson is cut down to a
minimum, and the mother tongue is very largely excluded
from the class-room. It is said by some competent judges
that those studying English and German are on an average
two classes below those studying Latin in the study of
French, yet these boys have to be taken together.^

There seems Uttle doubt that, with French the direct
descendant of Latin, the study of the latter must be
advantageous to many French boys, and many moderate
reformers in language teaching are stiU unconvinced that
the drawbacks of elementary Latin outweigh its advantages.
StiU it must be remembered that the parallel between
English and French classical teaching is not altogether, as
we shall see, complete. Where we attempt to form a
learned scholar the French seek to give a hterary culture.

Of the teaching of the mother tongue in England one can
only say that on the whole it compares most unfavourably
with the teaching of the mother tongue in France. Our
chief hope lies in the very great progress that has been made
during the last ten or fifteen years.^ Until comparatively
recently, EngUsh when taught at all was taught with all
the paraphernedia of a dead language. Its granmaar was
studied with the same minuteness as that of Latin and Greek.
Its rules, often merely descriptive and singularly imperfect
at that, were set up as veritable laws of reason more infaUible

1 Note. — (1909.) It would appear that the standard of French
composition has certainly fallen off of recent years. This is mainly
due to the decrease in the time allotted to French, three hours in place
of five. M. Maurice-Faure states in his Rapport (p. 229) that the
Conseil Supfirieur intends shortly to add another hour. — (1913.)
Another hour has now been added in the 6th, 5th and 3rd year of ttie
course, while in the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd year of Section A the hours
given to French and Latin have been combined to enable the class
professor to correct any special temporary weaknesses of the class
in either subject.

^ Note. — (1909.) See Report of a Conference on the Teaching of
EngUsh in London Elementary Schools (Chairman, Professor Boas),
published by the London County Council, 1909 ; second edition,
1912.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 75

than the enactments of the Medes and Persians. How
often has one heard and still hears in the schools such
instances of bastard logic as " Why is the plural of man,
men ? Because it is an exception to the rule," or " Why is
the participle of bring, brought ? Because it is an irregular
verb," and other pseudo-ratiocinations.

Then, again, authors were studied far more in the notes
than in the text. One can cite even to-day " school " editions
of selections from Milton more annotated even than Mayor's
Juvenal. Our pupils stUl read too much about authors and
not enough of their works. When poetry is learnt by heart
it is too often gabbled. Recitations and reading aloud are
far too widely neglected. Little or no literary and artistic
criticism is attempted or encouraged. No doubt there is a
certain type of mind which shrinks from all literary or
aesthetic criticism as savouring of affectation and rant and
bound to degenerate into sentimentality and slobber. Such
persons often have the root of the matter in them, but
apparently look on such feeUngs in the same light as their
deeper religious feeUngs, as sacred things only to be discussed
between a man and his Maker. Hence when they take a
literature lesson they either regard the pupils as hopeless
Philistines or treat them as Moses did the IsraeUtes when
compelled in his anger to give them water to drink. They
forget that appreciation is largely a matter of imitative
sympathy, as Horace has shown for all time :

. . . Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tihi.

Assuredly our national hatred of affectation and pre-
tension has its good side. It has kept down the breed of
poeticules and poetasters, and litterateurs of the fourth
water and of artists of the tenth magnitude ; but none
the less we ought to be able to give our pupils a sense of
the fineness of literary and artistic things without neces-
sarily converting them en masse into an artistic and literary
proletariat.

English is, however, excellently taught in some boys'
schools, and for this we have largely to thank the girls'

76 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

schools, which in the teaching of this and of other modern
subjects have often proved the pioneers and promoters of
new methods. The reformed system of teaching modern
languages should be in the near future a valuable ally
towards modernizing methods. Just as teachers formerly
based their teaching of English on classical Unes, so they are
nearly certain to remodel their EngUsh teaching on the
lines of the Neue Methode, once they reaUze its potentialities.
They will see that what is sauce for the French goose is
probably equally good sauce for the English gander, and
modify their cuisine accordingly.

We are already witnessing a strong movement in favour
of oral and written compositions, coupled with a revolt
against the tyranny of formal grammar, though not to the
extent of the liking of some reformers who, Uke Jack Cade,
would almost proscribe nouns and verbs, while at the same
time an increased interest is being shown in the literary and
artistic side of the language. We thus have three con-
current streams of attack playing on those institutions in
which the older traditions of teaching still prevail. Help,
too, is promised from a quite unexpected quarter. Science
teachers are insisting more and more on the need of clear
and well-ordered description on the part of their pupils.
Their assistance should be of the utmost value, over and
above the support thus given to the proper teaching of
English. It should rob the old quarrel between science and
literature of half its violence when once it has been generally
realized by scientists that clear exposition is an absolute
necessity.^

Classics

The deposition of Greek from the position it held in the
old curriculum and its restriction to one of the four alterna-
tive courses cannot fail to have an effect on the quantity
of classical scholarships in the French schools. It is quite

' For further discussion on the subject see The Practical Teacher,
December, 1902, " Is it Possible to Improve the Teaching of English
Composition ? " by Cloudesley Brereton.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 77

possible that what is left will improve in quality.^ Matthew
Arnold remarked on the comjiarative lowness of standard in
Greek,^ and it is probable that the level of attainment was
much about the same before the present reform. The lycie
being open to all, and the classical course being the fashion-
able one for the baccalaureat, the standard was forcibly kept
down by the quantity of pupils of merely average or medi-
ocre ability who persisted in taking the subject. With this
Ballast, as the Germans say, distributed, in part at least,
over the other courses, the standard will again have a chance
of rising. In any case, classics are far from being played out
in France, where even such out-and-out Socialists as
M. Jaurfis insist on their retention as necessary for the
education of a chosen few (Slite).

The principal aim of the teaching of classics in France is,
as has been indicated above, to treat Latin and Greek rather
as a means of literary and rhetorical training, especially in
regard to the study and appreciation of the mother tongue,
than as an instrument of mental discipUne. In a word, the
ideal is culture rather than exact scholarship. Or rather,
where we lay stress on didicisse fideliter artes, and expect
that the emollit mores will follow as a matter of course, they
lay stress on the emollit mores, and expect the faithful and
scrupulous scholarship will be acquired concurrently or as
a finishing polish.

We therefore naturally find in the schools that more
attention is paid to translation into French and far less to
translation into the foreign languages.^ Verse-writing has
of course been long^given up.* Composition in the Enghsh

1 Note. — {1909.) This prediction has been realized. According
to M. Maurice-Faure the " section classique renferme en giniral les
meilleurs Hives" (p. 230).

" See M. Arnold, A French Eton, p. 367.

' " U ex-plication des textes sera le principal exercice de la classe "
(Plan d'Studes et Programmes d' Enseignement dans les Lycies et
Colliges de Gargons). Again, in the higher classes we find added the
pupils will in addition be put on to supplementary reading which
will be marked in class.

■* In the fourth and third classes versification and prosody are
studied and hexameters and pentameters scanned and French trans-
lations oi them put back into Latin.

78 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

sense of the word is less practised than heretofore. The
method of setting compositions out of books has been well-
nigh abandoned. What composition there is is based either
directly or indirectly on passages taken from the classical
authors the class have been reading, and includes free
composition. This recourse to re-translation is interesting
as an example of the methods advocated by Ascham and
the earUer humanists in England. Less attention, as we
have seen, is paid to grammar.

In translation what is specially insisted on is the transla-
tion of large portions of an author in preference to isolated
fragments, extensive rather than intensive culture being the
aim. The object of the teacher is to get a whole book read,
and to make it as far as possible a living thing, a bit of
Uterature for the pupil. Details are not insisted on.
Literal translations are strictly forbidden, but good French
translations are in some cases allowed, and the tendency to
permit the use of these authorized versions is said to be
growing. Such practices must seem terrible to those
teachers in England who would bum if they could Mr.
Bohn and all his works at the stake, but at any rate it does
away with the illicit use of cribs. Great stress is now laid on
a literal translation the first time over, and equally great
stress is laid on polishing the revised translation into good
French.

There seems little doubt that, with the galaxy of briUiant
" men " that our public schools send up every year to the
universities, not only are the number of classical scholars
worthy of the name far more numerous in England, but that
the general standard of attainment in Greek and possibly
in Latin is distinctly on a higher level. To begin with,
classics in our big schools are studied on a far larger scale.
Hour for hour the EngUsh boy devotes a considerably longer
time to Latin and Greek in the course of his school career
than does the French boy. Much greater attention is paid
with us to composition, grammar, and to the points of
scholarship generally.

Possibly these differences, not in numbers but in degree of
attainment, tend to decrease in the university. More atten-

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 79

tion is there paid to scholeirship, though the perpetual
protest against the irudition allemande even in high places
shows a preoccupation to preserve the distinctly literary
over the, one might almost say, philological character of
classical education, a character which is largely supported
by the fact that even in the licence es lettres at least half the
examination is taken up by the French language. With the
agr&gation, however, which is a highly speciaUzed examination
open to students of any age, the elite who stiU continue their
classical education probably make up any leeway in the
matter of scholarship compared with the ' standard in
England ; while the doctorat, which is far more often taken
than the Litt.D. or D.Sc. with us, keeps the chosen few who
are still studying classics hard at work at original research,
when the majority of their compeers in England have given
themselves up to teaching or editing school books.

In all probability at the top there is httle or no difference :
several EngUsh scholars have assured me of their high
admiration for the best French scholars of to-day. While,
then, at the top there is practically no difference, and half-
way up the ladder our scholars are probably ahead of pupils
of the same age in France, it is a very doubtful question
whether the French system with or without Greek is not a
much better training for the boy of average or mediocre
ability. Far too many boys leave the public schools with-
out having become even respectable scholars — a competent
authority like Professor Laurie puts their number at the
extraordinarily high figure of 95 per cent.,^ and does not
hesitate to use the stronger word " failures."

Even if these boys do carry something away in the shape
of greater mental elasticity owing to the classical gymnastics
to which they have been subjected, it is still a very great
question if for such boys the French method of attempting
to give at least a tinge of culture, to educate the taste and
develop the appreciation, is not a more valuable and lasting

* S. S. Laurie, Studies in the History of Educational Opinion from
the Renaissance, p. 16. See also Public Schools and Public Needs.
by G.. G. Coulton, for an unfavourable view of the classical attain-
ments of the average boy.

8o STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

possession, and one that can be acquired by a very much
larger proportion of pupils. Had Greek in England been
taught on these lines, its position as a pass subject in the
university entrance examinations would certainly have
been stronger to-day.

It has been indicated in the course of the above com-
parison between classics in England and France that the
supremacy of the English pupil in Latin was only a possible
one, being based at the best on a more extensive scholarship.
The French boy has great advantages over the Enghsh boy
in the turning of his own mother tongue into Latin. He
starts with a language in which every word has a distinct
reproductive meaning. It may seem to us at times wordy
inasmuch as it deals with compliments or commonplaces,
but even in its most hollow-sounding periods each word
does really stand for something.

There are none of those gag-hke phrases and expressions
which, to take a definite instance, abound in the works of
Bulwer Lytton, and which literally defy translation. Once
no doubt in certain contexts they had or stiU have a regular
meaning, but hke coins they have become so worn and
debased from current use that they no longer represent any
definite thought value. Their only function is to stuff out
the sentence, mere make-weights to give it the requisite
balance. Again, there is a very great deal less of that
painful recasting and rearrangement of the whole structmre
of the passage to be translated such as is necessary with us
in order to convert our Gothic-like Enghsh into something
of a classical type of architecture. No one who has not
tried can realize how easily French goes back into Latin tiU
he remembers that the words themselves take their root-
meaning from the Latin, and that, while minor changes
have to be made, structural alterations are comparatively
rare, for the logical sequence of thought is there already.
In a word, it is not surprising that the daughter's clothes
with a few alterations should be a passable fit for the
mother.

There is, however, another point which renders com-
parison somewhat difiicult, not to say dehcate. Composi-

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 8i

tion in a dead language has its fashions, and its fashion-
able models no less than any other human art. Nothing
surprised my French professors in Greek more than that
a writer like Thucydides, of an epoch when the literary
language was still obviously in the making, should be largely
taken at Cambridge as a model for the writing of Greek
prose. They could not understand the comparative neglect
of Isocrates. One could not help feeling they were largely
in the right. What should we think of a foreigner, say some
Babu professor, who set up Carlyle as a model of English
prose for the pupils to imitate ? It seems clear that at
bottom the personal equation of each teacher has in Latin
and Greek just as in everything else a certain authority and
influence.

Hence, what may be the vogue at Cambridge owing to
the personaUty of one or two leading professors need not
necessarily be the vogue at Oxford. But when we come to
the personal equation of the race, it seems highly probable
that each country out of the same classical models should
evolve something still more marked with the stamp of its
own native genius, still more strongly differentiated from that
of other countries. Just as there is certainly an Irish Catho-
Hcism, a French Catholicism, and a German Catholicism,
though they all firmly rest on the faith once delivered to
the saints, is it not natural that there should be a French
Latin, an English Latin, and a German Latin ? If literary
Padua had its Patavinitas, surely hterary Lutetia must
have its Parisianisms, and Cambridge also its pecuUarities.^
These would, it is most likely, be more marked in the schools,
and one cannot help feeUng certain that the difference is
sufficiently great to render a comparison between the school-
boy Latin in the two countries a little difficult.

• These impressions have lately been confirmed in a remarkable
manner. A piece of Latin composition, which had received an
extraordinarily high mark in one of the French universities, was
shown to a brilUant EngUsh scholar who is now a professor in one of
our universities. His only comment was, " That is not the Latin
we write."

B,K,

82 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Modern 'Languages

The teaching of modern languages is dealt with at such
length in the new programme that it seems unnecessary to
add much here. Certainly the simultaneous introduction
of the direct method into the French State schools through-
out the whole of the country, with the exception of those in
which it already existed, shows up the strong side of a
centralized system of educational control. The present
writer visited recently a good many classes in EngUsh and
German, and was astonished at the change which had taken
place during the last few years in the teaching of modem
languages. The highest praise is due to the two inspecteurs-
geniraux who have helped to produce such a transformation
in so brief a time. The professors he saw were nearly all
picked men, but none the less the comparative purity of
their accent and their thorough command of Enghsh was
certainly remarkable. The Enghsh struck one as being on
even a higher level than the German.^

In England the direct method is certainly making great
headway, but in many schools the whole modern language
teaching requires reorganizing. In classics a certain amount
of variety of method in the same school does not seem to
matter very much : the ground is gone over so many times.
In modern languages unity of method — at least in the
earlier stages — and close co-ordination between the work of
the different classes is absolutely essential to successful
teaching. One imperfectly equipped master, whether at
the beginning, which is certainly most fatal, or in the
intermediary classes, means not only little progress, but
retrogression in all matters connected with accent and
idiom. This does not mean that the personahty of the

1 Note. — (igog.) Subsequent criticisms apparently show that
there is a certain danger under the new method of too much insistence
being laid, especially in the second stage, on the acquisition of voca-
bulary and fluency of speech, to the detriment of critical and literary
culture. There is some talk, in fact, of rehabiUtating translation by
making it a subject at the baccalauriat. — (1913.) Nothing so far has
been done,

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 83

teacher is to be extinguished ; it merely means that the
ground must be staked out within which his personahty
is to have play.

It is probable that if we attain these desiderata we shall
not in the majority of our schools continue the direct method
in its strictness throughout the whole school course, but
rather, once the pupil has got a good hold of the accent and
the vocabulary, do a certain amount of translation into
English, if we do not also attempt a certain amount of
translation or re-translation into French.^ The splendid
disciphne which translation provides in teaching us to match
nuances of thought in two different media does not seem to
be provided by any other school exercise. In composition
in one's own language one can attempt to express those
nuances which occur to one, but in free composition in a
foreign tongue the tendency is always to " cut " such
difficulties.^

History

The teaching of history and geography* in the French
schools is at present in a state of transition. In the bottom
classes the new programme has been adopted, in the higher
the old is for the most part en rigueur. Taking the history
first, we find that history in the classes enfantines consists of
biography and anecdote. In the division preparatoire it is
defined as tales and talks about great personages and the

' These are also the Unes on which the instruction is based in the
higher classes of the lycie.

' NoTB. — (1909.) Great success has everywhere been made, espe-
cially in the London schools, where the staffs, as a rule, contain
specialists thoroughly capable of grappling with the new method.
The second stage in modern language teaching has, however, still
to be reaUzed. Vide the papers read at the annual meeting of the
Modern Language Association at Oxford, January, 1909, on " The
Second Stage in Modern Language Teaching " (Modern Language
Teaching, February and March, 1909; London, A. and C. Black).
(1913). See also papers on " The Literary Stage in Modern Language
Teaching," read at the annual meeting in London, January, 1913.

' The teaching of geography is rapidly being put on modern lines,
according to the doyen of the FaciUti des Letires of Nancy, M. Auer-
bach, who himself is a pupil of the great reformer Vidal Lablache.

84 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

principal facts in national history. In the elementary
division the subject is treated chronologically. The course
deals with summary notions of the history of France, with
special stress on essential facts from the beginning down to
1610. In the second year the pupil is equally rapidly taken
over the ground from 1610 to 1871. The pupils are then
taken back to the outlines of ancient history of the East and
to Greek and Latin history.

In the next class, the 5th, the Middle Ages and the
beginning of modern times are dealt with. The work of
the 4th class is devoted to modem times down to the reign
of Louis XVI, and the first cycle ends with the history
of France and Europe down to 1889. In the second cycle
the history of France and Europe from the tenth century
is gone over again in greater detail. The chief points to
notice are that while the historical order of development is
not neglected, the pupil is first of all taken rapidly over the
whole ground in order to obtain some idea of the sequence of
events which act as chronological points de repere in his mind.

General notions of Eastern, Greek, and Roman history are
included for all boys, the French rightly considering that all
pupils should have some idea of what has been happily
called the embryology of civiHzation. Classical boys in
addition have extra courses in Greek and Roman history.
The first and second cycle are mainly devoted to a recapitu-
lation of the history of Europe and France. A pupil
therefore who has been through the full course will have
been over the ground three times. The subject is treated
throughout from the point of view of movements, poUcies,
regimes, etc., rather than from that of reigns and djmasties.
The military portion has been considerably curtailed,^ and
greater prominence given to political and social develop-
ment.

While the history of the EngUsh people presents a longer
sequence of orderly growth than that of any other nation,
its very length and numerous phases of development make

^ The following note, in some form or other, appears at the bottom
of the programme of nearly every class : " Le professeur nefera pas
VexposS des gtterres, il choisira quelques exemples d'actions militaires."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 85

the mastering of even a bird's-eye view of it une osuvre de
longue haleine. We probably make a great mistake in
studying our history too much at the outset from the point
of view of reigns rather than of movements. We also
probably attempt to teach far too many names. The con-
centric method of teaching history has in its earlier stages
a good deal to commend it. Later, no doubt, there is a
great deal to be said in favour of taking up on comparatively
a large scale the history of some definite period, together
with some study of its original authority, but that should
come after the pupil has got a fair idea of the spacious
dimensions of EngUsh history.

In the same way the study of European history is better
kept in the background till the pupil has won a clear notion
of the continuity of the history of his own country. This
sense of the continuity of history is really a very precious
acquisition. It does not depend on the mere learning of
dates, useful as they are as milestones on the road of time,
whose symbolical representation enables the pupil to picture
to hirnself the immense distance at which he stands to-day
from Caractacus, Alfred, Knut, and William the Conqueror,
but rather on the feeling that they are aU really and truly
the spiritual forefathers of the race of to-day, whose long
pedigree embraces not only these pious founders, but also
all who have made their names illustrious in helping to build
up the nation.

When the pupil realizes that he is the descendant of a
people whose nationality is more than a thousand years old,
he acquires a sort of conscia virtus, as Virgil finely terms it,
which raises in him the resolve that he at least, in the
presence of any foreign foe whose mushroom nationality
dates but from yesterday, will never do aught unworthy of
his ancient lineage. The annals of race, rightly understood,
are its Bible, its sacred book, wherein at times of difficulty
and danger, if it practises its sortes VergiliancB, it finds on
every page elements of wisdom and encouragement.^

1 Note. — (1909.) The recent formation of an Historical Associa-
tion for Schools will probably do much for the teaching of history in
our schools in the near future.

86 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Geography

In geography the teaching begins with the explanation
of geographical terms and of the more ordinary physical
features, followed up by teaching the points of the compass
with the map of the class-room, school, the house, and the
street, with tales of travellers to be retold by the pupil.
For even in geography the pupil is encouraged to make a
connected narrative. The geography of France and its
colonies begins in the seventh class. Then comes general
geography, including elementary notions on the effects of
climate. A whole year is given to France in the first class.

There are several points that geographical experts might
be inclined to criticize here, especially in the order in which
the geographical facts and features are presented, but they
would probably agree in stating that, as in history so in
geography, what we want is an orderly presentation of the
subject, so that we may be certain that every child has had
a proper grounding in it when he comes to any school,
and has also had a complete course in it if he leaves at,
say, fifteen or sixteen. How this is to be done in England
is a difficult matter, but the syllabus issued by the Royal
Geographical Society ^ and Mr. Mackinder's ^ masterly
address at the British Association on the teaching of the
subject are indications that a feeUng exists in this country
for arriving by common agreement at something hke an
orderly treatment of this difficult subject.

No doubt our public examinations can and will do a great
deal towards bringing about this highly desirable result.
But while geography is excellently taught in some schools,
it is in the majority still a Cinderella, and did it not take
history as its chaperon it would not appear in some time-

1 Syllabuses of Instruction in Geography : I. In Elementary Schools:
II. In Higher Schools. (Royal Geographical Society, i Savile Row,
London, W., 1903.)

" See School World, November, 1903. For possible reforms under
existing conditions see paper read by the present writer on " The
Teaching of Geography in Secondary Schools" at the British
Association, September, 1903, republished by The Journal of Educa-
tion, December, 1903.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 87

tables at all. Nothing can be more disheartening reading
than Mr. Headlam's report on the teaching of geography in
second- and third-grade English schools in his paper on
Literary Subjects in Some Secondary Schools for Boys,
pubhshed in the Board of Education's General Reports on
Higher Education, 1902 :

" Geography, even in the upper forms, remains merely an ac-
quaintance with the names on the map. No attempt is made to
explain the general principles of physical geography on which the
configuration of the countries depends, or on the historical causes
of their political conditions. No attempt is made to connect the
history and geography " (p. 65). ^

Mathematics

Professors of mathematics in France have long possessed
two great advantages over their EngUsh colleagues. The
first is the metric system, which reduces all questions in
weights and measures to problems in simple arithmetic.
Pupils in Enghsh schools probably spend over two years
in mastering difficulties largely mnemonic which do not
present themselves to French boys. Arithmetic in French
schools is altogether a much less complicated affair. One
comes across such sensible stage directions at the outset as,
"Avoid the too frequent use of imaginary problems,"
" Define always the terms employed," " The definitions, in
particular those which concern fractions, will be constantly
employed in the form of concrete examples." And this
brings us to the second great advantage. While we in
England still maintain an arbitrary division between arith-
metic and algebra, and have only just begun to banish
EucUd from our schools,^ the French have long since elimi-

1 Note. — (1909.) Great progress has been made, especially in the
reform of the papers set in public examination. In some schools
geography laboratories have been founded, and attempts are being
made to make geography a basis for historical teaching.

2 Note. — (1909.) Thanks largely to the British Association's
report on the teaching of mathematics (Discussion on the Teaching
of Mathematics . . . to which is . . . added the Report of the British
Association Committee, London, Macmillan, 1902), these criticisms
are, to a great extent, no longer true. The party wall between the

88 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

nated the imaginary frontier between the first two and
have substituted for EucUd a more simple form of geometry.
The result is that the pupil's progress is far more rapid.
He speedily arrives at trigonometry and easy conies, and
instead of finishing up in some branch of pure mathematics
which seems to him to have no relation with any practical
reahty whatever, he finds that his mathematics terminate
in the study of a concrete subject called cosmography. In
fact, speaking generally, the whole course, whether in
arithmetic, algebra, or geometry, is free from a vast amount
of unnecessary refinements, such as the simplification of long
complex fractions or the working out of endless G.C.M.
sums in algebra. Those interested in lightening the burden
of the English boy in mathematics would do well to study
the French programme, and above all the French text-
books.^

Science

In science in French schools the practical side is un-
doubtedly the weak spot. Apparently the chemistry and
physics for the classical pupils in the philosophy class are
still taught on theoretical lines. The professor in his r6le of
scientific conjurer produces or not the necessary miracles,
and the pupils look on and copy down the explanations of
the professor. The teacher's mode of exposition is a model
of clearness, but the chorus-like part played by the pupils
is clearly insufficient. In the two upper classes of the
Latin-science and modern-language-science classes, two
hours' practical work per week appears on the time-table.

various branches has been broken down, and the teaching begins
with and is based on the concrete. The idea of basing the teaching
of mathematics on its historical development is gaining ground.
(Vide A Study of Mathematical Education, by B. Branford ; Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1908.)

1 Note, — (1909.) According to M. Gabriel Lippmann, excellent as
the mathematical teaching in French schools is, it might at the
start be still more inductive and concrete. Moreover, owing to
the increase in the granting of " dispenses," too many pupils have to
study the higher mathematics a year too soon. The programme in
Section C, according to M. Steeg, " exige des connaissances trap
complexes et trop difficiles, itant donni I'dge des iUves." He adds,
however, that modifications are taking place (p. 39).

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 89

No doubt of recent years an effort has been made to
render the teaching more practical, but the Ministry find
the cost of building and equipping the laboratories a very
heavy expense. There is Httle doubt that the average
French professor must look with envy on the laboratories
in an ordinary English school.^ The amount that has been
spent on these in the last twenty years must run into
hundreds of thousands.^ It will be noticed that not only
chemistry and physics, but zoology, botany, and hygiene
are taught to all pupils who take the full course in
France.

Of the other subjects taught in the schools, the drawing
naturally attains a higher level. The writing is generally
pretty legible, if not very attractive to EngUsh eyes. Sing-
ing is indulged in from the loth to the 7th class. There
are also object-lessons for the Uttle boys. Book-keeping,
which includes not merely the keeping of accounts but
general commercial knowledge, has an hour devoted to it
in the 3rd and 4th classes for modern boys. The 3rd class
modern boys have also a course in common law, and that
seems very practical. In the classes of the preparatory and
elementary divisions moral and civil instruction is included
in the French history and geography lessons. In the fourth
and third an hour a week is given to the subject. The whole
question of moral teaching will be discussed when we reach
the religious question.'

1 Note. — (1909.) This is no longer so much the case. Cf. M.
Gautier (Progress of Secondary Education in France, p. 12) : " L'en-
seignement des sciences physiques avait Mi jusgu'alors un enseignement
purement thiorique. Dans la mesure du possible, nous en avons fait
un enseignement pratique, c'est-h-dire, que nous avons ameni les iUves,
par les manipulations, par I'itude pratique des appareils, & itre capables
de fabriquer eux-mimes ces appareils."

^ Compare Sir William Abney's paper, report of the seventy-third
meeting of the British Association, September, 1903, pp. 865 j^f.

' Note. — (1909.) The general verdict seems to be that the new
programmes, in spite of a certain amount of overwork, are a great
improvement on the whole. As M. Steeg says, they are better
adapted to the needs of society and the aptitudes of the pupils
{Rapport, p 39).

90 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

APPENDIX TO II (ix)

Being desirous of obtaining a second opinion on my impressions of
French and English education, and on the points of difference be-
tween the two systems, I asked my friend M. Duhamel,* Directeur
du College de Normandie, to furnish me with a short statement on
the subject. M. Duhamel has not only an extensive acquaintance
with French education, he has also had fifteen years' experience in
our big public schools. The comparison with which he has kindly
furnished me is, therefore, a document of exceptional value.

Une Experience pedagogique franco-anglaise, par M. J.
Duhamel, Directeur du College de Normandie

Un 616ve franjaiS travaille-t-il mieux et plus vite qu'un elSve
anglais du m§me age ? L'un a-t-il un proc6d6, voire mSme une
m^thode, que I'autre n'a pas ? Lequel des deux saura tirer le
meilleur avantage de ses lectures, des lefons du maltre, qu'il soit en
presence d'un problfeme ou d'une question litteraire ?

Poser la question n'est pas la resoudre ; mais elle est assez int^res-
sante pour I'examiner de prfes. Supposons deux elfeves du meme age :
i6 ou 17 ans, l'un Fran9ais, en Premiere ; I'autre Anglais dans le
" VI Form." Tous deux ont une s^rie de compositions a faire : une
version latine, un thfeme latin, une composition de vers latins, une
question d'histoire et enfin un sujet litteraire k traiter. Accordons-
leur deux heures pour la version et deux heures pour le thSme, trois
heures pour la composition d'histoire, autant pour celle de vers latins,
et quatre heures pour la dissertation fran9aise appelSe " essay " par
le jeune Anglais. Puis, les ayant installes chacun k un bout de table
sans dictionnaires, gradus, grammaires, ni livre d'aucune sorte,
regardons-les travailler.

La version est de Tite-Live, elle a une trentaine de lignes. Les
deux 616ves, fiddles observateurs du conseil du maitre, ont commence
par la lire. Le jeune Fran^ais s'arrSte, s'appuie tantot sur un
coude, tantot sur I'autre, il regarde dans le vide, semble chercher des
mots, puis il commence k 6crire. Mais avec quelle lenteur ! Sont-ce
les mots dont le sens lui tehappe ? Ou bien, est-ce simplement le
dfisir de presenter une traduction litt6rale et en m6me temps litteraire
qui le fait s'attarder ainsi ?

La lecture va nous le dire. D'abord, la version n'est pas achev^e.

1 Died in 1910. His death was a most severe loss to French
education.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 91

c'est d6ja un mauvais point. Notre ecolier n'en a traduit que les
trois quarts, et encore il y a des lacunes. Des mots inconnus ont 6t6
laisses de cot^, il y a aussi plusieurs contre-sens. fividemment c'est
le vocabulaire qui fait defaut. Dictionnaire en main le travail aurait
it& vraisemblement bon, k juger des passages entiers qui ont 6te
compris et traduits. Car ce qui a 6t6 compris a et6 traduit avec un
soin scrupuleux du fond et de la forme, on y sent I'effort, I'idee trSs
nette de bien rendre la pens6e. Les nombreuses ratures portent
prfcisement sur la forme, on s'est attache a bien exprimer ce qui
avait ete bien compris. Et au moment de mettre une appreciation
ecrite en marge on dira : " Ce qui a 6te compris est bien traduit, mais
vous ne savez pas assez de mots, c'est la forme qui manque le moins
et le fond qui manque le plus."

Le jeune Anglais avait fini bien avant I'heure. II avait lu le texte,
puis sans se presser, sans presque s'arreter, il I'avait traduit. Comme
les paragraphes 6taient mal alignes il avait recopie sa traduction avec
un souci trds louable de I'ficriture, et alors, posant sa plume, les mains
dans les poches, le dos appuy6, il avait rgv6 k ce que rfivent les jeunes
ecoliers anglais : k la prochaine partie de football et au nombre de
hits qu'il pourrait faire. Le texte a ete compris, a part quelques
faux sens, mais II, s'arrfite le m^rite. On sait des mots, on est familier
avec I'allure de la phrase latine, on la comprend presque ci premifere
vue, mais, de la forme, nul souci. Savoir ce que " f a veui dire," " to
make sense," et c'est assez. Les phrases sont mal construites, la
traduction est sans couleur. Tous les mots sont traduits, mais k la
diable, tant bien que mal, plutot mal que bien. Et I'annotation est
celle-ci : " Le texte a ete assez bien compris, mais la traduction n'est
pas assez Utt^raire."

Resumons notre impression : I'elfeve anglais a un vocabulaire latin
plus riche que I'ecolier fran9ais, il a lu et traduit des passages plus
nombreux. Lire beaucoup de latin est un moyen trSs efficace pour
apprendre des mots, et il est en honneur en Angleterre. Mais la
traduction orale est n^cessairement plus iache et plus d^cousue que
la traduction ecrite, et, autant la version Ecrite, d'oii nait la forme
litt^raire, est commune, comme proc^d^ p^dagogique en France,
autant elle est pen fr6quente en Angleterre. Si I'^tude du latin peut
Stre considSr^e comme un moyen de perfectionnement de la langue
maternelle elle n'est reellement productive que si, dans la traduction,
on a un egal souci de la forme aussi bien dans le texte que dans la
traduction.

Autrement on apprendra du latin — mais non I'anglais ou le
franfais. Or, vivons-nous k une epoque oil I'fitude du latin pour le
latin soit k encourager ? N'est-ce pas une incongruity pfidagogique
que d'accorder un nombre aussi considerable d'heures k I'etude d'une

93 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

langue trfes accapareuse de temps pour arriver k un si pauvre r&ultat
que celui qui consiste k pouvoir 6maiIIer ses Merits ou sa conversation
de citations telles que : carpe diem, horresco referens, pro arts etfocis P
Avoir pein6 dix ans pour en arriver 1^ ! On ne saurait trop le r6p6ter :
les humanitds n'ont rien de commun avec les besoins de rHumanit^.
Shakespeare, Humphry Davy, William Cobbett, Walter Scott,
Bulwer, John Bright ne savaient pas le latin. Les traitera-t-on de
barbares pour cela ?

Mais, revenons k nos deux moutons. Aprfes la version, le thfeme et
les vers latins. A la mi-temps — pour parler le langage du sport — le
jeune Anglais avait pris son thfeme latin. Latin de la decadence
peut-Stre (latin de chien au-deli du d^troit ; latin de cuisine en de^i),
mais du latin quand mSme. L'Scolier franfais avait franchement
renoncfi k toute tentative d6s le debut. Soucieux de sa dignity, il
avait pr^fere remettre une copie blanche. Et pendant que son
6mule passant k la composition de vers latins, voyait dactyles et
spondees s'aligner methodiquement au bout de sa plume, il se
recitait, pour passer le temps, des vers de Musset ou de Victor Hugo.
Comme le frfere du Petit Chose d'Alphonse Daudet, il rgvait d'une
ceuvre po6tique en douze chants pour son compte personnel. . .

La composition d'histoire comportait trois heures de travail, avons-
nous dit. II avait 6t6 entendu entre le professeur anglais et le pro-
fesseur fran9ais que chacun d'eux r^digerait un texte de composition
portant sur I'histoire de I'Europe — k I'exclusion de la France et de
r Angleterre — et que les deux textes seraient tir^s au sort par les deux
candidats. Puisque nous sommes dans la domaine de I'hs'pothfese
nous supposerons que le texte r6dig6 par le professeur frangais echut
k r^lfeve anglais, et vice versa. Tous deux furent desorieutfe — c'est
les 616ves que je veux dire, et non les maitres I

En voici la raison : la redaction faite par le professeur anglais
comportait quatorze questions, et I'^Uye frangais de s'6crier : " Mais
c'est quatorze compositions qu'on me donne a faire et deux jours n'y
suffiraient pas ! " L'dlfeve anglais ne fut pas moins 6tonn6 en voyant
I'unique question pos6e par le professeur fran9ais. fitonnement
joyeux, car il y r§pond en dix lignes. Cependant que le " French
boy " ecrit pages sur pages et d'un ceil anxieux regarde a sa montre.
Pourquoi, d'un c6t6, une question unique avec dix lignes de r^ponse
et, d'un autre c6t6, quatorze pages de rSponse k quatorze questions.
Qui a raison et qui a tort ? Quelle est la meilleure mgthode ? Une
question unique, ou des questions trfes nombreuses ? Un fait a
envisager, expliquer, commenter, juger ; ou bien : une serie de faits
isolSs, de dates, de noms de batailles, de trait^s k rapporter ?

Cela est la mSthode franfaise ; ceci la mdthode anglaise. Celle-lci
vaut-elle mieux que celle-ci ou inversement ? Nous r6pondrons que

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 93

toutes deux sont dSfectueuses. Savoir des faits, des dates, des noms
de bataille, n'est pas savoir I'histoire ; fipiloguer sur les conditions
d'un traits, voire mSme sur une pgriode entifere, ne constitue pas
davantage I'enseignement historique veritable qui doit participer et
de la connaissance et de la critique des faits. Une m^thode fait
appel k une faculty de second ordre : la m^moire ; une autre au
jugement, faculty mattresse, mais dont les faits sont Taliment in-
dispensable.

Et quand Tune ou I'autre de ces mfethodes est devenue exclusive,
r^colier emmagasine d'une part des faits sans lieu, ou de I'autre
s'habitue, avec des donnSes insuffisantes, k ergoter sur un fait
isol§. C'est le ab uno disce omnes transports dans le domaine de
I'histoire.

Arrivons k la dissertation : car c'est dans ce travail de production
que rstat d'esprit des deux Scoliers apparaltra le mieux. Supposons
que le texte de la composition est le suivant : " Qu'est-ce qui constitue
les qualitfis de I'historien ? " C'est un sujet international. Chaque
6coIier est libre de choisir des examples dans I'antiquitS classiqne ou
dans la UttSrature de son pays. Inutile d'attendre quatre heures
pour savoir le rfisultat. La sup6riorit6 de I'teolier fran9ais s'affirme
Ik d'une fajon p6remptoire, non seulement dans le fond, mais surtout
dans la forme.

D6s les premiferes Ugnes on se sent en presence d'un plan. La
question est pos6e. L'enfant n'a pas lu ni traduit Aristote, mais on
lui a longuement expUqu6 et souvent r6p6t6, que, dans toute com-
position, il y a un commencement, un milieu et une fin, que toute
phrase doit tendre k illuminer une pensfie, ci expliquer, prouver ; qu'il
faut savoir s'arrgter k temps, conclure ; qu'enfin il y a une manifere
de dire qui constitue ce que Ton appelle la forme littSraire laquelle
depend autant du choix des mots que de I'ordonnancement de la
pens6e et de I'agencement de la phrase ; autant de la cohesion et de
I'ordre dans les idSes, que de I'expression mgme de ces id6es. El il
rature ce mot, change cette 6pith6te ; allonge ici, raccourcit plus loin,
coupe cette phrase en deux, supprime les " que " et les " qui," les
" mais " et les " pourquoi," cherche k Sviter les circumlocutions
vicieuses, la maniSre de dire de tout le monde. II fait appel k ses
souvenirs : citations notSes au cours d'une classe ou d'une lecture,
car il a lu ses auteurs franf ais, il en salt des passages par cceur et voil^
que la citation vient naturellement sous sa plume ; et il est tr6s
fier de ressembler ainsi k Montaigne.

R6sultat : cinq ou six pages de prose franjaise tr6s acceptable et
mSrae souvent trds louable. L'6colier anglais a noirci une page et
demie de lieux communs. II a 6crit tout cela " d'une seule encre."
II a fait un brouillon pour la forme. II n'y a rien change, ou presque

94 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

rien, en recopiant. D'oti vient cette indigence si flagrante chez
r^colier anglais ? La r6ponse tient en deux lignes.

En Angleterre, dans les 6tablissements d'enseignement secondaire,
on n'enseigne aux 616ves ni la langue ni la litt^rature anglaises. On
esp6re qu'ils apprendront I'anglais en faisant de mauvais vers latins
et de piStres thSmes. C'est une erreur grave. II y a de grands
garfons, dans les meilleures ecoles, publiques ou autres, qui, k dix-
huit ans, sont incapables d'ecrire une lettre sans fautes d'orthographe
ou de style. Ce n'est pas une exagfiration, c'est un fait.

Faut-il s'en prendre aux 616ves ou aux maltres ? Aux maltres et
aux m^thodes, — et aux exercices physiques. L' Angleterre est par
excellence le pays des traditions bonnes et mauvaises. Est mauvaise
la tradition qui mSconnalt les besoins intellectnels de la gdn^ration
actuelle, qui cantonne les esprits dans la soci6t6 des morts, si grands
et si illustres qu'ils soient. La littfirature anglaise est riche en pontes,
philosophes, historiens, "essayists"; et la langue elle-mSme, si
souple et si expressive, est pour le litterateur de profession aussi bien
que pour I'homme d'affaires, un instrument de puissance et d'action.

Mais si elle est d6bonnaire \ qui la conrtise, elle est maratre k qui
la d6daigne. II faudrait lire. L'6colier anglais n'en a pas le temps.
La vie au grand air, le football et les longues stances de cricket sont
absorbantes. Puis les magazines, les illustres, avec leurs couvertures
all^chantes, leurs gravures 6moustillantes, ont plus d'attrait qu'un
essai de Bacon ou une stance de Byron. Byron ! Un nom qu'on
ne prononce qu'en rougissant dans les 6coles mgme de gargons.

II faudrait que les University elles-memes donnassent I'exemple
en renovant leur enseignement ; mais les Universitfis sont conser-
vatrices et traditionnelles par essence. Quand elles bongeront, tout
bougera, comme le midi chez nous. Ce ne sera pas avant long-
temps. Est-ce k dire que I'instruction nationale en France, dans les
6tablissements d'enseignement secondaire soit mieux organisee ?
Elle en a la pretention, h61as ! Un ministre ordonne, dficrfete, affiche
des programmes d'6tudes qui, k I'user, sont impraticables parce que
surcharges. Un el6ve de Premiere pour la Section Latin-Sciences
a 27 heures de classes qui supposent un minimum de 6 J heures de
preparation par classe. Total : 62 heures par semaine, c'est-i-dire
dix heures de travail par jour et cela ^16 ans 1 •

(x) General Teaching Methods — Marks

Until recently the prevailing system consisted of an
interrogation followed by an exposition orale. The interro-
1 Note, — (1913.) See note, p. 65.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 95

gaiion (questioning) was based on a resumS which had been
dictated to the pupils at the close of the preceding lesson,
and prepared by the pupils at home. The exposition orale
was a lecture in which the professor broke fresh ground.
Now, except in philosophy, the professor is forbidden to
give a lecture or a course of lectures, even in mathematics,
on account of the reduced time allotted to the lessons (one
hour instead of two). Questioning and explanation are to
take up the chief part of the lesson.

The pupils get up at home the notes they have taken in
class, as well as a passage out of the text-book dealing partly
with what has been already discussed and partly with what
is new. In every subject connected answers are looked for.
Pupils often are put on to speak for three or four minutes.
All the members of the class are supposed to be questioned,
not one or two, which was the prevailing fault of the old
system. To see that this is done is one of the new duties of
the proviseur. And the younger generation of inspecteurs-
generaux take much pains to see that this rule is not
honoured in the breach.

In the English secondary schools lecturing has been
rarely the besetting sin of the teacher. Questioning has too
often reigned supreme, questioning which often lacked order
and required for its replies nothing more than a single word.*
Apparently many teachers have never made the necessary
differentiation between pupils knowing the lesson and being
able to reproduce it. Yet it is one thing to give a certain
number of test questions to see if the pupil has learnt the
lesson or looked at it ; it is quite another thing to try to
see how much he has assimilated and can reproduce.

One may be able by means of skilfully framed questions
to extract a whole lesson from a boy in the shape of scraps
and tit-bits, and yet the boy himself might be quite incapable
of reproducing the lesson in something like a connected
shape. "When it is pointed out to our teachers what a
valuable aid and adjunct to written composition this branch

^ For an exhaustive diagnosis of prevailing faults in questioning,
which deals primarily with Irish schools but applies to not a few
English schools, see Report of the Temporary Inspectors, 1903, Inter-
mediate Education Board for Ireland,

96 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

of oral narration is, they often try to shelter themselves
under the plea that it would never succeed with their pupils
as English boys are a tongue-tied race. New methods of
teaching modern languages are exploding this fallacy. Once
we have proved to the average teacher that a boy can
string together connected sentences in a foreign tongue, we
shall be able to make short shrift of this time-honoured
legend that the English boy cannot speak extemporarily in
his own language.

It is noteworthy that French teachers avail themselves
but rarely of marks, except in the case of written composi-
tions. Opponents of the metric system wiU be interested
to observe that in the country which produced it the usual
maximum is twenty. We in England, generally speaking,
have gone too far in the cult of marks. As has been already
pointed out, marks are necessary, as long as an assistant's
class-room is his strong room and castle, as a record of and
check on his teaching. They are also undoubtedly useful
for indicating a boy's progress and for classifying him with
the other boys, and for the awarding of prizes. But the
whole system has in some schools been so worked to death
that teachers and pupUs aUke have fallen under its spell.

The keeping and addition of marks has become an impor-
tant item in overwork, more especially when the teacher has
to jot down every individual mark himself. It is obviously
a serious strain to have to tell off yet another set of brain
centres to carry on a third function in addition to those of
teaching and keeping discipline. Pupils, again, are apt to
get keen on marks, and look at the subject they are studying
merely in terms of marks. From time to time some marks
enthusiast of the pure mathematical mind that wants things
right to five places of decimals, arises and complicates
matters with a view to approximating the symbol more
closely to the result for which it stands. The mark book
grows, and there is soon one page to serve as a day book
for recording marks, and another to serve as a ledger for
entering them and adding them up.

The whole system becomes an elaborate system of bank-
ing in which the weekly or monthly totals and places

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 97

furnished to the parent represent the pass-book, the teacher
himself being a sort of automatic cash-register which banks
and records all receipts, enters them and adds them up
under different headings and issues a correct balance-sheet
at stated intervals. Is there any wonder if in the end
examiners and teachers forget that marks are only a means,
and that an imperfect one,^ to an end, and look on the pupil
as a mere mark-earning machine, much as the primary pupil
was looked on as a money-earning machine before the
introduction of the block-grant ?

The truth is marks are good servants but bad masters.
With small boys they have many advantages. Like
counters, they add zest to the game for those just out of
the kindergarten. They are particularly useful as indis-
pensable adjuncts to the system of taking places which
obtains so largely in the lower forms of English schools and
is so rarely seen in foreign. Up to a certain point, then,
as scaffolding to support and supplement the pupils' interest
in learning, they are excellent, but we must remember they
can never be woven into the framework of the building.
Again, from the teacher's point of view their usefulness as a
rough and ready reckoner of a pupil's progress is indis-
putable, while their value for appraising composition is not
to be gainsaid. Still, when we see how largely foreign
teachers are able to dispense with them, we may well
ask ourselves whether there is not an abuse of marks in
England.

(xi) Standard of Mental Maturity and Intellectual
Attainment

If power to express oneself with comparative facihty and
clearness, to seize readily the gist of questions, and to handle
with relative ease abstract and philosophical ideas, be signs

^ A friend of the writer was once proxime accessit for a scholarship.
He called on the tutor of the college to learn why he had failed.
" Well," said the latter, turning to the mark-sheet, " you see the man
above you got 285, and you only got 284 I " The tutor was perfectly
in earnest. A mark once recorded became a chose jugte, a fact, and
no one could dispute there was a difference between 284 and 285.

B.E. G

98 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

of maturity of mind, the French pupil is certainly ahead of
the EngHsh boy at the same age. Undoubtedly, again, his
literary and eesthetic sympathies are correspondingly more
developed. Some of his intellectual expertness must be set
down to the fact that secondary education in France goes
back still further even than secondary education in
England,^ and that while the universities and the schools
had also their dark age in the middle of the eighteenth
century, the traditions of Men dire and Uen ecnre were never
lost.

But a still greater part of this apparent precocity is due
to the race and the milieu. The French are naturally quick
and vivacious. They have a mind that leaps to conclu-
sions (prime-sautier). Happily the leap is generally correct,
though if they go past the point it is often a little difficult
to bring them back to it. Again, the French boy and the
French girl come to physical maturity earher than the
Enghsh. One has only to compare the whiskered and
bearded pupils who are not uncommon in the upper classes
of the lycee with the comparatively smooth-faced English
boys of the same age in order to reahze the difference.

The milieu, however, especially in Paris, is one of the main
factors in the rapid development of the French boy, involv-
ing as it does the practical absence of a real schoolboy
atmosphere and the relatively cultured environment of the
home in which he lives.

To take the first point. School to the French day boy
means little else than a labour-house, in which he has to put
in a certain number of hours of work per diem. Its external
attractions are very slight. The pupil in the boarding
school lives under a regime of repression. The authorities
look on boyhood as an age ingrat, a difficult stage in man's
development, subject to outbreaks of all kinds of evil
passions, which has to be gone through and got over, say,
like measles or chicken-pox, and which therefore demands

1 A friend informs me that this mental maturity as far as dealing
with abstract and philosophic ideas is concerned is also a characteristic
of Scottish boys. It is probably due in their case to the influences of
three centuries of education, which has many points of resemblance
with French.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 99

incessant vigilance. We have really here the old conception
against which Rousseau flung his most daring paradox, that
the human creature is foncierement mauvais , and that the boy
must be kept constantly under observation like a person
who may sicken at any moment for some disease or other.

No wonder then if boyhood to the average boy seems more
or less servitude, from which he is anxious to escape : man-
hood means emancipation, and freedom to do what he
pleases. All his thoughts are turned towards the future in
which he promises to indemnify himself, not always wisely,^
for the present gine from which he suffers. He knows
nothing of the happy innocence of the average EngUsh
pubUc-school boy, who lives in a world very largely of his
own, a world which may be filled too exclusively with games
and the hero-worship of athletes, but is none the less one of
the most delightful of worlds from the inside.

The English boy has solved, perhaps too thoroughly, the
problem of hving in the present for the present. To-morrow
or the next half -holiday is the ordinarylimit of his future,
its millennium the coming vacation. Enghsh boys will be
boys, and they live the life of a boy from the preparatory
school upwards. Even when they affect to be men, and
their affectation is very pronounced, they remain at heart
the veriest boys. While the French lyceen regards boyhood
as a college uniform to be doffed at the earliest moment,
the English boy puts on manhood without losing his
boyhood.

The whole tendency of the English school is to keep boys
young, often in the best sense of the word. If there is a
spot where the fountain of youth is really on tap it is at a
typical English pubhc school. Does one know of any other
place where the spirits run so high, and the fun is so weU
kept up, yet withal is so harmless ? So intense is the
interest of the school in itself, in its doings, that school

^ See E. p. c. p., p. i6 : " Boire des bocks, fumer des pipes, hanter
les brasseries et les cabarets pornographiques, telle est la vie que revent
les quatre-cinquiitnes des ' potaches.' " See also Coubertin, L'£duca-
tion anglaise en France, the whole chapter — " Nos Lyciens." — (1913).
For a remarkable change in this spirit in certain circles, see Les
jeunes Gens d'aujourd'hui, by " Agathon."

100 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

" shop " not merely pervades the common room and the
studies, it also penetrates and often dominates the masters'
sanctums. The life of the school is so self-centred it reminds
you of those vigorous but provincially minded city-re-
publics in medieval Italy, and one cannot help feeling the
need of a wider outlook and a deeper interest in the matters
beyond the bounds of the school.^

But if such an atmosphere is totally lacking in French
schools, the home, especially in the case of the day boy,
comes to the rescue and supplies him with other interests.
While the English boy is still deep in cricket and football,
the French boy is taking a Uvely interest in hterary, socio-
logical, or social questions. Quite recently the present
writer heard a class of small boys of 12 and 13 receiving a
lesson in la morale. The teacher explained to the inspecteur-
general who was present that he was rather inexperienced
in the matter, a point which was not very apparent. At
any rate he had some remarkably apt pupils. The lesson
was on calumny and slander.

I was immensely struck with the extraordinary abiHty
with which the children discussed knotty points of morality,
distinguished between kindred defects, and answered clearly
and to the point. I doubt if a class of boys of 16 and 17 in
England would have answered better. At all events they
would not have been so ready or so sure in their rephes.
I could not help inserting in my notebook : Les Frangais
naissent psychologues. Another instEince. At one of the
literary and social entertainments given by the pupils of
the lycee I attended, to their parents and friends, a httle

1 Note. — (1909.) For the limiting and, at times, disappointing
results of such an education, cf. Sir Arthur Hort {Papers on Moral
Education, communicated to the first Moral Instruction Congress, held
at the University of London, September 25th to 29th, 1908, p. 90 ;
London, D. Nutt) : " If in after-life the man thus trained [i.e., on the
prefect system] proves after all deficient in the sense of what is
demanded of him as a citizen, the explanation is perhaps that as a
public-school boy he belonged to a society whose existence and whose
claims were more obvious than are those of State and Church. Still
it is undeniably disappointing that the sense of corporate life once
gained in a miniature society does not more often develop into
patriotism and similar virtues."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS loi

comedy by one of the pupils who was only 17 was performed
with great success. Such an etude de mceurs could hardly
have been written by any person under age in England, not
only because of the observation it contained but also of the
maturity of judgment it displayed.

(xii) Rewards and Punishments

There is Uttle difference between the prize systems of the
two countries, except that the good conduct prize which
still figures on the list of many public schools has no counter-
part in France. It is curious that the country of rosiires
and prix Montyon should never have thought of -prix
d' encouragement to promote the breed of GaUic Sandfords
and Mertons. As minor rewards for good work in the
compositions, etc., the pupil receives a temoignage de satis-
faction. A certain number of these good merit coupons
entitle the possessor to a prize. They can also be exchanged
with the consent of the censeur against committal orders to
durance vile in the shape of " detention." There is, how-
ever, no forced currency in this paper money. Otherwise
the clever but unruly colUgien would be directly tempted to
become a chartered libertine in class.

Corporal punishment has been abohshed in all French
schools. The scale of penalties is as follows : (i) The bad
mark which is inscribed in the pupil's notebook which he
takes home. (2) The public reprimand by the professor
before the class. (3) The lesson done over again at home.
(4) The keeping in on Thursdays (the whole holiday). (5)
Temporary exclusion for three or four days. (6) Definite
expulsion. In the last case action is taken by the dis-
ciplinary council of the lycee. Generally, however, the
parents are sent for and it is explained to them that the best
thing they.can do is voluntarily to withdraw their son. Boys
turned out of the class-room for misbehaviour must report
themselves to the surveillant-gineral, who puts them down
for detention on the next half-hoHday. Boarders are
further punished by being docked of their half-hohday walk.

102 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Detention generally lasts two hours. Small boys are given
something to write, a Latin exercise for instance. The
older boys do what they please.

In addition to corporal punishment we have practically
the same range of penalties in our public schools, and in
some at least the impositions are unfortunately on a far
more Uberal scale than in the French schools. There is still
a tendency to set far too long impositions, which take up a
good deal too much of the boy's spare time, encourage
scribbling, and even cheating in the shape of showing up
less than the number of lines imposed. If long sentences
make habitual criminals, long impositions certainly make
habitual idlers. A boy who gets deep into his master's
debt in the way of impositions speedily loses hope and
confidence in himself, and becomes resigned and indifferent.
From thence he passes by easy stages to the state of the
hardened sinner. The master, finding his one remedy fails,
lets him slide, and the boy's future as an intellectual non-
valeur is largely assured.

Apart from the fact that the punishment should always
fit the crime, it is curious that the weak master who sets a
heavy imposition for a peccadillo however shght robs him-
self of the effect of cumulative punishments ; he not only
plays his best card but the whole pack straight away.
Many headmasters keep a keen eye on the imposition book,
and thereby manage to prevent impositions from becoming
either too big or too numerous. As regards corporal punish-
ment, in most schools the right to administer it is confined
to the headmaster. So long as the English public-school boy
is what he is and his attitude towards caning is what it is,
it will take a good deal to persuade the average English
parent of the middle classes who has been through the miU
himself that caning is wrong or that its moral effects do not
considerably outweigh its moral disadvantages.

In fact, the average boy, if offered a long imposition or
instant liquidation by the cane, in nine cases out of ten
prefers to be dealt with summarily. He recognizes he has
done wrong, that amends have to be made for his wrong-
doing, and knows if he submits to it with fortitude few wiU

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 103

think the " licking " itself disgraceful, and most will feel
that his offence, however grave, has been largely purged.
Therefore, as Mr. Skrine ^ aptly says, he thinks no shame of
it, knowing his dignity is safe (italics are mine). Again,
there is an age in the English boy, which lasts from twelve
to fourteen, well known to the schoolboys as the " cheeky
age," and due no doubt to physiological changes that take
place at that age, changes which are still more marked in
the animal world. The lion cub, skittish and harmless as
a kitten, turns into a wild beast, and the playful calf becomes
a dangerous bull.

Happily the crisis in the case of human beings ends with
the entrance into the age of reason. Doubtless, under a
regime of repression this stage of development is less marked
than with us. But as long as our boys are brought up as
they are in a bracing, though by no means Spartan, atmo-
sphere, the budding energy in the boy is sure to burst out
into irrepressible, not to say irresponsible, self-assertiveness,
often in spite of the boy's own endeavour to check it.
C'est plus fort que lui. And the rod seems to supply the
necessary recall to realities which the struggling reason of
that age is not strong enough to effect.

^ See Pastor Agnorum, p. 57.

III. RELATIONS BETWEEN HOME AND SCHOOL

(i) Day Boys and Boarders

The French boy has generally a carnet de correspondance
in which he is supposed to write down every day the amount
of his home work, and in which the professor, if he so desires,
can enter the pupil's marks and his own observations on
the pupil's behaviour. Parents are required to sign the
book morning and evening, or at least once a day. Occasion-
ally the pupil relieves his parents of the task, though it is
more than doubtful if they have given him the requisite
power of attorney.

The relations between the headmaster and the families
of the day boys are, as we have seen, often very sUght. The
relations between the family and the class teachers are still
less. Very frequently the family does not know the pro-
fessor. They are indifferent or do not wish to trouble
him. The parents largely reserve to themselves their
educational rights, only delegating to the headmaster
the right of instruction. Perhaps political questions are
not altogether without influence on this strange parti-
tion of functions. Be that as it may, the underlying idea
seems to be that the parent commits his son daily to the
charge of the headmaster with the imphed understanding
that he must produce him at the end of the day safe and
sound.

This habeas corpus notion is no mere figment. As we
have seen, until recently the headmaster himself, and now
the State, which has under certain conditions assumed his
responsibility, are required financially to guarantee the
parent against any accidents which may happen to the
boy on the school premises, no matter how much the boy

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 105

himself may be to blame.^ No wonder that the average
parent looks on the day school as a kind of high-class stores
where the requisite kinds of knowledge are bought and sold
or as a sort of intellectual restaurant A prixfixe where, at so
much a term, the pupil may consume as much as he can.
There is httle idea of the school as a workshop in which the
boy of to-day is to be fashioned and forged into the citizen
of to-morrow.

The fault, no doubt, in part hes with the French mothers.
To begin with, they are far more often than in England the
business member of the family, or at least a partner whose
advice is always hstened and often deferred to by the
husband. They have a much greater voice in the bringing
up of the children. While the French father is merely the
" guv'nor," it is they who really rule the menage. They are
above aU the confidantes and advisers of their son in his
various " escapades " and adventures, including even his
love affairs. They intervene to protect him from the pater-
nal anger, they act as his counsel for the defence with the
indignant froviseur. The tie between mother and son is
extraordinarily close and deep.

But if their affection for their offspring is very great, it is
seldom without a touch of egotism. They have the greatest
difficulty in persuading themselves of the need of loosening
the apron-string, so necessary as their boy grows up.^
Often their son is an only child, and they succumb to the
very great temptation of spoiUng him. For fear of possible
accidents they adopt a thousand precautions which cannot
fail to hamper his development as a man. They forget man-
liness can only be taught by men, that education consists in
the skilful and gradual relaxation of parental authority, in
the slow passage from a state of nature, in which the parent's
bidding is accepted without being understood, to a state of
reason in which behind the bidding the child has been
trained to see the reason which has dictated it.

^ See p. 24.

2 Note. — (1909.) Cf. Le Poussin (Mother's Darling), now being
given at the Od6on. The whole play is an elaborate satire on the
mother who will not allow her boy to grow up.

io6 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

In a word, the son passes from under the patriarchal and
monarchical regime to that of a republic, in which the
parent only occupies a higher place in the hierarchy than
himself.! French education is still very largely based on
authority. Thus when the young man leaves home to
become a student, or enters the regiment, he suddenly
finds himself emancipated, and like the newly enfran-
chised slave he does not always know how to make a
good use of his liberty. How can he, when he has had no
prehminary lessons in self-dependence, self-control, and the
sense of responsibility ? The following passage from L' Edu-
cation presente of Pere Didon is very much to the point :

" One of the chief obstacles to a sturdy bringing up of the
young men of this country, I venture to say, is their mothers.
Mothers are the bottomless reservoirs of the terrible forces
of emotion. Why do they not apply them to rouse the vital
energies of their sons ? Why do they concentrate them on
their children, through imagining in their motherly simpU-
city all the better to guard and preserve them by their
tenderness ? Such divine and exuberant forces are thus
neutralized and brought to naught. But if the flood-
gates which hold them back were one day raised by
French mothers, the country would speedily see the dawn
of the day of national revenge, the dayspring of great
enterprises.

" Instead of everlastingly keeping watch over their
children, let them inspire them with courage ; instead of
tenderly smothering their sons with kisses, let them compel
them to live ; instead of seeking after, while keeping them
at their side, a selfish gentleness which saps their energies,
let them endeavour to make them a force whose sphere of
influence they will increase a hundredfold. In place of

1 The boy goes through the same gradual apprenticeship of liberty
while at school. Mr. Benson (The Schoolmaster, p. 87) demands that
" as the boys get older it is important to remember that there should
be an increase of respectfulness imported into the manner of a school-
master and that they should be addressed as equals." He then goes
on to point out that all discipline should be explained to the elder
boys, who deeply value being taken into the master's confidence in
such questions.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 107

separating themselves from the daughters, whom they
readily send from home, let the latter be the ones that they
keep, and since at any price they desire to brood like a hen
o'er their offspring, let the latter be the ones that they brood
over ; but for heaven's sake let them cease to treat their
sons as vestal virgins." ^

The relation between the headmaster and the parents of
pupils is equally formal. While socially the lower middle
class are proud of their boys being at a lycee or a college,
they take little or no interest in the welfare of the college
at large.

Someone has said that the successful headmaster or head-
mistress in England is a person who either fawns or tramples
on parents. The epigram, like many another, contains an
element of truth, but there are plenty of headmasters who
manage to steer a successful course between these two
extremes. In any case, in comparison with France, the
connection between the home and the school, whether day
or boarding, is undoubtedly more real than across the
Channel. Certainly in the day schools the intercourse
between the two parties has shown a distinct tendency to
grow during the last twenty years, thanks very probably
to the example of the girls' schools, which, in this as in
several other matters, have given a friendly lead to boys'
education.

The general run of headmasters in day schools are keenly
aUve to the importance of interesting the parents in the
proper supervision of the pupils' home work by methods
similar to those which obtain in French schools. Such

1 Note. — (1913.) M. Alfred de Tarde, the brilliant polemical co-
writer on education under the name of Agathon, tells me the younger
generation are full of desire for adventure and action, less desirous of
entering the poorly paid Government ofi&ces, and more ready to take
up lucrative employment in commerce and business. This is borne
out in part by the diminished number of candidates for the teaching
profession. The new movement is most evident among the sons of
the upper middle class. There is, in fact, a sort of national r^veil
of the historic French qualities, due, no doubt, in part to the immense
success of the national sport, aviation, which has revealed to the
French nation the dormant fund of daring and resourcefulness in the
national character. The innate virtue has once more become self-
conscious.

io8 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

methods are all the more necessary in this country as the
average EngUsh parent, though improving in this respect,
is probably not so impressed with the need of home work
being properly done as the French parent, who is a firm
believer in the value of knowledge and keenly anxious that
his child should obtain value for money. The system which
has been already described,^ of making the form master
directly responsible for the boys' work and conduct,
naturally forges an additional Unk between parents and the
school.

Again, while French parents seem indisposed to part with
any fraction of the f atria or materna potesias, English
parents appear more than ever inchned to recognize the
headmaster, or even in a boarding school the house master,
as a foster-parent, to whose moral as weU as educational
control they are quite willing to commit their child, and with
some parents there is a distinct tendency to assign to this
scholastic godfather not only an undue share of respon-
sibiUty but also of blame for the shortcomings of their
offspring. It was no doubt such excessive delegation that
prompted a headmaster of wide experience to remark, when
asked what he thought of parents in general, that in his
opinion the majority ought not to be parents at all. He
had evidently come across a large percentage who had been
tempted to shuffle off more of their parental duties upon him
than the school in the most hberal spirit could venture to
undertake. Naturally the danger, such as it is, is mainly
confined to boarding schools.

In any case the head of a big public school, or his pro-
consuls the house masters, keep up an active correspondence
with the parents, who not only take an interest in their boy
as a pupil at the school, but also feel a certain pride and
satisfaction in the school itself, which constantly betrays
itself whenever they talk on the subject. They look on it,
in fact, as a sort of company or corporation in which
they are interested over and above the mere stake they
hold in it.

If they are themselves old boys, then their conversation
'■ See p. 46 above.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 109

takes a more enthusiastic turn. They speak of the school
as a former home, a dulce domum for which they have still
the greatest and most profound affection, and of which they
can never forget they are ancient alumni. The prize day
or school cricket match is attended by them not merely for
the sake of seeing their boy among the prize winners or in
the school team, but also in order that for an hour or two
they may wander through its courts and pla3dng fields and
recall the happy hours they once spent within its precincts,
or meet around the well-known cricket pitch the comrades
and cronies of bygone years.^

In day schools the headmaster possesses further oppor-
tunities for getting into touch with the parents over and
above the ordinary school relations.^ Not being constantly
on the move like the French proviseur, who rarely stops long
enough in a place to get to know the local people, the
English headmaster and his wife not infrequently take an
active part in the social and literary life of the town, and
thus have many opportunities of coming into friendly
contact with the parents when off duty. Anyone who
knows France wiU readily grant that the social Hfe in
England is on a far wider scale. EngUsh people entertain
far more extensively, and society in this country is not cut
up into watertight compartments by reUgious and political
differences. In such informal meetings parents learn to
know and appreciate the headmaster as a man and not
merely as an official. Some few headmasters go still further
and estabhsh regular parents' meetings, at which questions
of common interest are discussed.*

* This continuity between past and present which is largely lacking
in French schools is summed up in a phrase of M. Ribot, " Nos lycies
n'ont pas d'histoire." What feeling there is is represented by a sort
of scholar's affection for the ancient seat of learning from which he
was reared. Such scholarly patriotism is to be found among anciens
dUves of Henry IV and other lycSes famous for learning.

" Compare M. Ribot, R. E., p. 12, speaking of the schools :

" Ce sont des lieux de passage od des hommes . . . trop souvent
inconnus de la ville qu'ils habitant, remplissent momentaniment des
fonctions r6gl6es par des instructions venues de Paris,"

^ In this connection the Parents' National Education Union
(founder Miss Mason) may be mentioned as a social agency that
attempts to bring the two parties into closer touch.

no STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

(ii) Hostels

In the French boarding school the pupils are aU herded
together, whatever their numbers, in one single building.
There are, it is true, a number of pensions in the big towns,
often under reUgious control, which send their boarders to
the lyc&e. Such a boarding house is Fenelon,^ in Paris, the
boys of which attend Condorcet. There exists, however,
no organic connection between these institutions and the
lyc6e or college. The vast majority of colleges, as we have
seen, have boarding houses ^ which the principal conducts
at his own risk. But otherwise there is no system of
boarders being taken by the other masters of the staff which
is so common in England. Apart from official difficulties,
the truth is that the fee charged in the ordinary boarding
school, and especially in the religious schools, is often so
low that there is little inducement for the ordinary professor
to go in for licensed victuaUing on a large scale .^

In England, the hostel and the house system are the main-
stay of the public schools. Instead of boarders being
crowded together into one huge barrack, they are spHt up
among different hostels and houses, which generally con-
sist of separate buildings containing on an average about
thirty to forty boys. Both hostels and houses are in nearly
all cases managed by teaching members of the staff, the
difference being that the term " hostel " is generally appUed
to establishments which are run to the pecuniary profit of
the school or the headmaster, while the term " house "
denotes that the estabUshment is conducted as a private
speculation at the master's own risk.

In the latter case the house is partly filled by the master

^ For more details on these pensions see Coubertin, L' Education
anglaise en France, pp. 76 and 77, and for the sombre side of the life,
as far as the headmaster is concerned, cf . Monsieur le Principal, by
Jean VioUis (Paris, Calmann-L6vy, 1908).

' Les colUges h la charge du principal: see p. 13.

3 Note. — (1909.) The French parent looks so closely into the
boarding fees that the raising of the pension by so small a sum as £2
a year has, according to the Rapport au Sinat of M. Maurice-Faure.
affected the entry in several lycies.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS iii

himself, who speedily establishes a connection, and partly
by the headmaster, who distributes the overflow from his
own house among his colleagues. Being places of consider-
able profit, the houses are much sought after. Vacancies
are generally filled up by the headmaster by seniority from
among the existing members of the staff. The greater
number of assistant masters are probably cehbates, not by
vocation or preference but for economic reasons. Promotion
to a headmastership or a house-mastership offers an opportu-
nity for matrimony of which the average master gladly avails
himself. The establishment itself is generally the gainer.

The presence of a lady about the house makes its influence
felt in many ways. It tends to remove a certain brusquerie
and bluntness with which the English boy is at times re-
proached, and adds a touch of home life which is not without
its value. Some enthusiasts would hke further to convert
the boarding house into a sort of glorified family circle, and
for this purpose have not hesitated to introduce under a due
precaution co-education in order to supply to something like
an adequate extent the home atmosphere. But there are
a good many old-fashioned persons who look on the compara-
tive isolation of the school from home life as by no means a
defect but a necessary complement to it.

They realize how in no small degree the school acts as a
training for that larger Ufe of intellectual and physical
activity and of citizenship which awaits the scholar at the
end of his career, and in which the qualities most required,
the sense of responsibility and independence, are not always
the virtues the most cultivated in the home circle.^ Boys
need hardening, as steel needs tempering, though this by
no means imphes the employment of Spartan methods.
We have developed two distinct ideas of education in

1 On the function of the school as providing a preparation and
initiation into social life, compare the masterly paper by Dr. W. T.
Harris read at the fortieth annual meeting of the National Educa-
tional Association (United States of America) in igoi, and published
in the Journal of Proceedings and A ddresses of the fortieth annual
meeting of the Association (Winona, Minn.), " Isolation in the
School : how it helps and how it hinders." Dr. Harris is, of course,
speaking mainly of day schools, but his contention applies equally
to boarding schools.

112 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

England, the boarding and the day school. Possibly the
best type of school is that which combines the two elements.^

(iii) The Religious Question

Each lycee or college d'internes has its chaplain or chap-
lains,^ Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. Their position is
satisfactory ; they are quite independent, and could be very
influential, but in general they are regarded by the authori-
ties with a suspicious eye. This makes them in turn afraid
of appearing too zealous, and their energies therefore are
mainly engrossed by their work outside the school. As far
as my information goes, they do not appear to get hold of
the bulk of the boys. This is probably one reason among
others why the authorities have felt it necessary to introduce
moral instruction into the secondary schools. It makes its
appearance in all of the three divisions. In the preparatory
elementary division it forms part of the lessons in French,
history, and geography, and consists of short lessons or
stories followed by a causerie on their contents. In a word,
the teacher is expected to improve the occasion when he sees
the opportunity.

The subject reappears again in the last two years of the
first cycle. It is laid down that the teaching should be
given where possible by the French master, who thus finds
himself converted into a lay director of consciences. The
subjects dealt with in the fourth class consist of various
kindred virtues and vices grouped under the headings of
sincerity, courage, honesty, goodness, moral dehcacy, and
self-education of the individual. Thus, under the education
of self we find the sense of moral dignity as contrasted with
the conventional sense of honour, the government of self,

' Note. — (1909.) In spite of one or two interesting experiments,
we are still very far from trying co-education on a big scale, and it
must be added that the more thoughtful among the leading teachers
in women's education appear to be against it.

^ NoTB. — (1909.) Since the separation of Church and State, the
existing aumdniers (chaplains) are maintained till their death or
retirement. Their place is then taken by a priest nominated by the
bishop. If the latter refuses to act, the children are sent to mass on
Sunday.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 113

firmness of character and unselfishness, the inward authority
of the conscience and the respect of rules, the man of duty.

In the third class the course is composed of " readings,
stories, conversations of a methodical kind suitable to render
intelligible the value of the aim of mankind and of society."
The headings deal with soUdarity, justice and social fra-
ternity, the family, the professions, the nation, the State
and its laws, humanity, individual liberty, and social order.
These, however, are the very dry bones of the subject.
Through the kindness of M. Darlu, inspecteur-general, I was
able to be present at several lessons on the subject. Mention
has been made of the precociousness of the pupils, and their
ability to make a psychological analysis.

The teachers ^ were careful to render the instruction con-
crete by appealing to the books the class had been lately
reading. The inspector-general made it still more practical
by bringing it down to the level of daily life, from which he
cited numerous apposite examples. On one occasion he
dwelt with almost national complacence on the fact that
hypocrisy is not a French faihng, and eUcited from the
pupils that the chief French defect was on the contrary
almost exactly the reverse, a weakness for bragging of and
exaggerating one's vices — a point which the writers on
France do not always remember, when they accept state-
ments by French writers as sober and uncoloured presen-
tations of the truth.

The pupils had notebooks in which to enter the resume
given by the teacher. The inspector-general did not hesi-
tate to declare that the notebook should be specially looked
after and cared for, that they, the pupils, should surround
it with almost pious attentions [entourer de soins presque
pieux). He seemed to regard it in fact as a kind of lay

1 Note. — (1909.) The principle of giving the instruction in the
classes mentioned is now finally established, and apparently gives
good results when the lesson is taken by the French teacher in the
class, who not only knows the pupils better than any other, but has
also a good idea of their mental attainment and can illustrate his
teaching from literature, or from the life of the class. In some cases,
however, the teaching, for motives of economy, is entrusted to the
professor in philosophy, and in such the work is not always so
successful.

B.E. H

114 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

breviary. Most of the pupils in this particular class heard
him gladly, though one or two showed signs of inattention.
The person least impressed by the lesson seemed to be the
■proviseur who happened to be present. Perhaps he was still
sceptical about the new departure.

But whether successful or not the experiment is extremely
significant of the growing sense of the need of doing some-
thing for the moral and civic education of the young and of
bridging the moral isolation in which teachers and taught
stand to each other. It must not be thought that the
introduction of la morale in these classes is a mere interlude
in the school course which is subsequently dropped out.
The whole subject comes up again and is studied in a far
more systematic and detailed fashion when the class of
philosophy is reached, which it must not be forgotten is the
Erklarungsjahr par excellence of the school course, explaining
to the pupil the raison d'etre of his previous studies and pro-
viding him with definite principles and ideals for his future
life as an intelligent being and as a citizen in a free State.

Quite a third of the course is concerned with la morale
proper, and the latest addition to the rubric deals with the
question of alcoholism. As one who owes a great debt to
his study of philosophy in France, the present writer feels
it difficult to speak too highly of the benefits received from
such a course, not the least important of which is the co-
ordination of self. He cannot help feehng, however, that
such a philosophy, invaluable as it is to the pupils for whom
it is meant, should lay more stress on the supreme value of
the will. Le cceur est frincipe et fin, le cerveau n'est que
moyen. As it is, the course has a tendency rather to pro-
duce intelligent beings than masterful men of action.^

English people will have no doubt great difficulty in
understanding how morality can be taught apart from
religion, though there is little doubt that much of the so-
called undenominational teaching is half-way on the road to
it. With us morality is either a matter of religious sanction
or of unconscious tradition, or of both combined. The

^ See p. 214, "The True Inwardness of Moral Instruction in
France."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 115

school chapel supplies the former, but a good deal of the
moral tone that pervades a pubhc school is " immanent
morality," indwelling in the place itself. As good air is as
important as meals and climate, the makers of the English
pubhc schools have reaUzed that the school atmosphere is
as important as the spiritual food provided in the shape of
rehgious instruction given in the chapel or the class-room.

As a matter of fact, the actual amount of dogma taught
is often comparatively small, as a great deal of the actual
rehgious teaching is given by laymen. While the large
boarding schools are nearly all nominally Church of England,
and as a rule under clerical headmasters, the spirit of the
place is generally so Uberal that many of the schools are
frequented by the sons of Nonconformists and Jews ; for
the latter religious faciUties are provided, otherwise they
take their full share in the life of the school. In fact, while
the Broad Church party have greatly diminished within the
Church itself owing to the tendency of the latter to split up
into High Church and Evangehcal, it is probably the Broad
Church traditions that are stiU the most powerful in the
pubhc school.

At all events, until recently we have never had the
rehgious question seriously raised in our secondary schools.^
The Royal Commission on Secondary Education ^ thus
described the situation in 1895 : " With regard to rehgious
instruction in schools, it has long been the steady aim of
educational legislation in England to remove all just causes
of offence or friction, and to secure, as far as possible, that
differences of rehgious behef shall not unduly restrict the
diffusion of educational benefits. . . . There has also been
during the last half-century a marked growth of good sense
and good feehng in such matters. In English secondary
education ' the religious difficulty ' is now extremely rare.
Evidence supphed by the actual working of the schools,
and derived from all parts of the country, abundantly

^ Cf. Coubertin, L'jSducation anglaise en France (p. 114) : "La
religion n'esi pas une legon h apprendre, c'esi une aimospMre <J
respirer."

2 Vol. i. pp. 74-75,

ii6 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

proves this. At the same time it would be unwarrantable
to affirm that there is no latent uneasiness. . . . Perhaps
that very feehng is not without its value as a partial safe-
guard against the danger which it apprehends."

The Education Act of 1902 has, however, introduced
certain limitations into the hitherto existing state of affairs,
which was so hopelessly illogical in strict theory, yet has
worked so admirably in practice. Already the Technical
Instruction Act of 1889 has provided that no student in a
rate-aided school receiving technical instruction should be
obliged to attend any religious observance or teaching.
This principle was under the new Act extended to pupils in
all aided schools, and thus included not only a very large
number of secondary schools but also the pupil teachers in
day centre^ which are now placed under the rubric of
secondary education.^

An important change which is worthy of note is the
gradual decline of the monopoly of the clerical headmaster.
Until recently the headship in our big public schools was
only open to those who were actually in Orders or who were
prepared to take them. Meanwhile the supply of teaching
clergymen is growing every year less and less. It became
clear by the law of averages alone that the overwhelming
majority of lay masters must of necessity contain better
men than the diminishing number of clerical masters could
supply, even counting in those who were willing to enter the
Church if appointed to a headmastership.

Such a condition of things was not fair to the schools,

which have a right to be as efficiently staffed as possible, let

alone the grievance of the able layman whose conscientious

scruples prevent him from taking Orders. The matter now

appears to be slowly righting itself. Quite recently lajmien

have been appointed to the principalship of some of the most

important public schools, with the result that the reUgious

duties of the office have been relegated to a school chaplain,

who roughly corresponds to the French aumdnier.

' Note. — (igog.) Some interesting experiments in moral instruc-
tion are now being given in some of our secondary schools, in London
notably in the William Ellis School (Gospel Oak), and the Northern
Polytechnic Secondary School.

IV. BOY LIFE

(i) School Games

The effort that has been made to introduce English games,
most of which, strange to say, had their origin in France,^ has
partially succeeded. The movement began, however, out-
side the school, and the founders of the principal clubs, the
Racing Club and the Stade Fran^ais, looked on athletics
mainly as a means of distraction, as a pastime in the strict
sense of the word.^ It was not till about 1883 that pubhc

* Note. — (1913.) The master of the Charterhouse after a visit to
France in 1637 could not help commenting, in no complimentary
spirit it is true, on the prevalence of such games as tennis in France,
where he says, " It is more common than throughout the rest of
Christendom ; the country is sown with tennis grounds, they are more
numerous than churches." " The French," he continues, " are born
with a racquet in their hand, women play, children play, workmen
play." " There are," he declares, " more tennis players in France
than there are drunkards in England." It was even found necessary
to pass regulations with a view to restricting the vocabulary of the
players. Thus one of 1592 laid down : " Gentlemen who wish to
play tennis must play to recreate the body and to divert the mind
without either swearing or blaspheming, under a penalty of five sols
for each offence."

"Note. — (191 3.) It would appear, according to my friend M.
Boutroux, that before 1870 games of all kinds were exceedingly
popular in the schools. They took place in the playgrounds and
were entirely run by the boys themselves, as were the games in
England at a similar period. They included les barres, la balls au
camp (a sort of rounders), la balle au mur (fives ?), le jeu de vise (a
sort of hide-and-seek), le cheval fondu (a very rough game), le saut
de moutons. Marbles were also in favour, and each season had its
particular games. Accidents were not uncommon, and even loss
of life was known. The games had an immense effect on school-
boy honour. Any boy caught cheating was liable to undergo ordeals
of Indian severity. It is noteworthy that the chief athletes were
held in high honour by their peers. All this, within the State
schools at least, seems to have disappeared after the war. The
causes probably were the rush to work under the device " Education

ii8 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

opinion, frightened by over-pressure in the schools, turned
for a remedy to physical exercise as one of the best means
of recreation. The idea of this discipUnary value of games
as a training of character has been very slow in making its
way.^

The school athletic associations have had a hard struggle
for existence, and in most schools only a very small per-
centage of the pupils play games. Thus at one of the big
lyc&es out of 2,000 pupils only some eighty belonged to the
school association. The principal reasons of the slow
progress of the movement are, first, the fear of accidents,
which has already been aUuded to. The school authorities
are naturally but little eager to increase the extent of their
responsibilities or those of the State. The second reason is
the lack of playing fields. The majority of the Paris lycees
and those in other cities are built in the middle of the town.
Pupils are obhged to go outside for their games, a consider-
able amount of time is lost in coming and going, and grounds
to play on are by no means easy to find.

Another reason is the indifference and even hostihty of
the parents ; apart from the fear of accidents, they dread
the waste of time on the part of their children. The exa-
minations for public posts are now so severe that they look
on the time given to play as so much time lost to work.
Thus a vigorous writer of a polemical tract on the subject,
who prefers to guard his anonymity, says :

" The chief, the unique preoccupation of the good father
of a family is that his son should enter a Government school.
If he is deceived in these hopes, at once he hustles him into

exalteth a nation," the coming of intellectualism, the semi-democra-
tization of the lycies, the screwing up of examinations, the growing
popularity of the Government service, and most of all the responsi-
bility of the proviseurs for accidents, which no doubt led to the total
prohibition of rough games in the playground. These well-authenti-
cated facts seem to have escaped the notice of French writers on the
subject — another striking instance of the completeness of the break
with tradition in France.

1 The greatest credit in the matter is probably due to M. Pierre
Coubertin, who, in addition to his two books on the subject — L' Edu-
cation en Angleterre and L' Education anglaise en France — was one of
the principal founders of the League for the Propagation of Physical
Exerciss in Education, of which Jules Simon was the president.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 119

a Government office. . . . Why should this wide-awake
father make his son into a man of action, since the son is
destined to the most regular, the least interrupted, the least
manly of existences ? Why should this dyspeptic and
apoplectic father make his son into a healthy and robust
man, since he is fated in his turn to become dyspeptic and
apoplectic through a sedentary Ufe ? . . . In truth, why
should this father of a family say to his son, ' Go and play
football ; go and row ' ? Rather he will reply to this son
of his the day that the latter, feeling the sources of Ufe
bubbhng up within him, shall ask him for a jersey to play
in or a pair of spiked shoes for running : ' Yes, certainly,
these exercises have their utility, as far at least as health is
concerned ; but you are already so old.

" ' Reflect that you have hardly two or three years left
for getting into the ficole Polytechnique or the ficole
Normale. Take my advice, make use of your Thursday
[whole holiday] to go over your Wednesday's lesson, and of
your Sunday to prepare your work for Monday. Defer till
later these English extravagances. You will have the time
to take all that up when you have left the Government school
and have got a berth.' Note that the father himself, who
is perhaps favourable to the cause of athletics, is opposed to
them on account of the programmes and examinations." ^

There is, however, still another reason for the comparative
weakness of the school athletic associations. It is the
drainage of their clientele by the big Paris clubs. These
clubs, in their desire to swell their numbers, pursue the best
players in the Association in a way which would do honour
to the modern athletic impresario in England, the pro-
fessional football manager.

" The moment a good player reveals himself in a school team, or a
promising runner appears, at once a club sends an ambassador. He
is flattered, cajoled, almost forcibly introduced into the club. This
disgraceful bargaining is subject to the rise and fall of the market, for
a rival club makes equal efforts to carry off the future champion. The
two parties bid against one another, and their bids take the shape of
a place of honour in the first team, a seat on the committee, etc.

1 See E.p.c.p., pp. 18 and 19.

120 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The highest bidder wins the day. . . . Even the small fry which help
to make up the number are also the subject of a lively competition.
" In favour of schoolboys the entrance fee, comparatively high, is
suppressed. The monthly subscription is lowered by half. . . .
What pupil out of a 4th form will resist the temptation of hearing
a well-known athlete call him ' my dear pal,' of finding a member of
the committee amiably shaking hands with him ? And the school-
boy enters the club, plays in the club team on the club ground,
dresses in its pavilion, wears its colours, and regards with some dis-
dain the last member of the school club going off to play on a ground
half covered with trees, and putting on a pair of trousers over his
flannels for lack of a dressing-room." ^

No doubt in Paris and elsewhere games have enormously
increased, and their players who are stolen from the school
team are not lost to athletics. But the point — and it is a
very serious one — is that the good effect of games on the
school life itself is lost.

Yet the real discipline of games is by no means unknown
in France, as may be seen from another quotation from
the same writer : ^

" What we want to insist on is the function of games to teach
courage, endurance, sticking together (solidariU), and loyalty, virtues
that no programme of studies contains among the subjects to be
taught [this, as we have seen, has been altered, but does not vitally
affect the argument], and which no professor ' sells ' to his pupils
along with history and Greek. What we should like to establish
clearly is that games are the school for life. What is the good in
actual life to be able to exhibit gilt-edged prizes as proofs of learning
if one is cowardly, weak, selfish, and disloyal ? . . . The worst
danger of excessive intellectualism is not so much to impoverish the
individual or to paralyse one part of him in order unduly to develop
another as to give a wrong bias to the heart and to rob it of its most
fruitful feelings, of those which make the individual into a social
being.

" As for ourselves, we declare in all sincerity that of the heavy
baggage of knowledge amassed at the lycle, the only knowledge of
everyday practical use has been that which we acquired in our
athletic society. We do not speak of the immediate results on our
physique of the practice of games but of the following acquisitions.
We were the founders of our society. We saw what difficulties one

'■ E.p.c.p., p. II. 'Ibid. pp. 28 and 29.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 121

has to meet in order to form an association ; how numerous, diverse,
and contradictory are the interests and passions involved, with what
prudence the leader must act, and, desirous of possessing our own
independence, we have learnt to respect that of others.

" All the lessons of our professors of history have been only able
to teach us to write a good composition on self-government fit to win
a prize at a general pubUc examination ... in our school associa-
tion we have practised ourselves this self-same self-government, we
have tasted its delights, and we no longer desire any other.

" As for comradeship, which is the true school virtue and the first
germ of that great social virtue, solidarity, virtue which the day boy
ignores and which the boarder practises in a tyrannical and vicious
manner, one learns it better in a school association than in a league
of revolt against the spying usher, the professor, and the authorities.
He is a good comrade who, in a football match, when fagged out or
even injured (which is really in itself an inestimable blessing) has con-
tinued to play all the same in order to assure the victory of his fellows,
he is a good comrade who, having sprained his foot in a cross-country
race, continues his course limping in order not to place his team last."

The writer of the above paragraphs appears to have under-
stood so thoroughly the value of games from the English
point of view that there seems little need of expatiating
further on this, the strong point in English education. It
is only necessary to add that while in the big public schools
the cult of games is universal, in some of the schools in large
towns, owing to the lack of proper facilities, the school clubs
are not so strong as they might be, and the esprit de corps
which is such a marked feature of the big public school is
comparatively weak. Nor must it be forgotten that all
virtues have their attendant vices, and it can hardly be
denied that in some cases the cult of games has been pushed
to such excess that prowess on the playing-fields stands far
higher in the mind of the rank and file of the school than
pre-eminence in the class-room.^

1 NoTE.-^(i9i3.) On the subject of games. Dr. Mathieu, dealing,
in 1911-12, with the official reports on the subject (see p. 27, note),
says that the data given are often rather vague. 27 lycies have
tennis grounds, 41 playing-fields (in some cases provided by the old
boys), football is played in 33 schools, shooting is practised in 21.
7 lycies have bicycle societies, 11 have " country-houses " for the
amusement and " aeration " of the pupils, several have parks. The
regulation school walk, he regrets to note, has not yet died out.

122 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

This transvaluation of values has certainly been rendered
more thorough by the appointment as masters of men for
their athletic rather than for their intellectual attainments.
Furthermore, their presence in enlarged numbers in the
teachers' common room has undoubtedly helped to foster
the indifference of the average assistant master to the
scientific side of his profession. The forte of the average
athletic master is athleticism, not teaching, and teaching
problems therefore only too naturally bore him, especially
as his real sphere is often rather in the playground than in
the class-room. His own triumphs in the playing-fields are
only too Ukely to give him a false perspective of fife, and
make him blind to the necessity of sterUng hard work in
school. Of course a good athlete who plays hard, works his
boys hard, and takes a keen interest in teaching, is the beau
ideal of a master, but such pent-aihletes of the scholastic
palcBstra are comparatively rare.

But the cult of athletics among the members of the staff
has not only proved an obstacle, a non-conductor to the
growth of a scientific interest in the art of teaching, it has
also led to a certain neglect of intellectual topics, which
cannot help having its effect on the boys themselves.
When masters not only with the boys but also among them-
selves come down to the level of the boys' conversation,
how can the boys be expected to rise to anything higher ?
A river cannot mount unaided above its source. Yet some-
thing urgently wants doing to raise the level of the average
pubhc-school boy's interest above mere cricket and football
" shop," and to give him if possible more intellectual ideas.
Mr. Benson does not mince matters when he sajre :

" We send out from our public schools year after year many boys
who hate knowledge and think books dreary, who are perfectly self-
satisfied and entirely ignorant, and, what is worse, not ignorant in a
wholesome and humble manner, but arrogantly and contemptuously
ignorant — not merely satisfied to be so, but thinking it ridiculous and
almost unmanly that a young man should be anything else ! " ^

It is clear the boys of themselves will never be able to
change their ideals ; the mot d'ordre, the example, must
* See Benson, The Schoolmaster, p. 65.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 123

come from the masters themselves, but it must be no mere
"lip-service" to ideals they do not really reverence. A
great deal of the talk about games in France has come to
nothing, because the speakers have not really the root of
the matter in them. It is true the influence of the home in
England is often hardly on the side of culture.

Still the master's duty as the high-priest par excellence of
culture is clear. If he only has a beUef in that which it is
his bounden duty to teach and to practise, the necessary
change will not be long in making itself felt. An intellectual
revolution can hardly be so difficult to effect as a moral one.
Where the elder Arnold succeeded, the followers of his son
would not be likely to fail. The one thing needful is con-
viction on the part of the teacher in the reality of his subject
and the importance of his mission. There is no reason
whatever why the cult of Hercules should exclude the
worship of Minerva.

The following passages ^ are a striking confirmation of
the views advanced above :

" It must be frankly admitted that the intellectual standard main-
tained at the English public schools is low ; and, what is more serious,
I do not see any evidence that it is tending to become higher. . . .
I do not think that they (the masters) care about making them (the
boys) intellectual ; intellectual life is left to take care of itself. . . .
It seems to me that the Athenian ideal — that of strong intellectual
capacity — is left out of sight altogether. ... I believe we have
condescended far too much to the boy's ideal of life. ... So far
removed is the intellectual ideal from the mind of the ordinary man
that it is difficult even to write of it without being misunderstood.
It is understood to be a kind of mixture of priggishness and pedantry ;
it is confused with learning ; it is supposed that the intellectual man
is the kind of man who always wants to talk about books. . , . The
aim ought not to be to turn everyone into a literary personage.
Literature is only one province of the intellectual life. . . . My
idea of an intellectual person is one whose mind is alive to ideas. . . .
My own belief is that a good many young boys have the germ of in-
tellectual life in them, but that in many cases it dies a natural death
from mere inanition. . . . The question of how to alter this is a
di£5.cult one. ... I believe the only way is for the masters to be

^ Benson, The Schoolmaster, p. 55 et seq.

124 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

interested themselves. . . . Therefore I maintain that it is not an
advisable thing so much as a positive duty for teachers to contrive
some intellectual life for themselves, to live in the company of good
books and big ideas. ... To omit intellectual enjoyment from our
programme, to pass over one of the strongest of boyish faculties,
seems to me the kind of mistake that will be regarded some years
hence as both pitiable and ludicrous."

(ii) Gymnastics

A friend, writing on the subject of gymnastics, says :
" They are in principle obligatory, and. therefore unpopular.
Many pupils also are exempted from attending the gym-
nasium. The pupils find the exercises monotonous, with
the result that punishments are not unknown. This further
tends to make the subject distasteful to the pupil. It is
only serious in the special class preparing for St. Cyr, etc."
On the other hand, the championnat interscolaire has cer-
tainly in some schools done a good deal to create interest
in the subject. The championnat, which is held once a
year, gives prizes and certificates not only for squads of
pupils but also for the best work on the horizontal and
parallel bars, for boxing (French and English), fencing, and
la canne, which is a sort of singlestick without the basket-hilt
to protect the knuckles.

The present writer visited a certain number of classes on
behalf of the Royal Commission on Physical Training.^
In some of them the exercises were well and smartly exe-
cuted, but the dumbbells in use were often too heavy. The
gymnastics generally were of the mihtary kind. Swedish
exercises for the younger pupils seem unknown, though they
have already been introduced with good results into the
primary schools. Of physical training on scientific lines,
apart from mere " acrobatics," little has so far been done
in secondary schools, except in the Gironde, where Dr.
Tissi6, of Bordeaux, has effected certain reforms. As far

* See Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scot-
land), vol. i. pp. 31, 32, vol. ii. pp. 397-405, reprinted in this
volume, see p. 223, and the preface to M. Demeny's Les Bases scien-
tifiques de I' Education physique. See also note, pp. 238-244, for
subsequent developments.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 125

as one could learn, no attempt has been made so far in the
State secondary schools to measure and weigh the pupils
and record their growth. The question of school diet has
not apparently been mooted either. Ventilation and
scientific warming are attracting some attention. The
cadet corps {bataillons scolaires), which came into fashion
after the war of 1870, were abandoned as far back as 1890
as a hopeless failure.^ *

In many English schools, mostly boarding, gymnasiums
have been built, and gymnastics have also been rendered
compulsory. A high standard is often attained, as may be
seen by the achievements of the various school teams at
the pubhc schools competition at Aldershot. Drill is given
in many schools, and in not a few it is also used as a method
of punishment. But physical exercises without apparatus
with a view to improving physique rather than to forming
mere muscle or teaching certain athletic tricks are not very
common in secondary schools. The movement in favour
of creating cadet corps has received an enormous impetus
from the Boer War. The pubUc school cadet corps are not
only represented in great numbers at the shooting com-
petitions at Bisley, they also take part in actual manoeuvres
at Aldershot and elsewhere.

1 See Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scot-
land), vol. ii. p. 397.

2 NoTB. — (1909.) The new military law for two years' service has
introduced, however, a most important reform. According to the
law no one can become a sous-officier or officier who, on enlistment,
has not already obtained the dipldme de preparation militaire. These
demands of the different branches necessarily vary, but the full list
of subjects includes gymnastics, power to read the ordnance survey,
shooting, drill, and riding. The recruit who has passed this examina-
tion can become a brigadier after four months, sergeant after ten
months, and officer (sub-lieutenant) after twelve months. The
reform is enormously important, for two reasons. The advantages
offered induce the best men to qualify for the various grades. The
personnel of these grades is thus recruited after the most intelligent
system. Moreover, the sons of the bourgeoisie, who as a rule detested
their year of service in the ranks, are delighted under the new con-
ditions with the life which permits them rapidly to rise and even
become officers before they finish their last years. If conscription
ever came to England, we might possibly, with advantage, consider
the adoption of a somewhat similar system.

126 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

If not overdone, the movement seems likely to be prolific
in real good to the nation, not only in improving the
physique of those concerned, but also in teaching them to
hold a rifle and acquire a certain amount of mihtary training
which is not likely to be entirely forgotten. The dangers
of miUtarising the nation do not seem to be excessive, and
volunteering, even to those who are against war on principle,
must seem preferable to conscription, which in the opinion
of our mihtary experts is the only alternative ^ to it for
bringing up our defensive forces to the proper level.

A certain amount of very useful work has been done by
the Anthropometric Society in obtaining measurements of
pupils aU over the country. In an increasing number of
schools 2 a careful register and record are being kept of the
pupils, who are weighed and measured at regular intervals.
The question of school hours, the print of books, of Ught,
ventilation, heating, sanitation, and school diet are more
and more engaging the attention of experts.' In all these
matters we are certainly ahead of France.*

(iii) Opportunities for Intellectual Self-
development

A great effort has been made during the last few years,
largely by the professors themselves, to provide facUities
for self-improvement on the part of the pupils. At present
every lycee or college possesses a library which is nominally
reserved for the professors, but the pupils may be authorized
by the latter on their own responsibility to take out books.

1 See Sir Evelyn Wood's speech at the opening of the Gresham
School, Holt (reported in Times, October ist, 1903).

" Note. — This is now the rule in the London schools and also in
other parts of England.

' See report of Committee of the British Association on the con-
dition of health essential to the carrying on of the work of instrnction
in schools. Presented to the Educational Science Section of the
Association, September. 1903. (Reprinted in The School World,
November, 1903.)

• The difference seems likely to decrease. The first Congres
d'Hygiene scolaire et de PSdagogje physiologique, organized by the
Ligue des M^decins et des Families, was held at the Sorbonne, Novem-
ber, 1903. Among other matters touched on in the presidential

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 127

In addition certain schools have estabHshed class libraries
which are constantly being added to both by presentations
of books and by regular contributions on the part of the
pupils. They contain not only books of reference but also
reading books for home use.

A large number of Enghsh schools possess school libraries.
Very often in a big school there is a junior section. In some
of the big towns a great deal has been done to create a close
connection between the primary schools ^ and the public
free libraries, which have opened special departments for
school children. There is no reason why the movement
should not be largely extended to day pupils in secondary
schools. Many schools, especially boarding schools, have a
common-room in which a certain number of daily and
weekly papers are taken in by the boys themselves. Very
often the higher forms use their own class-rooms for the
purpose. The newspaper is the daily encyclopsedia, and
the future citizen of the empire should be encouraged to get
a grip of current questions for himself.

The popularity of the cheaper comic papers, which some-
times form too large an element of the stock-in-trade of these
reading-rooms, is not such a pleasant feature. Apart from
their jokes, which are harmless enough, they tend to en-
courage scrappiness in reading, and that particular dis-
cursive butterfly type of mind which finds an interest in a
column of disconnected snippets. One cannot help feeling
that this mental attitude, or rather mental instability, is

address were the subject of the number of hours of work per day,
school hygiene in general, and the question of school colonies.

Note. — {1913.) The Third International Congress on School
Hygiene, which was held in Paris in 1910, marks another step
forward. See also the article in Hygiene scolaire, Oct. 1911, of Dr.
Mathieu, who condemns some of the older buildings outright. The
ventilation is still often defective. The lighting and heating have
much improved, but the school furniture is often old-fashioned.
The dormitories have been improved, and cubicles substituted in
some cases. Shower-baths have been introduced everywhere, but
the lavatories still leave much to be desired.

1 See Report on the Connection between the Public Library and the
Public Elementary School, published in vol. 2 of Special Reports on
Educational Subjects, Board of Education. Also issued as separate
reprint.

128 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

due in part to the effect of examinations on the teaching of
to-day. The necessity of answering a baker's dozen of
questions in an hour and a half or two hours naturally leads
to a taste for disjointed facts, for nothing can be studied
A fond, and to a form of interest that moves by fits and
starts and is never long-lived.

One may probably class among the incentives to, if not
among the opportunities for, self-development the number
of special prizes offered for composition outside the regular
course work in classics and English, both in prose and verse.
These compositions, which are by definition the unaided
work of the pupil, are one of the best ways of " extending "
the pupil and of encouraging thorough and original work.
They have not infrequently allowed a boy who has not
otherwise distinguished himself in class to strike out for
himself a line of his own and given him thereby the oppor-
tunity without which the talent within him would never
have been brought to light. It says much for the honom:
of the English schoolboy that these compositions are nearly
always his own unaided production.

The French possess a somewhat similar method of en-
couraging extra study in the concours general} in which all
the best scholars in the French schools throughout the
country are examined in all the subjects of the programme
according to their classes, and prizes and honourable

1 The examination has now been aboUshed. As it included a
yearly examination for picked boys from the third up to the first, and
the philosophy classes, it was doubtless too great a strain, but it was
none the less an excellent method for selecting the boys who went on
to the ficole Normale. Some critics see in its abolition a certain
tendency towards levelling down things which is apparently making
itself felt in some circles in France to-day. It is suggested that it
would not be impossible to revive the good side of it by re-establishing
it in conjunction with the two examinations for the bdccalauriat, by
giving prizes for the best candidates in the written work in the two
parts, and putting on a few extra papers for certain subjects, now
taken orally, which naturally only those who were specially strong
in these papers would take in prefcTence to the viva-voce. — (1913.)
The concours gSniral will probably be re-estabhshed shortly. The
necessary funds for its re-establishment have already been voted by
the Chamber of Deputies, though not by the Senate. It will, how-
ever, be confined in all likeUhood to four or five subjects, and be
open only to boys in the top classes.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 129

mention are awarded.^ No doubt the examination acts
as a splendid, if sometimes excessive, incentive to work
among the better boys, and produces surprises like the
special compositions in England. But the preparation
for such an examination has less of the voluntary char-
acter about it, and leads rather to extra coaching than
to absolutely original work and research on the part of
the pupil,*

(iv) School Societies

School societies, apart from the athletic associations,
scarcely exist in French schools. From time to time a lyc&e
will organize an evening's entertainment, consisting of
acting, recitations, etc., but the efforts made are sporadic.
The performance over, the temporary committee dissolves,
and the lycee becomes once more a conglomeration of
individuals. This is sincerely to be regretted. The vast
amount of talent that such an evening reveals makes one
wonder why some sort of permanent society cannot be
constituted more or less on the lines of English school
societies.

Many schools in England have a debating society in which
the destinies of the empire and of humanity in general are
made or unmade at fortnightly or monthly intervals during
the winter. Masters not infrequently take part in it, and
its effects on the whole are excellent. The youthful advo-
cate of " retaliation " or the aboUtion of capital punishment
accepts his r6le with a most becoming seriousness. In
working up his case he not only learns how to consult and
handle original authorities ; he also goes through the ex-
cellent training of having to think out what he wants to say
and put it into intelligent language. In a word he learns
to speak, a thing he rarely does inside the school, where

1 The competitions include pupils of the third class.

^ For a good description of the concours glniral from a schoolboy's
point of view, see Vne Annie d& Collige & Paris, by Andr6 Laurie.
(Pascal Grousset.)

130 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

verbal brevity is only held in higher honour than verbal
anacoluthon.

The procedure is moulded on that of the methods of
Parliament, and the experience which the budding chairman
of the meeting derives from his management of his school-
fellows is no doubt of the highest value. In fact, the society
is one of the ways of teaching self-government, and not the
least valuable. The youngest members quickly understand
the need of order and the necessity of allowing each side to
state their opinions, however unpalatable some of them may
be to the majority. If the school history of the present
members of Parliament were traced, it would probably be
found that a large proportion of them delivered their maiden
speech in the school debating society.

Here is a point our French friends might well copy, not
as an aid to oratory, in which they already excel, but as a
discipline towards listening to both sides of the question.
Apart from the unwritten procedure which governs their
debates, nearly all their societies contain a rule that all
religious questions are debarred. In France it might be
advisable to add " and poUtical " to the rubric.

The debating societies have not infrequently a Uterary
section attached to them in wMch readings from Shake-
speare and other standard authors take place, and before
which the school poet and the school essajdst read their
earUest contributions to literature. In some instances a
sort of golden book is kept, in which the most worthy of
these lucubrations are inserted on the vote of the majority.
In many schools theatricals take place at least once a year,
in addition to the recitations which are a standing dish at
every speech day. Sometimes scenes are given from
Shakespeare, out of some play the pupils are studying — ^a
feature that adds enormously to their appreciation of the
play; often it is Sheridan who is drawn upon. Here,
again, the theatrically minded members of the staff lend
their aid and coach the budding Roscius or act as stage-
managers.

Moreover, many schools have also photographic and
scientific societies, which, under the leadership of the science

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 131

master or the photographic enthusiast on the staff, make
excursions in the neighbourhood and photograph its scenery,
or study its fauna or flora, its geological or archaeological
remains. They have also their indoor meetings, and an
account of their proceedings or researches appears in the
school magazine, a publication which is to be found in the
vast majority of secondary schools.

The magazine serves not merely as a record of sports,
games, matches, concerts, outings, prize givings, departures,
new arrivals, and old boys' successes ; it contains as well
a certain number of original contributions, together with
the inevitable editorial, in which the pUce de resistance, the
chou and the clou, is the everlasting wail of the editor at
the penury of contributions. The advent of the school
" mag " is one of the excitements of term, and the first
appearance of one's name in print, even if it is only for a
third prize in the 100 yards under 12, is a thrilling event
which has probably for the person in question but few
parallels in life. Here again our French friends might copy
with advantage. Their school record would certainly never
suffer from any dearth of literary contributions.^

(v) School Surroundings — Social Life — Manners —
Code of Honour

To understand the social life of the pupil it is necessary
to get a clear idea of the milieu in which as a day boy he
passes the greater part of his day, or as a boarder he lives
entirely. If before the Revolution the school resembled
a cloister, the alterations made by Napoleon converted it
into a barrack. As Pere Didon has well said, in L' Education
pr&sente : ^

' Note. — (1909.) Certain lycles possess " Old Boys' Clubs." The
majority do little more than have an annual dinner, but in some cases
they attempt to find pupils places in the business world and elsewhere.
Some of these societies have been recognized as being d'utiliU publigue.
The majority of old boys' clubs in England exist for social and
athletic reasons.

' Pp. 318, 319.

132 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

" Napoleon I wanted soldiers : all the schools became barracks,*
all the pupils conscripts — living under the eye of overseers [sur-
veillants] who had all the roughness of sergeants and corporals, and
keeping step to the martial roll of the drum. [N.B. — The drum is
still used in the French lycie for announcing the beginning and end
of lessons.] . . . With the same powerful hand Napoleon at the
same time organised, mobilised, and got together another army not
less compact and skilfully grouped to defend public and social order :
the army of functionaries. There was no longer room, not the least
room, left for private initiative." *

Other influences which followed had their effect on the
schools, first what may be caUed the Uterary rtgime, and
lately the growing claims of science ; but their influences,
as Pere Didon has remarked, have rather been successively
superposed than successively exclusive one of the other.
The military State education for which Napoleon intended
the remodelled lycie to provide has largely lost its raison
d'etre. Yet no new ideals have adequately taken its place.
The former soul of the institution is dead, or rather the
transmigration of the modern spirit into the deserted tene-
ment is yet but half accompUshed. Yet so perfect is the
machinery that it still continues to function as heretofore.

Still the signs of a quickening spirit are not to be over-
looked. The Parhamentary Commission has emphasized
the fact that the proviseur must be something more than a
mere fly-wheel in the administrative machine, he must also
be a living and moral force in the household over which he
presides, in which he must not merely be chief in financial
and administrative matters, but also have some degree of
influence and control, not only over his staff but over the
pupils. In this way only can responsibility be fixed, unity
effected, and the Germanic idea realized of an institution
being not a mere inanimate thing endowed with a fictitious

* Cf. Demolins, A quoi tient la Supirioriti des Anglo-Saxons, p. 7.
Cf. M. le Docteur Hogg, L'HygUne scolaire dans les jStablissements
d' Enseignement secondaire de la Grande-Bretagne, p. ig. " The small
French boy ... in a college is a number. He wears a uniforA, he
marches in rank and silently on his way to the class-room, the study,
the refectory ; all his movements, all his acts are commanded, even
if their rhythm is not given by the rolling drum or the pealing bell."

» Cf. Demolins, A quoi tient la Supirioriti des Anglo-Saxons, passim.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 133

civil personality, but a trae and living organism whose
component parts are living persons.

Over-delimitation leads to undue simplification. To
obtain a superficial symmetry one is obliged to eliminate
what is really vital. The divisions between proviseur and
professeur, between professeur and surveillant are un-
doubtedly an administrative convenience, but they have
cut the life-strings of French education, and isolated the
pupil from the most precious influences. What has kept
French education alive has been the intellectual enthusiasm
of the professor for his own particular subject and for
culture as a whole. He has never fallen into the German
faihng of becoming a specialist pure and simple or a specialist
with merely encyclopaedic attainments. In a word he has
never confused culture with encyclopsedism, much less has
he sacrificed it to specialism. In this he has had an admir-
able influence over the Slite of his pupils.

But these ideals, precious as they are, which have done
so much for the intellectual side of French education, can
hardly be said to make for complete living. One cannot
help finding them one-sided and insufficient in the light of
modern thought, with its growing stress on will-culture, on
self-government, on initiative and activity. As M. Duhamel
points out,^ even the Commission failed to make sufficient
investigation into the means most suitable for forming the
characters of the pupils, in accustoming them to the ideas
of responsibility, liberty, and action. We may, therefore,
conclude that these elements are still far too scantily re-
presented among the moral and social influences which
surround the pupil's existence.

The material factors in his life are also unpropitious.
The .lyc&e far too often preserves the birth-marks of its
military origin. An English writer in the Globe * describes
the lycee he attended as a boy as

" A large barrack-like building in the centre of the big town, sand-
wiched in between a church and a tall block of houses, lying between
a street the chief channel of traffic and a lane that acts as a sort of
backwater for the overflow crowd from the larger thoroughfare ; such

' See Comment ilever nos Fils, p. 2. * June 27th, 1898.

134 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

was the position of my lycie. As I looked on that dingy mass of
bricks and mortar I could not help thinking of the great English
school I had left, standing up in the midst of its green playing fields.
We entered. Within were two narrow courts, one for the bigger and
the other for the smaller fellows, where the games flourished in a sickly
fashion. Around on three sides lay the class-rooms and on the fourth
the gymnasium. The whole had rather a prison-like air, and I
realised I was for the moment confined to one of those scholastic
casernes that Napoleon determined the lycH should be." '

It must not be supposed that the average lycie is ill-
lighted and badly ventilated. On the contrary, the more
recently constructed lycies, on which the Government have
lavished many millions of francs, are models in this respect.*

Still, under these conditions it is not surprising to find
the life of the ordinary schoolboy, whether day or boarder,
depicted in gloomy colours. The polemical writer of the
tract on physical culture thus describes the situation : '

" When the drum has beaten the lycien enters the gate of the lycie
with the same air as the soldier passes through the iron gates of the
military quarters. As the soldier calls the barracks a gaol, so the
lycien calls his lycie. Thus the day boy experiences twice a day the
feeling of the boarder who goes out on Sundays : that of the soldier
on leave."

Speaking of the boarder's Hfe, P6re Didon dilates on

" That long period of ten years, bounded on every side by a strict
discipline, with its monotonous days, its ever parallel hours of work
and play, regular as the hours of a clock, interspersed with rewards
and punishments, that prolonged absence from the family — lessened
as it is, but never sufficiently to the Uking of the pupil, by the annual
holidays and exeats — those courts with their iron bars and prison-

' Matthew Arnold [A French Eton, p. 321) spoke of the " courts . . .
looking to an ex-schoolboy from any of the great English schools
hopelessly prison-like."

' Such as Janson-de-Sailly, Lakanal, Louis-le-Grand, etc. See
Dr. Hogg, L'Hygiine scolaire dans les Etablissements d'Enseignemeni
secondaire de la Grande-Bretagne. In less than six years (1880-1885)
the Government spent on buildings and repairs more than ;^4,ooo,ooo
(110,866,665 frs. 66 centimes, to be exact).

' It is curious to note that the attempt to move the lycies out into
the suburbs has not been a success so far as tested by actual results.
Parents seem to prefer the proximity of the school to fresh air for
their children.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 135

like walls, bereft of the poetry of silent cloisters, invaded by the
gloomy sadness of barracks and gaols, that enlistment in a sort of
miniature army in which one has nothing to do but obey [armde toute
passive] : it is all this that fills boys with loathing. On reading these
pages they will find perhaps that on almost all these points they are
right, and that without doubt the future will modify from top to
bottom that external organisation of school life which is so de-
pressing " (pp. vi, vii).

One of the most remarkable features common to English
schools which is lacking in the ordinary lycie is the absence
of any general reunion in the morning for prayers or for
receiving the orders for the day. It is strange that the
French, with their facility for reaUzing the possibiUty of the
spectacular and their talent for and dehght in well-ordered
display,^ have never discovered the profound effect that
such a gathering of the classes has on the mind of the small
boy on seeing all at once the great army of which he, though
he be but the youngest conscript, is nevertheless a member.
Nothing helps better to impress upon him the sense of
esprit de corps than his daily parade.

He sees the head boys of the school, the prefects, armed
with an authority and prestige that makes them appear to
him as heroes and demi-gods ; their almost, to him, super-
human size appals him, till he realizes that his place will be
one day where they are standing now. He hears read out
the names of those who have brought honour and lustre to
the school, and his heart swells at the thought that perhaps
he too one day will be cited in the order of the day as
having deserved well of the community, and the thought
itself becomes the father of the wish that in due time brings
about its accompUshment. These are sentiments that
never come to the average French day boy. He never sees
the whole school together except at prize-givings. Day by
day he goes straight from his home into his class-room, unless
perhaps he spends some five minutes in the playground eH
route.

^ Note. — (1909.) " II est vrai que chei nous les sentiments nationaux
prennent facilement la forme d'une manifestation, d'une reprisentaiion,
car il y adu thidtral en nous." — " Les Cahiers de F61ix Pecaut," Revue
pidagogique, November, 1908.

136 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

He gets to know his twenty or thirty class-mates more or
less, he forms a few acquaintances with other boys in the
playground, in the interval or before school. But he does
not even know the vast bulk of the school by sight, and
scarcely half a dozen of his acquaintances ripen to friend-
ship. Only if he joins the small group who form the
association scolaire does he become initiated into the larger
freemasonry of perfect comradeship. " This camaraderie," ^
says the anonymous writer quoted above, " is strong and
lasting. In our case, and the fact possesses in itself docu-
mentary value, of all the young fellows we have known at
the lycee, the comrades whom we still have are all without
exception members of our school association."

The same author adds : "Of our school career we retain
many sorrowful recollections, and a single pleasant one over
which our mind sometimes lingers, our school association.
As for the image of the lycee, as it plunges deeper into the
mists of the past, it assumes a more gloomy and depressing
aspect. Never have we returned to look once more on that
building which, inasmuch as we were confined in it, remains
always in our eyes a prison [boUe]." M. Duhamel also
writes : " How few French pupils leave school with the con-
viction of having spent happy days there ! " *

One cannot help feeling that some of these criticisms are
slightly overdrawn. The truth is the French are not averse
to the habit of dire du mal de soi-meme. Again, the French-
man, while inclined to make light of his difficulties while
they last, takes his revenge afterwards in the pictures he
draws, or rather overdraws, of them. Moreover, the writers
quoted above are all reformers, and one of the first rules for
attracting attention is to crier haul.

Judging by my youthful comrades at the lycee, if they did
not regard it as a Paradiso they scarcely found it such a
Purgatorio as these writers would have us believe. Those
who wish to see a more roseate view of French school Ufe
should read Une Annie de ColUge A Paris, which gives an
excellent notion of the interior of a French school, a little

1 E.p. c.i>. See p. 30.

' Comment ilever nos Fits, p. 277.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 137

idealized perhaps in some directions, but certainly no more
exaggerated than the extracts quoted above.

As one who has seen a good many specimens of the French
bay at close quarters and has Uved on intimate terms with
him and his family, I am surprised at the wonderful possi-
bilities in his character, and incline to attribute the majority
of his faults to the defects in his bringing up. No one can
fail to be struck with the quickness and sureness of his
intelligence. He is naturally poUte,^ obliging in the small
tilings of life, affable, and cheerful. He possesses to the full
that appreciation of Ufe which is the mark of his race. For
him the question is not whether Ufe is worth living, much
less whether it is a bore, but how he can best get most out
of it in the way of pleasure and amusement.

As art to the Greeks was not synonymous with mere
monetary outlay, so the French boy does not confound
pleasure and expense. He is therefore generally in good
spirits, and if he is rather fond of la blague, a curious ad^
mixture of conceited exaggeration and intentional hum-
bugging, are our boys always devoid of swagger or of trying
to " green " a " new chum " ? Again, is not this inflated
manner of talking when applied to the authorities a way of
taking his revenge on the despotic rSgime under which he
fancies he groans and which he thus hopes to temper with
his epigrams ? That he is a frondeur at times cannot be
denied, but here again it is no doubt because he feels that
such an attitude is the only one by which he can maintain
his independence in the presence of an authority more
intent on imposing itself than on getting itself accepted
(sentie pluiot que consentie).

If he is rather lacking in endurance,* can one blame him,

1 Matthew Arnold, A French Eton, pp. 358-359 : " I had been
struck with the good manners and the natural politeness they showed,
quite down to the Uttle boys, when tried by the unusual incident of
a stranger and a foreigner in the schoolroom : I am sure in England
there would have been much less rising and bowing and much more
staring and giggling."

* I remember a very remarkable case. A certain young fellow of
about eighteen had taken up running. Being a novice, he was often
allowed the longest start. Once he was passed by an opponent he
had the greatest difficulty in not giving up. One day I well re-

138 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

when one sees how everything conspires to keep him de-
pendent on his parents ? Our boys of sixteen and seventeen
have often a regular allowance on which they are expected
to clothe themselves and defray their out-of-pocket ex-
penses. Occasionally deficits occur which result in enforced
contributions from the parents, but the system of making
a boy manage his own income and balance his own budget
works on the whole very well. The French boy, as far as
one can learn, has no such financial liberty while at school.
As regards the code of honour which prevails amongst
French schools, the present writer has been fortunate
enough to receive a statement {see Appendix, p. 143 below)
from a friend who has had experience of schools both as a
pupil and a teacher. The document has also been seen by
another friend of still wider experience, who finds nothing
in it to add to or modify.

To describe the hfe of the EngUsh boy at school is often
— at least as far as the boarder is concerned — to describe
the happiest years of his whole hfe. It begins in his pre-
paratory school, in which hfe is made too easy, if an3^hing,
for him. It continues on through the pubUc school which
he enters at the age of thirteen or fourteen. But probably
the best period of all comes with the years from sixteen to
eighteen or nineteen, when he begins to be someone in the
school, is made a house or school monitor, gets into the sixth
form, and plays for the school at cricket or football. The
present is so bright and so absorbing that he scarcely thinks
of the future at all. If he is conscious of it at all in his mind
it is only as of a vague and not unpleasing contingency.

Every year sees him clothed with wider authority cmd
prestige. The healthy open-air hfe, the pleasurable sen-
sation of growth, even if they rarely rise above the level of
subconsciousness, form a sohd foundation to the joys of
his existence. His milieu is in sympathy with him, and he
with his milieu. If hfe means not merely a preparation

member he had promised his trainer he would not give in to the habit.
He did, however, and on returning to the pavilion exclaimed, almost
in tears, " C est plus fort que moi." The trainer, who had a very wide
experience, informed me it was by no means an isolated case.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 139

for each successive stage but also the living out of each
stage as if it were an end in itself, then as regards the second
ideal the EngUsh educator may be held to have come nearer
the mark than any other modern educator.

Boyhood is certainly not sacrificed. The severest critics
of the system can only say that it is unduly prolonged, and
that while we make in many ways the transition to manhood
easier than elsewhere, we neglect the intellectual side too
much and defer till too late the idea that a choice of career
is imperative on all ; we do not sufficiently insist that a
career should not merely be a sort of pis alter, a kind of
refuge for the destitute, a corvee imposed on us by the stern
necessity of having to earn our daily bread, but a calling, a
vocation, a hfe-work in the highest sense. Gray no doubt
was right in the main when, watching the boys at their
games, he wrote, " Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be
wise," but there is a point at which ignorance unduly pro-
longed leads to a rude awakening.

The portals of every profession are getting every day
more crowded, and entrance and subsequent success depend
more and more on early preparation, not specialization,
but self-preparation, self-dedication, if the word is not too
strong, to the career one intends to follow. The day of the
amateur in all professions is slowly passing away, and it is
more and more being reaUzed by the thoughtful that educa-
tion, in order to prevent the multipUcation of non-valeurs
and waste-products, must more and more undertake the
task of organizing the selection, not so much by constructing
an elaborate system of examinations, sieves for sifting out
the unfit, as by adding to its duties that of impressing on
the young the need of choosing a profession and taking, if
possible, an interest in it while still at school.'-

With all the insistence which our education lays on the
cult of activity and the cultivation of the will, it seems

^ Cf. for the same idea M. Hanotaux, Du Choix d'une CarrUre, p. 1 1 :
" Pas de forces perdues, telle doit Hre la pensie constante d'une sociiU
et d'un gouvernement." The writer in question is so anxious that
boys should take up a career, he would clear the majority of them
out of the schools at fifteen. Cf. also p. 43, " The Professor's Duty
in the Matter." — (1909.) Cf. School World, September, 1908.

140 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

somehow to have forgotten that these pure sciences need
also to be taught in an apphed fashion to be really fruitftd.
We turn out hundreds, blest with good intentions and strong
in potential energy, but we neglect to teach the application
of these quahties to the tests of daily life. Vis consili expers
mole ruit sua. The State receives batph after batch of well-
affected citizens who have, however, Been but ill trained in
one of the most important branches of citizenship, that of
adding to its general productivity by being an efiBicient
worker. We have to add to the catalogue of virtues taught
in school the virtue of the producer.^

No doubt the day boy who passes his time half at home
and half at school lives in a more varied atmosphere, but
none the less there is scarcely a secondary school in the
country to which the influence of the public school tradition
does not extend. If it was not in the school originally, it
has been brought there by the members of the staff, who,
being old pubhc-school boys, have acted Uke missionaries
in sowing the good seed through the length and breadth
of the land. What is the tradition ? A resume of the
works of Thomas Arnold and Edward Thring, and of their
numerous disciples, with readings in Tom Brown, would
alone give an adequate idea of its many-sided variety.*

But if one desired to sum up the dominant character of
its spirit, apart from the rehgious basis on which its founders

' Note. — (1909.) The question of vocational education is rapidly
becoming one of the most burning questions of the day, especially in
respect to the after-careers of the scholars in trade and industry.
Cf. Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere, edited by M. E.
Sadler (Manchester : The University Press). In London steps are
being taken not only in the so-called higher elementary schools, but
also outside, through the formation of joint committees of employers
and trade unions in the different trades, in order to organize better
the selection of future careers and callings among the pupils. This
movement cannot fail to have, in the long run, the most profound
effect on the curriculum and destiny of the so-called lower secondary
schools. — (1913.) The subject formed one of the principal topics for
discussion at the educational section of the British Association of
this year.

* Reference should also be made to the works of Henry Newbolt,
the Poet Laureate of the public schools, especially his two poems
entitled "Clifton Chapel " and " Vitai Lampada," with its refrain of
" Play up, play up, and play the game."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 141

placed it, one must, strangely enough, have recourse to
our French neighbours, who, in this as in so many other
matters, have done its thinking for Europe. To them we
owe the coinage of the two phrases noblesse oblige and esprit
de corps. The former, Norman and aristocratic in origin,
is an epitome of all the virtues that formed the stock-in-
trade of the ancient school of chivalry and mediseval knight-
hood ; the latter, more in sympathy with the Anglo-Saxon
spirit, embodies the old civic idea of a living corporation
and the modern conception of organic oneness.

In these two phrases all moral and civic instruction seems
to be comprised, the one lajdng stress on the obligation of
the individual to himself and other individuals, the other
on his duties to his fellow-citizens and to the State. No
doubt to Thring and Arnold the idea of school was not
merely that of a republic of free aristocrats, but also of a
veritable civitas Dei. Just as the mediaeval doctors wove
into the fabric of their religious belief many of the doctrines
they found in those pre-Christian doctors of the Church,
Aristotle and Plato, so the leaders of the educational
renaissance of the nineteenth century found much of their
inspiration in the classical and knightly traditions of the
past in their desire to give an education not only of a
Christian but of a gentleman, to make their schools in the
widest sense schools of manners.

In studying the manners of the Enghsh public-school boy
a foreigner would probably be struck by his frankness,
independence, absence of swagger or affectation, and easy
assurance, consisting of a large dose of self-satisfaction,
probably well grounded and tinged with a cheerful disregard
of or indifference to the opinions of strangers, not unmixed
with contempt when they were not of the same way of
thinking as himself. On the other hand, he would note a
curious readiness to swear by everything enunciated by
those who were the bell-wethers of public opinion within
the school itself, and would realize that the Englishman's
preference for men rather than measures goes down deep
into the national character.

A closer acquaintance would probably show that he had

142 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

a regard for truth, and a keen sense of honour, that he could
keep his temper, that he had pluck and endurance, and did
not boast about what he had done, if he did not rather ape
humiUty in pretending to know nothing about it ; that he
was loyal, honest and trustworthy. His extremely limited
vocabulary of English undefiled would astonish our foreign
friend, who would be further bewildered by his flow of
slang, nor would the amazement of the critic diminish on
learning that this very slang was regarded as part and
parcel of the school Uf e, and any attempt of the authorities
to put it down would involve a language question to which
even Bohemia could offer no parallel.

In fact, our critic would speedily discover that the English
boy is intensely and violently conservative, that procedure
is his principal guide in Ufe, and precedent its chief illumina-
tion, that Mrs. Grundy's reign in the social world is nothing
to the cast-iron rigime which rules within the precincts of
Harchester, that innovation can only come when Brown
Primus, the head of the school, or Jones Major, the captain
of the eleven, decides to innovate, and neither, they all
know, will ever innovate rashly. Our critic will also prob-
ably wonder at the narrow sphere of interests in which the
pupil lives, and while approving of the zest he gets out of
life, and the excellent terms on which he generally lives with
those in authority, he will rate less highly his general
ignorance of Uterature and art, and pity his contemptuous
attitude towards them.

More remarkable still will seem to our critic his absorbing
interest in games, so much so that the former may perhaps
ironically ask whether the schools themselves are not really
gymnasiums in the hteral sense of the word, whose aim is
to produce a race of professional athletes, boating men, and
" sportsmen " generally. He would be surprised to learn
that while in France the majority of yormg Frenchmen
dream from their earliest years of obtaining a snug berth
under the Government for the rest of their natural hves, the
English boy is often so light-hearted that he has not seriously
considered the future at all, but trusts to luck " for some-
thing to turn up."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 143

Our critic will probably look with disapproval on the
orgies that sometimes take place in the school tuck-shop,
and be not unamused to learn on remembering the " butter "
towers of his own cathedrals, for which mediaeval indul-
gences had furnished the necessary funds, that modern
gluttony had been utiUzed towards meeting the cost of
substantial additions to the fives-courts and other athletic
desiderata of the school.

In reUgion our critic would discover that the pupil as a
rule belonged to the Church of England as by law esta-
blished, and that the numerous problems which engaged
the mind of the philosophical youth of eighteen abroad
rarely troubled the head of one whose piety, hke that of his
race, was mainly of a practical nature. He would find that
in some schools the vices secrets were by no means unknown,
and that conspiracies of silence made them difficult to
discover. He would also learn on talking over the matter
quietly with the headmaster that matters were probably
better than they were twenty years ago,'- and that the mot
d' or ire of those in authority was : " Pensons-y tovjours,
n'en parlons jamais."

APPENDIX TO IV (v)

L'HONNEUR CHEZ LE Lyc:£eN FRAN^AIS

II y a lieu, ce me semble, d'^tablir une division trds nette entre les
deux genres externe et interne. R^unis en classe, quatre ou cinq
heures chaque jour, ils sont ensuite s6par6s et ne peuvent communi-
quer entre eux. Les influences qu'ils subissent sont fort difidrentes
et leurs origines ne sont poinj identiques.

L'externe vit clans sa famille. Il'en spouse gSnSralement les id£es,
et le niveau de sa morality variera suivant le ton plus ou moins 61ev6,
les sentiments et la mentali1% de ses parents. II n'est en contact avec
ses camarades que pendant des heures braves chaque jour : en classe,
il est soumis k Taction morale du professeur, action trop courte, trop
intermittente et pas assez intime pour avoir grand effet, (en mettant

* Cf. Benson, The Schoolmaster, 149-160, and Skrine, Pastor Ag-
norum, pp. 198-201, where the whole question is discussed in a
practical manner.

144 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

i part, bien entendu, des exceptions rares, mais remarquables) . II
cause avec ses amis pendant quelques minutes k peine avant la classe ;
il accompagne un condisciple avant de rentrer chez lui, et c'est tout.
La formation mentale de I'externe est done, en somme, isol6e ou
fragmeutaire. Le type externe n'est pas uniforme.

L'616ve externe est cependant assez sensible au bon renom de son
lyc6e, surtont k Paris oil il existe plusieurs lyc6es qui se disputent les
prix du Concours G6n6ral. Dans les villes de province oil le lyc6e
est unique et I'emporte beaucoup sur les 6tablissements libres, ce
sentiment est naturellement trfes faible. L'esprit de camaraderie
est, chez I'externe, pen d6velopp6 en raison mSme de sa vie isoI6e.
Le jeune externe est gfinferalement trop choy6 dans sa famille : ses
qualit^s viriles sont, par suite, trfes peu marquees, sauf chez celni qui
pratique les exercices physiques . Ce dernier type tend ^ se rfipandre :
les associations scolaires sportives augmentent en nombre et en
importance.

Chez les bons 616ves, il y a une rivaUt6 ardente pour les places de
composition et les prix de fin d'ann^e. Parfois, ce dfeir trfes vif de
triompher dans les compositions pousse I'enfant ou le jeune homme
It user de moyens ilUcites, k copier sa composition. Cette faute paralt
plus fr^quente chez I'externe que chez I'inteme. Le code d'bonneur
qui la r^prouve avec Anergic est moin^ respects par les elfeves qui ne
vivent pas en commun. L'externe, plus eflf6min6, se bat rarement
avec un camarade. Les combats, en gdn^ral, ne sont pas r£gl6s, ont
lieu sans preparation, sans seconds. Les 61Sves externes ont presque
toujours de meilleures maniSres que les internes : leur contact
journalier avec leurs mferes, leurs soeurs, expUque ce fait. Chez les
grands, les tentations des grandes villes amSnent d'assez bonne heure
un rel^chement dans leurs moeurs. Le jeu aux courses est une des
plaies qui s6vit avec le plus d'intensitS.

Chez I'inteme se retrouvent les quaUt^s et les dSfauts inhfirents k
tons les hommes qui vivent en coUectivitfe exclusivement masculines.
II y a beaucoup d'analogie entre le pensionnaire au lyc6e et le soldat
k la caserne. Tous deux ont la mSme franchise un peu brutale, la
mSme galtfi exub^rante et un peu grossifere. L'esprit de camara-
derie, par I'effet ce cette vie en commun, est plus intense parmi les
internes que parmi leurs camarades externes. La dfenonciation d'un
camarade est considfirfie par eux comme une faute particulifiremeut
grave et punie avec s6v6rit6 par des brimades diverses, surtout par
la " Quarantaine."

Dans les lyc6es fran9ais aucune intimitfi n'existe entre les maltres
d'6tudes, le censeur et le proviseur d'une part, et la masse des 616ves
d'autre part. Le r61e des 6ducateurs semblant etre r6duit k I'appli-
cation des rfiglements disciplinaires, il rfigne une sorte d'etat de

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 145

guerre latent entre radministration et les ^ISves. Dans cette lutte,
les 616ves internes sont toujours 6troitement unis, et ils aiment mieux
Stre tons punis que de laisser chatier le camarade coupable d'une
faute commise dans rintfirfet (bien ou mal entendu) de tons. Dans
certains cas, ils forcent un coupable t se dSnoncer lui-m@me, mais ils
ne le dfinoncent pas. II existe done chez eux un veritable code
d'honneur dont les lois de la camaraderie sont la base. Dans les
associations telles que la "taupe," (candidats k Polytechnique), la
" Corniche" (candidats k St. Cyr), ces lois de la camaraderie sont
observ^es avec plus de rigueur encore.

Un dfifaut assez rfipandu chez les internes est la tournure d'esprit
que Ton appelle la fanfaronnade du vice. Les lendemains de congS,
I'inteme aime, en gSnfiral, 6tonner ses camarades par des rficits souvent
imaginaires des debauches qu'il a pu commettre, Le dimanche soir,
beaucoup de "grands" afiectent d'Stre gris en rentrant. L'interne
est souvent assez courageux ; issu d'une famille habitant la cam-
pagne, il connait les animaux, son temperament est robuste. II a,
en revanche, moins de finesse d'esprit et moins de d^licatesse que
I'exteme citadin. Les brimades individueUes sont rares, et toujours
un 616ve faible, maltrait6 de ses camarades, trouvera un defenseur.
Un 616ve n'est, on pent le dire en thSse g6n6rale, maltrait6 par ses
condisciples que lorsqu'il s'est montr^ mauvais camarade et pen
sympathique.

II est presque certain que, an point de vue du mensonge, la masse
des externes est d'un niveau moins 61ev6 que I'ensemble des pension-
naires. L'interne est un pen plus sincfere que I'exteme, pr6cis6ment
parce qu'il est plus viril.

Les batailles ne sont pas rares chez les internes. Le combat est
plus r6gl6 ; souvent mdme, il est stipul6 que les coups de pied seront
laiss^s de c6t6 ; des seconds aident parfois les combattants ; la
galerie de spectateurs veille jalousement k ce que la lutte soit rfe-
gulifere. Le combat est violent. L'intervention d'un maltre en
amSne d'ordinaire la terminaison.

Les vices secrets, point rares malheureusement, sont presque
affich^s par les jeunes internes. A partir de 15 ans {k pen pr6s)
l'interne ne conviendra point qu'il s'y livre et mentira en le niant ;
mais il fera profession ouverte, en revanche, d'avoir des relations avec
des femmes les jours de sortie.

C. Veillet-Lavall^e,
Licenci£-is-Leitres.

Note. — (1913.) For the changes on the moral question that are
taking place among the younger generation see Les jeunes Gens
d'aujourd'hui, pp. 63-64.

V. NEW EXPERIMENTS IN SECONDARY
EDUCATION

(i) The Chorus of Critics— Pere Didon

The critics of French secondary education have been
numerous, and their points of criticism have greatly varied.
Some have laid hold of the fact that the school is too
essentially a nursery of ofificialdom ; others who have seen
deeper have seen that the /o«s et origo mali is the Napoleonic
constitution of the lycie, which stUl persists, though its
raison d'etre'has gone. Others, again, have emphasized the
fact that extraneous influences, such as the desire of every
parent to get his son a place under Government, have
powerfully aided and abetted ideals inherent in the original
constitution of the lycSe. Yet another school of critics,
fastening on the overcrowded state of the hberal professions,
the comparative neglect of agriculture and commerce, the
growing number of dSclass&s, and the need of settlers for the
new colonial empire, have blamed the schools for fostering
antiquated ideas and for lack of sympathy with the principal
wants of to-day.

Many have turned their eyes abroad to see if there was
anything to be learnt from foreign nations ; a few have
looked towards Germany, but the majority have turned
towards England. Each has found there the particular
remedy he desired. One might indeed say of many of them,
not on prend son bien oil on le trouve, but on trouve son bien
oil on veut le trouver. The critics of overwork find in the
English games an antidote and recreation ; the partisans
of colonization find in them an excellent means of making
men of muscle, strong and sturdy in the physical sense of
the word. The more educated see in them not merely an
instrument of physical education but also a moral instru-

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 147

ment of the first value. To some of these reformers
games would appear to be an all-sufficient panacea.

Others would go further, and break down the party wall
between education cind instruction by interesting the pro-
viseur and professor in the larger sphere of these duties, and
by abolishing the fatal distinction between repMitmr and
professor. At the same time they would reduce the hours
of work, and modernize the curricula. The more extreme
would revolutionize the programmes from top to bottom
and sweep away the university in the process. The great
reform which has been accompUshed in the Government
schools, and which has been treated of elsewhere, has mainly
dealt with the reform of the curricula ; moral education
and hygiene have not, as M. Duhamel says, been absolutely
sacrificed, but they occupy a comparatively minor position
in the Commission's recommendations.

At the side of and even in advance of this great official
reform a certain number of attempts have been made to
tackle the problem by members of the enseignement lihre
and by private individuals anxious to put into practice
their theories of reform. One of the first and certainly
greatest reformers who submitted his theories to the test
of experience was the late PSre Didon, head ^ of the ficole
Albert le Grand at Arcueil, and founder of the schools of
Laplace and Lacordaire.

Pere Didon was not only an educational reformer, he was
also a personahty in the rehgious world. The favourite
disciple of Lacordaire, he is admirably described in the words
that the latter apphed to himself as " a fervent Catholic
and an impenitent Liberal." To his abilities as a thinker
and organizer he added the rare gift of being an orator
of the first rank. He was therefore able to give full value
and expression to his message. Unhappily cut off by a
sudden stroke while still in the fullest possession of all his
powers, he left behind him no regular treatise on education.

Fortunately he had pubUshed a year or two before a
collection of addresses, entitled L' Education presente, from
which we have already had occasion to quote, delivered for
* He was prieur.

148 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the most part at prize-givings, which were the occasions he
usually selected for the dissemination of his doctrines.
They have naturally no very close connection with one
another. It is possible their author was not altogether
displeased with the result. In his horror of the abuse of
systems in France he had, curiously enough, a somewhat
strange disUke of system. Yet these disjecta membra
contain enough and more than enough to show what an
admirable educator in the highest sense of the word was
lost to France by his premature death.
The preface to the book gives the keynote of his purpose.

" In the midst of the difficulties and dangers in which the present
generation is living is it not one of our most imperative duties to go
to the young, to live with them, to instruct them, to make them moral
beings, to prepare them for their future place in the world, to inspire
them with the new spirit which desires to make itself master of their
souls as yet untouched, in order to make them the docile instruments
of its new creations ? "

Thence he passes straight away to the impeachment of
the actual system of education.

" Is French education in touch with the social, economic, political,
democratic, scientific, intellectual or religious world of to-day
{milieu), that is at present a prey to every form of struggle, every
form of activity, and condemned to a perpetual state of flux ? No.

" Does it aim at forming beings who are physically strong ? No.

' ' At forming determined and courageous characters, who are their
own masters and have no fear of compromising themselves ? No.

" At forming intelligent and cultivated characters ? Perhaps.

" At forming pliant and supple characters, consciences that are
weak and complacent ? I fear so.

" Well-balanced minds which see rightly and clearly ? No.

" Souls whose dauntless and well-reasoned faith is beyond the
reach of an unbelief that masquerades as the loftiest wisdom and
scientific infallibility ? No.

" Citizens whose valiant patriotism the soul of the country will find
ever ready to respond to her cry for assistance ? No.

' ' Men of action, in short, who know how to make up their minds
by themselves, how to decide for themselves, how to take action them-
selves, only count on themselves, convinced that after God the
victory in every conflict falls to the most enduring, to the most per-
sistent, that is to say the most worthy ? No."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 149

He points out that

" The new spirit of the times enjoins work up to and including the
severest toil, demands a will capable of being its own master, full of
enterprise, trained for the conflict, strong even to the limits of en-
durance. It desires an upright and well-balanced intelligence. . . .
It requires a well-trained body ... an incorruptible conscience, a
dauntless character ; a heart passionately attached to justice ; a
nature enamoured of all that is ideally beautiful, a patriotism that
hungers after the greatness, the expansion, the glory and prosperity
of the country."

What then is wanted to give free play to these principles ?

" A less restricted and passive regime, allowing room for the spon-
taneous action of character and temperament, multiplying the
occasions for initiative, and giving free play to the responsibilities
of each individual ; a manly rSgime which not only demands a passive
obedience under outward discipline, but a freedom of action and
unconstrained confidence in chiefs whose highest aim is to make
themselves beloved ; a rigime adapted to the preparation for life,
and to the proper use of liberty. . . . Such a rigime seems desirous
of breaking with the ancient method of education in general." *

The year after the pubUcation of L'£ducation presents
Pere Didon came to England, and there he found in our
large pubUc schools the confirmation of what he was trying
to do in his own country, and the realization and completion
of many of his dreams. What struck him most was the
admirable system of self-government among the boys them-

' In justice to P6re Didon's Catholic predecessors in the same field,
one must mention the name of Dupanloup. Here is what P6caut (a
witness certainly above suspicion) says of the seminary at Orleans :
"II n'y a pas Id, un sysUme, des reglements : il y a mieux : c'est un
organisme vivant, une &me partout ripandue, et des organes approprUs,
des moyens riguUers d' action ; ily a une doctrine morale cachee, une vue
d'ensemble suv la nature humaine, sur sa valeur et sa destinie, sur la
direction a imprimer d, la vie, etc. : et, pour traduire et rialiser cet esprit,
pour en f aire une habitude mentale des Slaves, ily a des institutions, des
reunions et des allocutions quotidiennes ou hebdomadaires. II y a,
enfin, dans cette vie de I'internat, autre chose que des itudes, des lefons,
une discipline (quitdble, desjeux : ily a un rayon, ily a des ivdnements,
des Amotions, des incitations, bref tout un regime de vie morale qui im-
prime une marque sur les caract^res, qui laisse de longs souvenirs, qui
contribue & determiner la direction definitive de la volenti de I'enfant en
mSme temps qu'il lui adoucit les anndes de cldture." {Revue pida-
gogique, July 1909 : " Les Lettres de P^caut a Greard.")

150 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

selves, coupled with the excellent relations that prevailed
between boys and masters. He was never tired of sajdng
that these schools were the finest possible nurseries for
future rulers and governors, and that he who learnt to rule
at school was fit to rule the Indies afterwards. Of the
many foreign visitors to EngUsh schools he was the first to
realize to the full what he, in fact, had already more or less
realized at home, the educational possibilities of athletics.

The immense power of tradition in moulding the life of
the school impressed him deeply ; the devotion of the staff
to the school, and the pride of the old boys for the ancient
and religious foundation in which they had been reared,
seemed to him very precious auxiliaries in knitting together
all who were or had been in contact with the schools. He
loved to trace the influence of the great rehgious founders
which still lingered round many of the schools and had
maintained those traditions of pubUc spirit and of serving
the State which date back from the time when the great
Churchmen were also the leading Ministers of State.

More especially was he struck with the boundless influence
of the school milieu on the bringing up of the boys. He
dilated on the value of space, of light and air as essential
not only to health but also to the development of that un-
conscious sense of freedom and unconstraint which is the
best aid to fostering that inner freedom of self-control. He
dreamt of creating a school on some woody dechyity near
the banks of the Seine, a sort of combined Eton and Harrow
La Montague (as he loved to call it), which should be the
very antithesis of the ordinary French school and should
be the reaUzation of all he had thought out on the subject.
To him as to Thring " the mighty wall " had an irresistible
attraction.

Like Thring, he was above all the apostle of Ufe. Any
idea of the mechanical in education was hateful to him.
He was never tired of inveighing against the breeding of
tame officials or the manufacture of machine-made human
automata. In one eloquent passage in L' Education prisente
he speaks of the garden nursery as the boarding house of
flowers, and of the boarding house as the garden nm^ery

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 151

of men. Above all he insisted on every boy selecting while
still at school a definite career.^ Thring declared that every
boy could be made to take an interest in something. P6re
Didon went still further, and in his horror of waste-products
determined that every pupil who left his school should leave
it not only fully armed for the battle of life but with a com-
mission in his pockets. At one of the prize-givings at
Albert le Grand he was able to make the proud boeist that
of forty boys who were leaving at the end of the term there
was not one who had not got something definite to do.

Unhappily his sudden death shortly after his return from
England did not permit him to realize in bricks and mortar
the last great dream of his Hfe. But in Albert le Grand,^ at
Laplace and Lacordaire, he had already put his educational
theories to the test of practice with considerable success.
A certain autonomy reigtjed in the school which was not
noticeable elsewhere. One could not help being struck by
the greater manliness and independence of the boys — among
whom he had already introduced a certain amount of
independence, especially in connection with the management
of the games. Altogether the school was in an exceedingly
flourishing state, and there is no knowing to what a pitch
of success he would have brought it had his hfe been spared.

What the ultimate fate of the school may be one cannot
pretend to predict, but his influence, his written work must
remain to be read and digested even by those who were not
in all things in agreement with him. It is well known that
he took copious notes of his visit to Enghsh schools. It
would be worth while for the chiefs of his order, who in
these matters are his spiritual heirs, seriously to consider if
these impressions are not in a sufficiently advanced state
to be given to the world. Their publication would not
only give a fuller and finer idea of one who was a glory to
their order, and a notable figure in his own country, it
would also help to forward the cause of true education.

' See L'^ducation prisente, p. 344.

*NoTE. — (1909.) The school has now passed into lay hands, at
least in name. But his doctrines of life being essentially active,
together with those of M. Bergson, are widely held by many young
men of to-day of 19-25. See Lesjeunes Gens d'aujourd'hui passim.

152 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

(ii) M. Demolins and his Imitators

In 1896 M. Demolins, a well-known French writer and
economist of the school of Leplay, attended the Edinburgh
summer meeting. He met there the principal of an English
private school in which a certain number of novel experi-
ments were being tried. The result of the acquaintance
was a volume on the causes of Anglo-Saxon superiority.
The book at once attracted a certain amount of attention
in Frcince. An educationed campaign was going on at the
time. The author was taken up by Jules Lemaitre and
others who were anxious to reform the existing rigime.
From that moment the success of the book was assured.
M. Demohns became the man of the hour, and not only the
French but the European Press gave a wide publicity to
the real or supposed causes of Anglo-Saxon superiority.

Leaving out of account the philosophical theories on
which the book is based, and which happily need neither
confirmation nor refutation here, an analysis of its contents
reveals that, while it is full of a good many striking assertions
about Enghsh education which can only be classed as
doubtful, it nevertheless contains a certain jmioimt of
verites a ripandre, as the French say. The title of the first
chapter poses the main question straight away. " Does the
French system breed men ? " " Ask," says the author,
" any hundred young Frenchmen on leaving school for what
professions they are preparing ; three-fourths will reply to
you that they are candidates for official posts." This
excessive competition is the direct cause of the present
terrible overpressure in the schools and of the wrong bias
given to the education of the general run of bojre, which is
certainly not the best for them, because an education that
trains of&cials "can train for httle else and is especicdly ill-
adapted to form men."

After pointing out the weak spots in the German system,
that some reformers seem incHned to copy, M. Demohns
arrives at the Enghsh system. Here the principal of the
school which he describes in detail was careful to tell him

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 153

that the school is in many ways quite original, yet the
heading of the chapter runs, " Does the English System form
Men ? " In the next chapter M. Demolins asks, How do
these EngUsh people act towards their children ? The
following hst will show at once the shrewdness of the
author and the dangers of insufficient generahzation.

1. " The parents do not consider their children as belong-

ing to them, as a species of goods and chattels, as a
simple continuation of their own personaUty, as a
sort of survival of themselves. On the contrary,
they regard them as beings who ought soon to
become independent of them."
Instead of coddling them they try to hasten on the neces-
sary emancipation. Which parent, the French or the
English, is the less selfish reaUy ?

2. " The parents treat their offspring from the outset and

always as grown-up persons, as (fistinct personalities."
Here is the same truth as in i, but in an exaggerated form.

3. " The parents in education look to future needs, to

the new needs of hfe, and not to the conditions of a
past age."
Can we really say that EngUsh education is more up-to-
date than the French ?

4. " The parents have a sovereign regard not only as we

for health (and yet do we not sacrifice it to study, to
examinations, to Uving in towns, etc. ?), but they
have a sovereign regard for strength, for full develop-
ment, and also as far as possible for the development
of physical energy."

5. " The parents very early in hfe train their children in

the practice of everyday hfe. They let them go out
alone, send them on errands, etc."

6. " The parents generally have their children taught a

handicraft."
This is at least a great exaggeration, though the technical
schools have done something for the lower middle class.
But, then, have not the French technical schools ?

154 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

7. " Parents anticipate their children in the knowledge

of all useful novelties."
True : we are certainly a fact-loving nation, as our news-
papers testify, but the parental Mr. Barlow who gets up
subjects for his children is a much rarer creature than
M. Demolins fancies. Again, as far as one's own experience
goes, the French home has certainly a far more civilizing
influence than the EngUsh, in which hterature and art are
rarely discussed.

8. " In appearance they make little use of their authority

in dealing with their children."
This means they are less autocratic, which is probably true.

9. " The children are aware that their parents do not

imdertake to find them a place."

This is, of course, largely true.

The typical young Englishmen are therefore " strong in
thew and sinew, habituated to reaUty, in contact with
material facts, always treated as men, trained to rely on
themselves, and, regarding life as a combat ^ (which is
eminently Christian), face the difficulties of life in all the
vigour of their superabundant youth."

According to M. Demolins, the moral action which implies
the sacrifice of self is insufficient to bring about social
improvement ; the moral action which is recdly efficacious
is that which consists in self-conquest, and this is best learnt
in a society in which man is obliged to rely on himself.
One sees that M. Demolins is an individualist, and his
gospel is the gospel of self-help.

By the phenomenal success of his book M. DemoUns
suddenly found himself acclaimed as an educational expert.
He took up the rSle thus attributed to him seriously, and his
succeeding volume, L' Education nouvelle, which is largely
based on a study of the system in vogue at Bedales, he
worked out as a complete theory of education.

Being a man of action, he did not let the matter rest, but,
encouraged by the crowd of letters which poured in to him

' Cf. Le P6re Didon, V Education prisente, p. 25 : " Nous sotnmes
nis combatants."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 155

from every quarter of France, concurrently with the writing
of his book he took steps to give a practical illustration of
his theories. He formed a company which purchased the
chateau of Les Roches, together with its domain of some
sixty acres, about two miles outside Verneuil, which is two
hours by train from Paris on the Granville line. L'Sducaiion
nouvelle was not merely an educational treatise, it was
meant to be above aU a prospectus of the new school, ex-
plaining its raison d'etre, its aims, and the manner in which
they were to be realized.

M. Demolins begins the volume by pointing out the lack
of friendly relations between the French pupil and those
in authority, whether frofesseurs or repMiteurs. He con-
demns the divorce made between the two functions of the
teacher, dilates on the general evil effects of the regime of
distrust which pervades the boarding school, criticizes
adversely the crowding together of vast masses of boys, and
deplores the mistaken pohcy of planting big boarding schools
in the middle of towns instead of in the middle of the
country. Having placed his son in an Enghsh school, M.
Demolins appreciates the value of the offices of professor
and repeiiteur being held by one and the same person.

He dilates on the advantages of the life in common of
boys and masters, of small classes in which individual
attention is possible. He points out the bad side of the
speciaUst professor, his difficulty in coming down to the
level of the young, his lack of influence owing to his lack
of power to arouse interest. He praises the open-air life of
the English school, which renders thereby a love of nature
possible. In emphasizing the merits of the monitorial
system he relates how the thing that most struck his son
at the school was that one never lied. It was hot necessary,
because one was not spied on.

He next passes to the programme he proposes for his new
school. Greek and Latin he gives up for the great majority
of the boys, only keeping them for those who take up a
literary career after the age of thirteen. On the contrary,
far greater prominence are given to English and German,
which have at the start eight hours a week instead of one

156 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

and a half as in the old official programme. In postponing
classics M. Demolins may fairly boast of having anticipated
the new official programme. With the time thus saved
from classics, the mother tongue, history and geography,
and science and drawing come in for a larger share of
attention.

Up to thirteen the programme is the same for aU boys ;
differentiation takes place at that age, and the progranune
is divided up into four courses, letters, science, agriculture
and colonization, industry and commerce. The difficulties
of learning Latin late are to be got over by the free use of
translations. Modern languages are to be taught on the
direct method. All pupils have to spend at least three
months abroad, either in England or Germany, in certain
carefully selected schools. No doubt they will not only
acquire a good grip of the foreign language, but also a tinge
of that celebrated Anglo-Saxonism.

Mathematics are to be taught in a practical manner. The
mornings will be taken up with this head-work. In the
afternoons the pupils will have either games or practical
work. The latter will consist of gardening and agricultural
work, or wood and iron work, or visits to farms, factories,
natural history excursions, surveying and drawing out
plans. The evenings are devoted to artistic occupations or
social recreation. Each evening has its particular occupa-
tion ; beginning with Monday evening, there are readings
in the hves of great men, etc., recitations and acting, wood-
carving, modelling, dancing, concerts, music and singing,
lectures and magic-lantern shows. Sunday evening is
devoted to moral and social instruction, Sunday morning
to reUgious instruction and to attending church, an aumdnier
and a pastern being attached to the school. A short account
of the school shows that it is furnished and equipped
according to the latest requirements of hygiene.

The school appears to have been a success from the very
first. It opened in 1899 with eighty pupils, the maximum
it could take. A large number of these pupils had already
spent several months in England and Germany. A visit
to the school towards the end of the first term proved a

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 157

very interesting experience. Thanks to their prehminary
sojourn in England, the great majority of the pupils had
already fallen into the ways of the English masters on the
staff, on whom the chief weight of running the school on
EngUsh Unes naturally fell. A regular monitorial system
had been estabhshed, and a start had been made with the
manual and out-of-door work which was to be one of the
features of the new school.

The day of my visit the last school run of the term took
place. The pupils were each of them timed separately
with a view to improving each on his own time. The
course was some three miles in length, and many had
already succeeded in covering the entire distance without
stopping, a matter which had rather been an exception at
the outset, owing to 'the lack of endurance. The French
and Enghsh members of the staff were on good terms,
though it was clear that they belonged to very different
regimes. M. Demohns had very wisely placed his school
not merely outside Paris but also at some distance from it,
in order to prevent the school being overrun by the parents.

Unluckily he had reckoned without the telephone, and
anxious mothers, separated for the first time in their Uves
from their offspring, were not slow to find out and appreciate
this useful method of communication. Conversation and
even weeping by telephone became so common that drastic
measures had to be taken and telephonic intercourse re-
stricted to certain definite days and hours. In a similar
fashion the visits of the parents to the school had to be
regulated. The school has rapidly been increasing in
numbers. House after house has been built, till the number
of houses amounts to six and the pupils number 180. To
judge by the pictures in the prospectus the school has put
into practice many of the interesting reforms sketched out
in L'Education nouvelle?-

The hours of work, however, seem very short in com-
parison with those in the State schools, which may well be
excessive, but which are more or less necessary for the

' Note. — (1909.) M. Demolins died last year, but his school still
continues to flourish. — (i 913.) It now contains 1 80 pupils.

158 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

passing of the baccalaurSat. If the school through superior
teaching is able to turn out the average number of bacheUers,
its success is secured. Otherwise, considering the fact that
the baccalaurSat is the entrance to aU professions and to the
Civil Service, the great majority of parents will send their
children elsewhere, preferring rather not to endanger their
future prospects in life, even if they possibly endanger
their health.

It seems all too possible that M. Demohns, in his move-
ment in favour of games and hygiene and in reaction against
excessive intellectualism, has gone too far. As long as the
entrance to a career depends on passing an examination,
the examination has got to be passed. Besides — as we
have seen in the English schools — one can easily lower the
intellectual side of the school below safety point. Again,
it is significant that the proportion of foreigners on the new
staff has greatly decreased, and that two EngUsh masters
who acted as pioneers in the new school have left and set
up a school for themselves at Liancourt, in Oise, of which
one hears excellent accounts.

This school, which is called " L'ficole de I'lle de France,"
is about an hour by train from Paris. It occupies the former
Chateau of Liancourt, which is situated in the midst of a
magnificent park, surrounded by gardens, woods, and a
farm. The size of the property is about 600 acres. The
farm allows of pupils studying agriculture. Two foreign
languages are taught low down in the school, which also
prepares for the haccalaureat. Out of school hours the
greatest liberty is allowed to pupils.

The discipline is largely in the hands of the senior boys,
who act as captains. ReUgious instruction and religious
facihties of worship are provided for Catholic and Protestant.
Games and manual work are obligatory. Every day the
pupils have at least three hours in the open air. They are
" hardened " by the use of cold water and the practice of
open windows. A large lake provides the opportunity for
swimming and skating. Every pupil has to pass an ex-
amination on entrance. The examination is not only
intellectual but physical and moral. The pupils pass a

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 159

preparatory period in England or Germany from three
months to a year in duration. No exeats are allowed.

Among various points of interest in the prospectus, one
notes the wise decision to maintain the ordinary school
hours while lessening the amount of work to be done out of
school. The rdles of professor and surveillant are exercised
by one and the same person. Several ladies on the staff
act as housekeepers and teach in the lower classes, and add
a family element to the establishment. Great efforts are
made to develop the will, initiative, the sentiment of inde-
pendence and of personal dignity in the pupils. These, it
is recognized, can only be obtained by the system of perfect
confidence between teachers and taught, who collaborate
themselves in the matter of keeping order.

Evidently the aim of the school is to impress on the head
boys the sense of responsibility. The confidence placed in
the pupils is not bUnd, hence the need of discipline combined
with ever-ready S5anpathy for the pupils. The true idea
of the school is that it is really and truly the apprenticesliip
to society. The system of prizes is avoided as dangerous
and tending to undue individualism. The description of
subjects and the method of teaching contain many excellent
hints. Although the school is hardly two years old, it
contains already seventy-five pupils. ^ ^

(iii) M. DUHAMEL

The foundation of Les Roches was in part a protest against
the existing educational system, the opening of a mons sacer

1 Note. — (1913.) It now contains 104 pupils.

' Note. — (1909.) It is worth noting that a certain section of the
Protestant community are dissatisfied with the present state of
the primary schools, where in some cases the so-called neutrality of the
school has given way to a more militant attitude towards religion.
They are seriously talking of founding a certain number of schools of
their own, and particularly of enlarging a small secondary school in
the east of France which, attached to an elementary school, has
hitherto served as a source of recruitment for the pastorate. They
propose to use it for the training of future teachers, and also for the
education of ordinary pupils.

i6o STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

which definitely broke with the Capitoline University. The
third reformer, M. Duhamel, is less intransigeani. Here is
his profession of faith :

" The founders of the College de Normandie . . . are trying an
educational reform without any covert idea of hostility to the official
education, but also with a frankly acknowledged desire to create in
the light of day a new school system which will show the elements of
decay in the old system and will gradually bring about its trans-
formation. They openly claim to pertain to the university through
its high standard of instruction and its literary and philosophical
spirit, they dissociate themselves from it in all matters concerning
the formation of the moral and physical man. . . . [The present
enterprise] is not a work of discord or faction, but a courteous and
unselfish struggle for the best in which all honest folk can take a
part." 1

He then passes to the question as to why a new type of
school is necessary. The report of the Parliamentary Com-
mission of Inquiry dealt too exclusively with pedagogical
and financial questions, to the comparative neglect of those
dealing with health and moral education. But while the
instructional side may be improved and modified, the edu-
cational needs practically to be recreated. The chief things
wanting to-day are men of will and sound physique as well
as of well-educated minds.

He next proceeds to a diagnosis of the actual results of
French education as it is. The general effects of a boarding-
school Ufe are bad. The pupil

" has had an unhappy time. For years, one has glared upon him,
shut him up in a cloister, condemned him to silence, has only ap-
proached him with extreme reserve. He has only seen Ufe from one
side, the saddest, that of the silent boarding-school system."

When hberty arrives, he abuses it. His will too is weak.
He has a great lack of energy. The seat of these evils lies
in the system itself, which is based on distrust or suspicion.
Hence a regime of incessant invigilation and close confine-
ment within four walls. This distrust to which he has been
subjected the pupil in his turn carries out with him into his
after-life. To remedy this evil, confidence should begin at

' Comment (lever nos Fits, p. v.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS i6i

school. It is intact one of the four corner-stones of educa-
tion, the others being love of the pupil, patience with him
and the Ufe in common with him. Liberal studies are not in
themselves a liberal education in the wide sense of the word.
The aim of the school is not merely to produce good
HtMrafeurs and good officials, the supreme interest of France
is to breed a numerous and healthy race. The teaching
methods in France are good enough. There is no need of
going outside to seek others. What defects there are are
due to the overcrowded state of the programmes. In
matters of health it is otherwise. Not five per cent, of
boarding pupils could answer the following questions in the
afi&rmative :

1. Are the windows of your dormitory opened day and
night the whole year through ?

2. Do you exercise sufficiently every day the most
important muscles of your arm, your chest, your abdomen,
and your legs ?

3. Do you take a cold or tepid bath every day or even
three times a week ?

4. Are your clothes fairly loose at the neck, at the hips,
roimd the waist ?

5. Do you carefully clean your teeth, your nose, and your
ears ?

6. Have you an idea of the laws which govern the health
of your body and your physical well-being ?

The ordinary rule in most of the schools appears to be a
complete bath once a term and a footbath once a month.
The parents are in this matter far from being without blame.
They do not Uft a finger to alter the present state of things,
and yet overwork (ten to twelve hours a day), badly venti-
lated rooms, overcrowding, insufficient food, and insufficient
sleep are playing havoc with the boys. ^ The health statistics
prove it. The educated class, consisting of those who have

^ Note. — (1913.) For more recent improvements see Dr. Mathieu's
article in HygUne scolaire (Oct. 191 1), summarized in notes on pages
27, 121.

B.E. L

i62 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

taken a B.A., furnishes 11.5 per cent, less recruits than the
other classes (and yet these B.A.'s are almost exclusively
taken from the well-to-do classes).

Consumption is rampant in the schools. Of thirty-three
rip^iteurs who have died during the last four years, sixteen,
or 49 per cent., were victims to consumption. Health is
therefore to be a strong point at the new school. There are,
according to M. Duhamel, two periods in the scholar's hfe,
the one terminating roughly at thirteen, and the other
beginning about that date. Each period will receive the
teaching appropriate to it at the new school.

But the essential aim in education is the formation of
character.^ The means to this end are an apprenticeship
in the responsibiUty framed on the EngUsh monitorial
system and fortified by the disciphne that comes from
games. To render the life in common real, there will be
in each house a house master who wiU share the hfe and
meals of the pupils. The principal of the new college will
be no mere administrator, he will be master, nay, headmaster
in the fullest English sense of the word.

Of the professors, some will become house masters and
receive a sort of capitation fee on the pupils in their houses,
in order to stimulate interest and emulation ; the others wiU
live either near or in the school itself, but all will take an
active interest in the school life. AU will receive a living
wage and be able to quaUfy for pensions. Even the relations
between the principal and the professors are laid down. He
will supervise the teaching, but will not play the spy on
them. Masters' meetings will be frequent. Candidates
for the post of teacher will have to give evidence not only of
intellectual but of physical and moral quahties. Some
knowledge of pedagogics will be expected.

An old cMteau in Normandy, some 530 feet above the
sea, situated in a weU-wooded park, and approached by a
magnificent avenue 500 yards in length, the whole property
amounting to nearly 300 acres, has been selected as the seat
of the school. The school has its own fruit, butter, and eggs.

1 " Savoir est pen de chose ; vouloir, agir, voild ce qui importe." —
M, Hanotaux, Du Choix d'une Cavrihe, p. 6.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 163

The situation near Clares, the station where the lines of
Dieppe and Rouen and Havre and Amiens intercept one
another, places it in direct communication with all the prin-
cipal towns in the north of France. The chdieau itself
forms the headmaster's house ; the class-rooms are attached ;
anything like a collection of barracks wDl be avoided.
The houses where the pupils hve are scattered over the
park. These embody the latest improvements in school
construction and hygiene, as the detailed plans given in the
book show.

The religious teaching will be undenominational, the
ministers of the various reUgious denominations will have
free access to the school, and on Sunday the Cathohc boys
go to mass in the village chapel, and facihties for worship
will be found for the others. Every morning and evening
there will be a short moral reading by the headmaster or
house master.

The question of dress is next considered. Masters will
wear their gowns in school. Pupils will have a regular
dress but not a uniform, and mufti will be allowed in
the holidays. Prefects will have a badge, and each house
its own colour.

The school wiU begin with very few boys. It is all-
important to form a moral centre at the outset. New boys
are requested to make a preUminary stay in England.
Classics will be kept for an SUte. In modern languages the
direct method is followed. A debating society will be
started, and the school will have its own songs. The
question of fresh air, ventilation, feeding and dress are care-
fully discussed. Every pupil will be weighed and measured
at the beginning and end of each term. The hours of work
and play are very carefully arranged. In addition to games
there will be Swedish exercises. Great stress is laid on
manual work as a means of discipUne, of health and educa-
tion, as well as a valuable form of recreation. The vices
secrets will be carefully guarded against. Their physio-
logical causes will not be ignored any more than their
psychological.

The remainder of the book is given up to a comparison

i64 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

between the methods of study and standard of attainment
in England and France, in which the palm is awarded to
France. Hence M. Duhamel concludes that there is no
good in rejecting what is good in French education, more
especially as the object in view is not to produce pale and
ineffectual imitations of EngUsh boys but strong and
energetic French men. As he well says :

" Our reform is essentially French. It is not a question of chang-
ing the national temperament of our children, nor, in a word, to make
English men of them, but to develop in them the national quaUties
of their race, which are real and only require an appropriate
culture to spring into life. ' Franfais je suis ' is the motto we
have chosen."

Comment elever nos Fits appeared in 1901. In 1902 the
College de Normandie opened its doors to seven pupils, and
a much larger number had to be refused for lack of accom-
modation. A visit paid to the school in June, 1902, showed
that an excellent beginning had been made, and that the
extensive programme we have given above was being realized
in all its details. The governing body happened to be
giving a sort of informal house-warming on the day of my
arrival. Among the guests — a matter which will speak
volumes to the ordinary French mind — ^was no less a
person than the Director of Secondary Education, M. Rabier.
A long conversation with him showed how entirely in
sympathy he was with the aims of the school.

In September, 1903, the school contained forty pupils
with ten professors. A new house had just been opened
and another had just been projected. The principle of
gradually enlarging the school is being strictly adhered to.
A recent visit to the school produced a very pleasant im-
pression. The new buildings are excellent from every
point of view. The relations between the boys and masters
are very pleasant. There has been no attempt to Anghcize
the boys, but none the less there are abundant signs that
the ideals of manhness, frankness, and good-comradeship
are held high in honour in the school. The numerous
reforms outhned in Comment Uever nos Fits have not been
allowed to remain as a mere profession of faith, but have

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 165

already been largely realized in practice. The standard
of work seems to be quite up to that of the lyc&e. Yet
in spite of the hard work the boys have a healthy look.
According to all appearances the school has a brilliant
prospect before it.^

Some 200 years ago ^ the amval in England of those early
&migr&s, the Huguenots, set up a strong reflex current in
EngUsh ideas which resulted in the influence of Locke
extending to France and materially aiding thereby in the
creation of a work which has had the most profound influence
on the minds of French educators — the Emile of Rousseau.
Within the last ten years a similar inflow of Enghsh educa-
tional ideas has been estabUshed, and he would be a bold
man who would dare to say that the work and writing of
the three reformers Didon, Demolins, and Duhamel may
not in their turn have as profound an effect on French
education.

It is to be hoped that this anxiety to learn and readiness
to adopt what is good elsewhere will not be confined to one
side of the Channel, and that we in England may exhibit
an increased wilUngness to imitate our French neighbours
in those matters in which we have no little to learn from
them, such as the proper study of the mother tongue and
the working out of proper curricula for our schools. As

^ Note. — (1909.) A third house has now been built, and a fourth is
under way. There are now sixty-three boys [eighty-two — 1913], and
a large crowd are awaiting admission. The school has done brilliantly
in the examinations, and all promises a fair future. No doubt this
school, as well as those of Liancourt and Les Roches, at present cater
only for a limited class of wealthy parents. But just as the public
schools of England have suggested the erection of less expensive
boarding schools, it does not seem beyond the reach of probability
that once these schools have justified their existence they should
give rise to the creation in their turn of boarding schools that should
suit parents of more moderate means. — (1913.) A society has just
been formed under M. Paul Desjardins, Directeur de I'Union pour
la V6rit6, to found a school or schools on the lines of the College de
Normandie, but with fees which are more within the reach of the
average bourgeois.

' See /.-/. Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature, by
M.J Texte (translated by W. Mathews ; London, Duckworth).

i66 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the French have shown signs of desiring to learn something
of the moral ideas in English education, we shall be equally
well advised to inquire into what they have to teach us in
those intellectual aims which are and have ever been the
vivida vis of the French system.^

1 NoTB. — (1909.) Cf. M. Jules Gautier, the Director of Secondary
Education in France, in a remarkable address delivered at the Franco-
British Exhibition, October 22nd, 1908 : " Je crois, Mesdames et
Messieurs, que deux pays comme la France et I'Angleterre peuvent
singulUrement s'aider dans une ceuvre de ce genre, si elles veulent unir
leurs efforts, et si elles veulent prendre chacune chez V autre ce qu'ily a de
grand et de ban pour I'appliquer it I' Education de la jeunesse et A, I'amS-
lioration de I'humaniti. Nous vous avons dSjd, emprunti beaucoup de
choses, notamment tout ce qui concerne le diveloppement de I' Education
physique, car vous avez su avant nous accorder au corps V attention qu'il
mirite, parce que ce n'est que dans le corps solide qu'existe un esprit sain.
Dans le domaine de Education intellectuelle et morale je suis venu ici
vous exposer que nous avons fait, afin que, s'il y a quelque chose de bon
vous puissiez en profiler, I'adapter a votre ginie national." (The
Progress of Secondary Education in France. A lecture by M. Jules
Gautier. London ; Routledge.)

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Secondary and other Schools (not being Public Elementary or
Technical Schools) in England (excluding Monmouthshire), and
of the Teaching Staff in such Schools, on ist June, 1897. (Cd.
8634.) London. Wyman & Sons. 1898.

General Reports on Higher Education, with Appendices, for the

Year 1902. (Cd. 1738.) London. Wyman & Sons. 1902.

Regulations for Secondary Schools (from ist August, 1903, to 31st

July, 1904). (Cd. 1668 and later issues.) (Issued annually.)

London. Wyman & Sons. 1903 and onwards.

Consultative Committee. Proposals for a System of School

Certificates. [London.] 1904.

Board of Education Act, 1899 (62 & 63 Vict., ch. 33).

London. Wyman & Sons. 1899.
Education Act, 1902 (2 Edw. VII., ch. 42).

London. Wyman & Sons. 1902.
Endowed Schools (Masters) Act, 1908 (8 Edw. VII., ch. 39).

London. Wyman & Sons. 1908.
Intermediate Education Board for Ireland. Report of the

Temporary Inspectors, 1903.
Balfour (Graham) — The Educational Systems of Great Britain and

Ireland. 2nd Edition. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1903.
CouLTON (G. G.) — Public Schools and the Public Needs. Suggestions
for the Reform of our Teaching Methods in the Light of Modem
Requirements.

London. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. 1901.
Hughes (R. E.) — The Making of Citizens. A Study in Comparative
Education. (The Contemporary Science Series.)

London. The Walter Scott Publishing Co. 1902.
Magnus (Laurie) — -National Education. Essays towards a Con-
structive Policy. Edited by Laurie Magnus.

London. Murray. 1901.

Sadler (M. E.)— Report on Secondary and Higher Education. (City
of Sheffield Education Committee.)

London. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1903.
ScoTT (R. P.) — " What is Secondary Education ? " and other Short
Essays by Writers of Practical Experience on Various Aspects
of the Problem of Organisation. Edited, with Preface, by
R. P. Scott. London. Rivingtons. 1899.

Tarver (J. C.) — Some Observations of a Foster Parent.

Westminster. Constable. 1897.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH SECONDARY SCHOOLS 171

Tarver (J. C.) — Debateable Claims : Essays on Secondary Edu-
cation. Westminster. Constable. 1898.

Wilkinson (Spencer) — The Nation's Need. Chapters on Education.
Edited by Spencer Wilkinson.

Westminster. Constable. 1903.

Barnett (P. A.) — Teaching and Organisation, with Special Refer-
ence to Secondary Schools. A manual of practice, edited by
P. A. Barnett. London. Longmans. 1897.

Barnett (P. A.) — Common Sense in Education and Teaching.

London. Longmans. 1899.

Benson (A. C.) The Schoolmaster. London. Murray. 1902.

CooKSON (Christopher) — Essays in Secondary Education. By various
Contributors. Edited by Christopher Cookson.

Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1898.

FiNDLAY (J. J.) — Principles of Class Teaching.

London. Macmillan. 1902.

London County Councii,. Report of a Conference on the Teaching
of English in London Elementary Schools.

London. P. S. King. 1909.

Ogle (John J.) — Special Report on the Connection between the
Public Library and the PubUc Elementary School. (Board of
Education Snecial Reports on Educational Subjects. Vol. 2,
No. 15.) (Cd. 8943.)

Loudon. Wyman & Sons. 1898. (Also issued as a
separate reprint.)

Royal Geographical Society. Syllabuses of Instruction in Geo-
graphy. I. In Elementary Schools. II. In Higher Schools.
London. Royal Geographical Society, i Saville Row, W.
1903.
Welton (J.) — The Logical Bases of Education.

London. Macmillan. 1899.

Fitch (Sir Joshua) — ^Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their Influence
on English Education. (The Great Educators.)

London. Heinemann. 1897.

Haig Brown (Harold E.) — William Haig Brown of Charterhouse.
A short Biographical Memoir written by some of his pupils, and
edited by his son, Harold E. Haig Brown.

London. Macmillan. 1908.
Hughes (Tom) — Tom Brown's School-days.

London. Macmillan. 1856.
MacCunn (John) — The Making of Character.

Cambridge. University Press, igoo.
Parkin (George R.) — Edward Thring, Headmaster of Uppingham
School. Life, Diary, and Letters.

London, Macmillan. 1898.
Skrine (J. H.) — A Memory of Edward Thring.

London. Macmillan. 1889.

172 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Skrine (J. H.) — Pastor Agnorum : A Schoolmaster's After- thoughts.

London. Longmans. 1902.

Stanley (A. P.) — The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold.
2 Vols. London. T. Fellowes. 1868.

Storr (F.)— Life and Remains of Rev. R. H. Quick. Edited by
F. Storr. Cambridge. University Press. 1899.

BouTMY (fimile) — Essai d'un Psychologic politique du Peuple
anglais au XIX''"= Sidcle. Par fimile Boutmy, Membre de
rinstitut. Paris. Armand Colin. 1901.

Creighton (M.) — Thoughts on Education, Speeches and Sermons.
Edited by Louise Creighton. London. Longmans. ' 1902.

Darroch (A.) — Herbart and the Herbartian Theory of Education.
A Criticism. London. Longmans. 1903.

Laurie {S. S.) — Studies in the History of Educational Opinion from
the Renaissance. Cambridge. University Press. 1903.

National Educational Association (U.S.A.) — Journal of Proceed-
ings and Addresses of the Fortieth Annual Meeting of the
National Educational Association, held at Detroit, Michigan,
July 8th to I2th, 1901. (Paper by W. T. Harris, on Isolation
in the School — How it helps and how it hinders.)

[Winona, Minn. Published by the Association.] 1901.

Spencer (Herbert) — Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical.
London. WiUiams & Norgate. 1861.

Woods (Alice) — Co-Education. A Series of Essays by various
authors. Edited by AUce Woods.

London. Longmans. 1903.

Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland), Report of
the. 2 vols. (Cd. 1507 and 1508.)

Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. London: W5Tnan & Sons.
1903.

Brath (S. de) and F. Beatty. Over-pressure.

London. G. Philip & Son. 1899

Dukes (Clement) — The Essentials of School Diet.

London. Rivingtons. 1899.
Schmidt (F. A.) and Eustace H. Miles. The Training of the Body
for Games, Athletics, and other Forms of Exercise, and for
Health, Growth, and Development.

London. Swan Sonnenschein. 1901.
The Journal OF Education. October, 1903 ; February, December,

1908. London. W. Rice.

Modern Language Teaching. February, March, and April, 1909.

London. A. & C. Black.

The Practical Teacher. December, 1902.

London. Nelson & Sons.

School, January-May, 1904 ; February and March, 1906.

London. Murray.
The School World. November, 1903. London. Macmillan.

THIRTY YEARS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
IN FRANCE

The modem conception of a university in France dates
from the Revolution. In place of the old Sorbonne, verit-
able Bastille of scholasticism, the new University was
conceived as a kind of laboratory and clearing-house in
which every form of knowledge was to be pursued or dis-
pensed. Yet in spite of the multipUcity of the subjects,
unity was to be secured by the natural connection between
the different branches and the common aims and ideals of
the teachers themselves. Unfortunately the Revolution
failed to reaUze the grandiose ideas of Talleyrand and Con-
dorcet. With the exception of the Institute, the only estab-
lishments it created were the so-called. " special schools,"
limited to the study of a single science or group of subjects,
such^as, for instance, the school of mathematics, the school
of medicine, the school of Oriental languages, etc. To these
the Consulate added the schools of law and altered the title
of many of these schools into that of " faculties." It
further increased the number of faculties by adding those
of letters and of science.

The reseEirch side of university work was ignored, the
faculties were mere examination machines for turning out
professional men. The only university was the University
of France^.which, though made a corporate body by
Napoleon^ was above all things an^ institution for the
propagation\of an official education most favourable to
Imperialism. To this university all the different faculties
in the different towns were subordinated. But here all
connection ended. Although often existing three and four
together in the same town, they were completely strangers

174 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

to one another, having no unity or even relationship with
one another, almost entirely devoid of the necessary re-
sources, not merely for original investigation, but also for
their ordinary worjk.

The evils arising from such an excessive centralization
combined with the practical isolation of the local faculties
were certain to make themselves felt in the long run.
" Paris," wrote Guizot in his Mimoires, " morally attracts
and absorbs France." For this, in his eyes, the only remedy
was the creation of a few large provincial universities. Re-
cognizing the impossibility of creating seventeen complete
and fuUy equipped universities, he proposed to Umit their
number to four. Unhappily he was in advance of his time.
The second Republic reduced the status of the university
itself from that of a corporation to a mere branch of the
central Government.

The most enlightened Education Minister of the Empire,
Victor Duruy, seeing the impossibiUty of reforming the
faculties, determined to establish alongside of them a
scientific institution called the ficole des Hautes fitudes,
which reminds one, though its scope was wider, of the Royal
College of Science, inasmuch as the savants who formed the
personnel were chosen on their merits alone, and no question
was made as to whether they were members or not of the
university. The school had no fixed qucirters, but any
professor of ability in the Sorbonne, the College de France,
the Museum of Natural History, or in any laboratory, was
pressed into the service of this new corps of learned and
scientific teachers. The effect of the opening of this
" opposition shop " was most beneficial on higher education
throughout the whole of the country.

Nevertheless the general condition of higher education
was, in the words of M. Liard, " very lamentable, and what
was most lamentable of all was not the insufficiency of the
buildings, the poverty-stricken state of the laboratories,
collections and libraries, or the dearth of resources, but the
almost absolute misconception of their real functions by
the professors of those faculties which ought to have been
above all the instruments of scientific progress and of the

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN FRANCE 173

propagation of scientific methods. With a few exceptions,
in the faculty of letters the teaching was above all rhetorical
and fashionable, in that of science it was nearly everywhere
limited to the mere popularization of discoveries. The
highest work of university education, the training and for-
mation of the man of science, was almost unknown. The
admirable savants of the time were self-taught persons
without a university degree."

Such was the state of things when the disaster of 1870
occurred. With the conclusion of peace, savants and
patriots joined forces in favour of a radical reform of the
university system. It was felt that inefficiency in higher
education had been one of the causes of national defeat.

The most competent judges were agreed that the essential
defect in university education was the multiplicity and
isolation of the faculties. The remedy in their eyes was
the concentration of the faculties of the different orders into
a limited number of " powerful centres of study, science and
intellectual progress." Jules Simon affirmed the necessity
of " having a certain number of intellectual capitals in
which are to be found united aU the necessary resources for
the complete development of the young." Again, according
to M. Laboulaye, universities were the one thing needful.
" Let them cease to scatter over the surface of France
faculties the isolation of which condemned them to sterility."

Sofiie of the strongest arguments in favour of reform came
from the men of science of the day. It was pointed out that
the duty of the universities was not merely to distribute
the existing stores of knowledge, but also to lead in the van
of discovery. " Close the laboratories and libraries," said
Bertholet, " stop original investigation, and we shall return
to scholasticism." Insistence was also laid on the extreme
value of scientific discovery as a factor in the industrial
struggle between the different nations, while at the same
time the impdrtance of introducing the scientific spirit into
the- mental life of a people only too often swayed by sudden
emotions was strongly emphasized.

But the advocates of university reform had a very serious
difficulty to encounter at the outset. Alongside of the

176 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

faculties there already existed the big scientific establish-
ments Uke the College de France, the Museum of Natural
History, and the professional schools, such as the ficole
Polytechnique and the ficole Normale, in which the flower
of mihtary engineers and university professors were being
trained. All these bodies were bitterly hostile to incor-
poration. Fortunately they were all situated in Paris,
where in reality there was room both for themselves and
the university. The main problem after aU was the
creation of provincial universities.

Here the difficulties were far more real and pressing. To
begin with, many of the existing professors in the faculties
were by no means in sympathy with the reformers. For
them the function of the faculties was to turn out lawyers,
magistrates, doctors, pharmaceutical chemists (the calling
of chemist in France ranks as a liberal profession), not to
conduct original research. Did not the College de France
and the Museum of Natural History exist specially for these
purposes ? The answer was one, which has since been given
in higher technical education in England and elsewhere,
that science should be the centre of professional training.
Practice without science was pure empiricism, and em-
piricism was out of date.

Claude Bernard had already converted medicine into
an experimental science, and the historical method had
wrought a similar transformation in the study of law.
Whether the faculties remained isolated or not, they would
henceforth have to adopt scientific methods. Naturally
every student could not be turned into a man of science, but
every one had a right to know the scientific truths on which
his professional education was based, while the small elite
of the really talented students should have the opportunity
of engaging in scientific investigation. In the case of these
exception£d students the method of working in common
with their masters had hitherto been largely neglected.
Yet its importance in working out a discovery to its fullest
extent is not only beneficial to aU parties, but often of the
highest importance to the country at large.

Another objection urged by the opponents of reform was

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN FRANCE 177

that a university by definition implies the concentration of
subjects, whereas modern science on the contrary is fissi-
psirous by nature, ever splitting up into new branches and
specialities. To this it was easily answered that one of the
chief dangers of the day was excessive specialization, and
that the, university is therefore the best antidote, as its
chief function' is to co-ordinate knowledge and make it
a general object of culture. Warned by the excessive
specialism that is rampant in German universities, the
French have taken for their motto, " SpeciaUzation sub-
ordinated to a general culture."

In 1883 Jules Ferry brought the question within the
sphere of practical politics by a circular addressed to the
faculties ; after speaking of the efforts he had made to
develop in higher education the sentiment of responsi-
biUty and the habit of self-government, he went on to
say :

" We shall have obtained a great result if we are able to
constitute one day universities uniting within themselves
the most varied kinds of teaching, in order mutually to
assist one another, managing their own affairs, convinced
of their duties and of their merits, inspiring themselves
with ideas Suitable to each part of France, with such variety
as the unity of the country allows, rivals of adjoining uni-
versities, associating in these rivalries the interest of their
own prosperity with the desire of the big towns to excel
their neighbours and to acquire particular merit and
distinction."

In conclusion he invited the faculties to give their opinions
on his suggestion. These were, in the main, favourable.
It was left, however, to his successor, M. Ren6 Goblet, to •
take the first official steps. It was evident to all that the
new universities could not be constituted after some ideal
plan, but would naturally have to be built up out of the
existing faculties. To group the latter in collective wholes,
effacing all distinction between them, would have proved
too drastic a measure. The best way of building up a
university was to begin by strengthening and not by weaken-
ing the faculties. This was done by restoring to them the

B.E, M

178 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

persotmalite civile which had lapsed, and recognizing their
capability to receive and hold property.

At the same time another decree, without giving them the
absolute right to frame a budget, allowed them the right to
expend all subventions, to which no conditions had been
attached by the parties making them, whether departments,
communes, or private individuals, on the creation of new
courses of instruction, on laboratories and Ubraries, and on
scholarships. To regulate this expenditure a council was
created called the Conseil Gen6ral des Facultes. This
council, established for purely financial reasons, was destined
to become the real nucleus in the development of the uni-
versities.

As M. Liard has weU said, " the decree of 28th December,
1885, was truly the provisional charter of the universities
before the universities." Linking together the faculties of
a single town, the Council not only dealt with the functions
for which it was first created ; it was soon allowed, under
certain conditions, to draw up the programmes of courses
and lectures, to exercise certain disciplinary powers, to
make financial proposals to the Minister, and to engage in
a multiplicity of tasks which fall to the lot of an ordinary
university to perform. In 1889 the separate faculties re-
ceived the right to frame budgets of their own. At the
same time those grants were directly paid to them which the
Ministry previously had itself expended on buildings and
equipment. So far the Government had only proceeded
by way of decrees, a method which is not unknown in
England, and corresponds roughly to an Order in Council,
but in 1890 the moment seemed to have come for legal
enactment, and M. L6on Bourgeois, the then Minister of
Public Instruction, brought forward a Bill to settle the
whole subject once for aU.

Nothing gives a better idea of the enormous sacrifices
made by the Repubhc for the sake of higher education than
the preamble of the Bill, which ran as follows :

" The Repubhc has understood that university education
is in the highest degree necessary ; that if primary educa-
tion is, according to the phrase of one of our predecessors.

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN FRANCE 179

the canalization by which knowledge is distributed to the-^
very lowest strata of democracy, university education is*
the source where it collects and whence it flows. It has'
understood that a particular dignity and utility are attached^
to this grade of education, that in it especially are formed
and trained the men who are capable of conceiving general'
ideas, by the power and novelty of which the real influence *
of nations is measured to-day. Therefore it has liberally i
given to it the necessary miUions which had been perv
sistently refused by former administrations.

" In the last 15 years it has renewed the buildings of the
faculties.

" It has supplied almost entirely their equipment, their
laboratories, their libraries.

" It has enlarged and increased the scope and range of
their teaehing.

" It has more than doubled their budget.

" It has improved the position of the personnel and en-
dowed their teaching with the requisite resources.

" It 'has created two categories of student, formerly un-
known- in France, students in science and in letters.

" It has introduced more science into those courses in
which the preoccupations of professional studies predomi-
nated, and it has imposed a professional task on those orders
of faculties which were without it.

" It has restored to the faculties the personnalife civile, a
right which a suspicious regime had denied they possessed.

•" It has rendered relationship possible between them by
giving them a common function to fulfil.

" It has given fuU Kberty to science and theory.

" It has favoured the coming together of students as well
as that of teachers.

" In conclusion it has seen the number of its students rise
from 9,000 to more than 16,000, foreigners returning to its
schools, and frequenting them in greater numbers than in
any other country in Europe."

The Bill itself proposed to create universities in the fullest
sense of the word out of the existing groups of faculties in
the seven largest towns. Unfortunately local influences

i8o STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

proved too strong ; the other ten towns possessing two
or more faculties demanded equaUty of treatment. The
former adversaries of the project joined forces with them,
and in the end the Government was obliged to withdraw
the BiU.

Beaten on the question of estabUshing local universities
of the fuUy equipped type, the reformers took once more
the line of least resistance, and in 1893 an Act was passed
investing with the ■personnalite civile the groups of faculties
formed by the union of several faculties and represented
by the Conseil General. This was followed in 1896 by an
Act introduced by M. Poincare, which converted these groups
of faculties into universities. The idea of full and complete
universities, which had been the underl5dng conception of
the Bill of 1890, was abandoned, and wherever an academy
existed, even if it had but two faculties, its place was taken
by a university. As M. Liard well says, " it was a choice
between having too many universities or of having none."
To provide funds, the tuition fees, which had hitherto gone
to the Treasury, were handed over to the new bodies. The
examination fees, however, were still retained by the
Treasury.

The law contained but four clauses. The first decided
that the groups of faculties should take the name of uni-
versities. The second decided that the ConseU General
should receive the title of University Council. The third
enlarged the discipUnary powers of the new council. The
fourth dealt with 'the financial arrangement mentioned
above, the new funds provided being " earmarked " for
certain definite purposes, such as expenditure on labora-
tories, etc. Certain other financial rearrangements were
made, with the result that the extra cost to the State came
to about £15,000 a year. The existing personnel was
paid, as before, by the State, and the regular grant, variable
year by year, for buildings and equipment was hkewise
continued. By the law of 1899 the universities were allowed
to establish " degrees of a purely scientific kind." This
was largely done to encourage the attendance of foreigners,
while the proviso that they conferred no rights or privileges

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN FRANCE i8i

safeguarded the State from incurring any responsibilities
vis-d-vis their recipients.

The preamble of the Bill of 1890, quoted above, gives
an adequate summary of the progress made from 1870 up to
the university year 1888-89. More detailed information
of the progress since that date is to be found in the Statistique
de I'Enseignemeni supSrieur, which brings up the record to
the university year 1897-98 (the last year available). The
following are some of the principal items of interest. Though
the French imiversities have not, with very rare exceptions,
found any benefactors on the scale of the Rockefellers and
Carnegies, the list of benefactions pubhshed in full shows
that the power of the new universities, revived in 1875,
to receive donations and legacies has not remained un-
appreciated.

The University of Paris has received such lump sums as
£210,000, Montpellier such as £60,000, while several have
received donations of £4,000 or less. In 1889 the annual
grant from the State amounted to about £456,284. In 1898
it was more than £523,640, showing an increase of £67,000
odd over the grant of ten years before, which itself was more
than double the grant under the Empire. Though the
universities received the above sums in hard cash, the actual
cost to the State was less, as one must deduct from it the
fees for degrees, which, as has been already stated, go into
the coffers of the State. These amounted to 5,135,162
francs in 1898, or, roughly, £205,406. The net expenditure,
therefore, of the State was about £318,000.

The departments and municipalities make contributions
to nearly all the universities, their contributions being
"earmarked," as a rule, for specific purposes. They
practically support all the medical schools, whether situate
at the seat of the university itself or within its area of con-
trol, the only exceptions being Paris and Bordeaux, which
also receive a State subvention. The contributions of the
departments and municipaUties to the budgets of the uni-
versity and faculties amount to about 68,000 francs and
132,000 francs respectively ; their contributions to the
medical schools unsupported by the Government, and to

i82 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the so-called preparatory classes in letters and science,
amount to about 135,500 francs and 882,000 francs re-
spectively.

The total income of the universities, including these
medical schools, but excluding the College de France, the
Museum, and the various special schools, amounts to about
14,142,000 francs for the universities, and 1,582,858 francs
for the medical and preparatory schools, in all a grand total
of about 15,725,000 francs. Towards this total the State
contributes 13,096,664 francs, the departments about
203,000 francs, and the municipalities about 1,014,000
francs ; the rest is made up of students' fees, legacies, and
contributions by societies and private persons. As, how-
ever, the towns receive from university sources the sum of
421,837 francs, their net contribution is only about 593,000
francs, or roughly about £23,720.

Since 1888-89 ^^^ number of students has risen in a re-
markable fashion, though no doubt this increase is due in
part to the law which grants two years' exemption from
military service to those who have passed certain examina-
tions. In 1888-89, ^^^ number of students was about
16,000, in 1898 the total had risen to 28,782, of whom 871
were women, and no less than 1,784 of foreign nationahty.
All the faculties show an increase in the number of students
during the same period, but those in science (a school which
did not exist before the RepubUc) show the greatest increase.
Their numbers have risen in the last ten years from 1,187
to 3,424.

The baccalaureai shows the same remarkable increase.
Certain changes in the examination do not permit of a com-
parison being drawn with any year earlier than 1892-93.
In that year there were 25,612 candidates for the different
sections of the examination, of whom 11,518 passed. In
1897-98 there were 36,922 candidates, of whom 16,688
passed. The other establishments of university rank, the
College de France, the Museum of Natural History, the ficole
Normale Superieure, the ficole Pratique des Hautes fitudes,
etc., all received an increased grant in 1898 in comparison
with the last decennial account.

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN FRANCE 183

The College de France, which is entirely devoted to re-
search work, contains no less than forty-two chairs, and
receives from the State nearly £21,000 a year. The Museum
of Natural History, equally devoted to research, has a
budget of more than £38,000. The school of Oriental lan-
guages, which has no counterpart in England, though we
have a far greater need of one, receives more than £6,000
a year. The £cole des Chartes receives more than £3,000.
The Ecole Pratique des Hautes fitudes receives more than
£12,500, as well as more than £1,500 a year from the city
of Paris. The majority of these institutions have enor-
mously developed, if they have not been actually created,
under the RepubUcan rSgime.

One word must be said in conclusion for the free univer-
sities founded in 1875, when the university monopoly in
higher education was abohshed. At first permitted to
grant degrees similar in name to those of the official world,
they have since lost the right. In spite of this they have
none the less continued to increase. In 1888-89 their
students numbered 726, in 1897-98 they had increased to
1,407. It is difficult to say what will be their fate under
the present campaign to re-establish the monopoly of the
State in education.

The higher schools of art and technology being under
more or less separate authorities do not figure here in the
hst of higher education.^ The present regime has been
equally liberal and equally successful in dealing with these
important branches of national education. Whatever may
be the final verdict of history on the Repubhc, its bitterest
critics will never be able to contest the fact that only Prussia
after Jena can compare in any way with the thoroughness
and success with which it has reformed and revivified every
branch of higher education.

Principal works consulted : Ministere de ITnstruction
Pubhque et des Beaux-Arts : (i) Statistique de I'Enseigne-
ment superieur ; (2) Introduction a la Statistique de I'Enseigne-

"^The schools of art are under a separate department in the
Ministry of Public Instruction and Art. The higher schools of
commerce and technology are under the Ministry of Commerce.

i84 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

ment supirieur, par M. L. Liard, Directeur de I'Enseignement
Supdrieur. (Paris : Imprimerie Nationale, 1900.) (3) Ligis-
lation et Jurisprudence de I'Instruction publique. Extrait
du Repertoire du Droit administratif. Premiere partie,
" Historique et Organisation g^nerale " ; Deuxidme partie,
" Enseignement sup6rieur " ; Sixifeme partie, " Ecoles ne
relevant du Minist^re de I'Instruction Publique." (Paris :
P. Dupont, 1903.)

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION i

In order to understand the problems of the French rural
school, it would seem essentially necessary to look at them
from the French point of view, especially if we are to
appreciate the value of the solutions adopted. Now, to the
French mind, a part of any system only finds its fuU and
complete explanation in its relation to the whole. It is in
harmony with this theory that the whole educational or-
ganization of the country has been built up. Even when
a new subject, has been introduced into the time-table of
the primary school so apparently unconnected with the rest
as the enseignement agricole (agricultural instruction), it has
never been allowed to remain long in its isolation, but has
been speedily woven into the fabric of the school curriculum.
Or, to use another figure, if each new subject represents a
new force, all the subjects are so converged that though the
direction of the resultant or aim may be altered, the aim
itself remains unimpaired.

Hence, to hmit one's survey of rural education to what
passes within the four walls of the village school, would
seem to be as instructive as to present one's audience with
an elephant's tooth, and leave them to imagine the jaw that
suppUed it with driving power, not to mention the animal
itself and its habits which have evolved it into its present
condition. French primary education, in fact, is so highly \
centralized, so much of the energy manifest in the schoolss
appears to come from the central power station, that it''^^
seems needful for anyone who wishes to comprehend any<'
large section of it, to obtain a bird's-eye view of the whole -^
machinery.

'Published in the Journal of the Society of Arts, Dec. 12th, 1902.

i86 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Yet at the outset a word of warning is requisite. This
centralization, however uniform it may appear in Blue-
books and Government publications, depends for its ad-
y^ ministration on the character of the ■personnel who run the
C»-machine — the officials, the inspectors, and the teachers ; and
how these naturally differ in energy, views, and aims need
not be dilated on here. The mere fact of whether stress is
laid on one part of the programme or another is bound to
produce a certain decentralization that itself is aided by
the nature of the programme, which is not so inelastic as
is popularly supposed.

{^ Another element of differentiation is introduced by the

> racial differences between the inhabitants in the various

Udepartments. Education in the Nord, with its affinities with

^ Belgium, and education in Alpes-Maritimes, with its strong

Itahan proclivities, are evidently working on very different

materials. One must, therefore, not only enter a caveai

against taking too uniform a view of French education, but

one must also be careful oneself to guard against making

too sweeping generalizations.

The territorial character of the population, to which
allusion has just been made, is, however, not merely an
element in promoting decentrahzation, it is also an item to
be taken into account when appraising the success or
failure of the rural school. Who speaks of character, speaks
of home, the rehgious influence, the social milieu — three
powerful factors that can do much to help or hinder the
school's endeavours. The two first-named forces reveal
themselves in such questions as — Is the school popular with
the parents ? and How does it shelve, solve, or sever the
rehgious difficulty ?

As for the influences that the social milieu exerts, their
name is legion, for their area of recruitment is world-wide.
Everywhere the centripetal force of the towns is growing.
Which way, we ask, is the rural school pulling ? Then
comes a whole plexus of problems. Is there a rural exodus,
and, if so, are the causes higher wages in the towns, con-
scription, the laws of inheritance, or alcoholism ? So that
the last question we have to ask is this : In the midst of

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 187

the general rural decay is the school a centre and a rall3dng
point of all social reform, or is it merely content to interpret
its duties in the narrow sense of instruction pure and simple ?

The problem is a big one, but it has got to be faced if it
is to be properly stated. After aU it is surely better to
state factors imperfectly and superficially than conveniently
to ignore them and set the school thereby in a false per-
spective. The aim of the present paper therefore wiU be
twofold : after a rapid sketch of the general machinery
as far as it has reference to the rural school, to present as
complete a view as time permits of the rural school itself,
and, secondly, to give a rough idea of the conditions pre-
vaihng in those parts of rural France with which the speaker
is personally acquainted, in order to indicate the problems
to which the rural school can even under the most favourable
circumstances offer only a partial solution.

En passant one hopes to bring out such points in French
methods as seem worthy of imitation. But the two systems,
French and EngUsh, are so difterent, there is nothing we
can copy wholesale except it be the spirit of thoroughness
which has animated French reformers.

To understand the present highly developed condition of
French primary education, a rapid sketch of its past history
seems necessary. The only name that needs to be cited
before the Revolution is that of Jean Baptiste de la Salle,
the founder of the Christian Brothers, who in any history
of the early beginnings of popular education must find a
foremost place. Thanks to his teachings the monitorial
system never took abiding root in France, being soon ousted
by the so-called simultaneous methods of his followers.
The Revolution did Uttle else than express a pious resolution
in favour of a complete system of free, popular, and com-
pulsory education. The three great names after the
Revolution are Guizot, Duruy, and Jules Ferry.

Guizot, who must be looked on as the founder of the
system, began his reforms by a survey of the educational
plant on the ground, a proceeding that might well be copied,
especially as regards secondary education, by those who
will have to carry out the provisions of the present Bill

i88 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

before Parliament. Compulsory education was not estab-
lished by him, but each commune had to build a school
and pay the teacher. He started also the building of girls'
schools and normal schools, and the creation of an inspec-
torate. The Loi Falloux, in 1850, divided primary schools
into State and private schools, and recognized both.

The rigime of Duruy is remarkable for the great extension
given to evening classes, and to the founding of girls'
schools, as weU as the estabUshment of the caisses des ecoles
for helping the children of the poor who frequent the
schools.

The Third Repubhc began setting its educational
house in order by a vast building and furnishing scheme.
Every commune was obliged to provide itself with or share
in a State school ; every department was compelled to
possess a couple of normal schools. State aid was freely
given, and in all £34,000,000 were spent by central and
local authorities, 35,145 schools were built or acquired, the
total of normal schools was brought up to 163, and two
higher normal schools for providing these schools with
teachers were founded. Having put the buildings on a
sound footing, the teaching profession was nexf raised to
the level of a skilled calUng by compeUing all teachers in
reUgious or lay schools to hold a certificat de capacite (or
attainments certificate), while the State teachers were
further obhged to possess a certificate of training (certificat
d' aptitude pMagogique).

Then came the triple reform of free, compulsory, and
secularized education, with which the name of Jules Ferry
will ever be connected. The latter cut the painter once for
all between the pubhc and private school, between the State
and the different cults. The teaching of la morale was
substituted for denominational teaching, and in the State
schools the religious teachers were either immediately or
gradually replaced by laymen. The religious schools were
left entirely free, the State only exercising a certain super-
vision over the sanitation and text-books and professional
status of the teachers.

The result is that in 1897 the total number of children

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 189

still under religious instruction was 1,603,451, of whom
405,825 were still in State schools not yet laicized, against
3,823,760 in the lay schools. This does not include the
maternal schools. If these are reckoned in the figures are
1,955,199, agednst 4,175,656. The great majority of the
pupils over 6 in the religious schools are girls ; there are in
all only 436,726 boys in these schools. Of the Association
laws it is impossible to speak here, as it is at present doubtful
as to what their precise effect on primary education will be.

These reforms necessitated certain financial readjust-
ments, the most important of which was the transference
of the pajmient of the teacher from the locahty to the State.
In thus abohshing the payment of salaries by locaUties the
RepubHc seems to have solved a large number of grievances.
Henceforth the teachers were grouped in classes in which
promotion depends on merit and seniority. It is probable
that our County Councils will, sooner or later, have to for-
mulate a similar scheme. Now that the raison d'Ure of
inequalities in salaries has gone, the inequalities will have
to go.

The Republic has also to its credit the re-estabUshment
of the higher primary schools, which have been an immense
benefit to town and country ; and lastly, the most recent
improvement is the revival and enormous extension of even-
ing classes. This has been largely a teachers' movement,
and is an admirable instance of the striking enthusiasm
and devotion that pervades their ranks. One might almost
call them the Knights Templars of republican defence and
popular education. The beneficial effect of these drastic and.
thoroughgoing reforms on rural education is obvious, if
we put on one side the vexed reUgious question. The
country school buildings are not allowed to faU below a
certain minimum of requirements. Salaries not being a
matter of locality, the tiniest hamlet may, and often does,
possess one of the best teachers of the department.

And now to come to the actual machinery. We find the
Minister has cognizance of all schools as far as the sanitation
and staffing are concerned. There is in fact no free trade
in teaching, nor can a school label itself with any high-

igo STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

sounding title it pleases ; all schools, public or private,
must have the Government hall-mark. The fraudulent
private school is an impossibility in France. Yet this does
not mean that the neutral private school is disUked. On
the contrary, the most thoughtful of French reformers are
highly anxious to encourage private initiative in this
direction — a matter our new authorities may well lay to
heart.

The Ministry itself is divided up into three sections —
University, Secondary, and Primary. The latter has the
joint supervision of a few quasi- technical schools, but
technology proper and commercial education are under the
Ministry of Commerce. Agricultural schools are under the
Ministry of Agriculture. Attached to the Ministry is a
consultative committee ; six of its 57 members are elected
by Primary officials and teachers. The Primary section of
the Ministry keeps itself in touch with the actual state of
education by means of eleven general inspectors. They
act not only as the eyes and ears of the central authority,
but also as its mouthpiece. Thus a year or two back it
was decided to reorganize agricultural education, and one
of the inspectors made a tour of aU the training colleges
in order to give the right trend and direction to the teaching
of the subject.

Coming to the local authorities, the rector of the local
university looks after the normal colleges in his district as
well as the education side of the primary schools. In fact,
one may look on him as a sort of lay bishop whose seminaries
are the normal colleges, and who supervises the articles of
faith and reUgion represented by the education taught in
the primary schools. But his second in command, the
academy inspector, being the man on the spot (there is one
for each department), possesses reaUy more effective power.
In administrative matters and in the selection of the
personnel he is independent. While directly appointing
the probationers, he also nominates the full teachers, while
the prefect appoints them. Situated midway between the
central authority and the schools, yet near enough to be in
touch with both, he is evidently the pivot of the whole

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 191

system ; not only does the efficiency of the schools depend
largely on him, but scarcely less important are his diplo-
matic duties in keeping the school in good odour with the
local authorities, and getting them to help education over
and above the legal minimum.

The prefect, like the minister, has to assist him an ad-
visory council of experts, called the conseil dSpariemental.
The educational element is in an immense majority on it.
In fact, it is practically an education committee with no
direct financial powers, the money being raised by the
conseil du departement (or county council), which has repre-
sentatives on it. A comparison between the education
committee under the Bill, and these bodies would be very
instructive but would take us too far.

Under the academy inspector come the inspectors who
have each a district to look after. We should regard them
rather as sub-inspectors. Originally largely recruited from
among the teachers, they are now, owing to the increased
severity of the examination, practically taken from the ranks
of the professors in normal schools, the heads of which are
also recruited by the same examination. The examination
itself is extremely stiff, especially the practical portion, and
no one who is not a past-master in pedagogics and practical
knowledge of school work has a chance of passing.

The mayor of the commune has various rights, including
that of visiting all the schools in his commune. He is also
supposed to summon the school attendance committees.
The cantonal delegates are apparently meant to represent
the popular and parental element. They may inspect the
building, supervise the children's behaviour, but if present
at the lessons given may not meddle with the teaching. The
French have little beUef in the educational judgment of the
local butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker. These " lay
figures " in more senses than one have even less authority
than Mr. Balfour's managers. In fact, they have so little
that one inspector described them to me as the fifth wheel
in the coach.

The two principal things to note, as regards this appa-
rently complicated machinery, are the smoothness with

192 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

which it works — due to the clearness with which the
function of each official is defined — and the enormous pre-
ponderance given to expert as compared with popular
management. What we have to learn from France, as far
as one can judge, is not to destroy our capacity for self-
government, but to strengthen if by fortif5dng it on the
expert side.

Clearness in function has led to clearness in finance. At
present the State is the largest contributor ; the income and
expenditure of certain taxes formerly handled by the depart-
ment and commune are now part of the central budget. At
present the State pays the teachers' salaries, the county
council pays for the upkeep of the normal schools, and the
parish pays for the cost and upkeep of the school buildings.

A few figures may prove of interest. In 1897 the State
spent about 5| million pounds, and the communes over
2f millions. The normal schools have cost over 2 miUions.
The percentage of the cost of building and furnishing has
been 40 per cent, for the State, 4 per cent, for the depart-
ment, and 56 per cent, for the commune. The EngUsh
parish has, therefore, had more to pay than the French com-
mune. The cost of a place in the State schools has been
£12, against £14 12s. 8Jd. in English board schools. The
total cost of education in France a year, including lay and
reUgious schools, is put at iif millions, or, reckoning in
interest on loafts, 14 miUions.

The efficiency of the French State teacher may be judged
by the following figures. Less than i-5th per cent, of the
male teachers do not possess the brevet, and only 4J per cent,
of the female teachers are without it ; 45 per cent, possess
further the certificat d' aptitude. This can only be acquired
after two years' work in the schools. The difficulty of
winning it may be gauged by the fact that it generally takes
teachers much longer to obtain it. I mj^elf came across a
teacher who had taken eight years.

Between 6- and 7-ioths of the present staff have passed
through a training college. As regards the position of the
State teacher in a village, it has, in some instances, been
scarcely a bed of roses in places where a laicization has taken

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 193

place. Cases are not unknown where teachers have been
stoned and boycotted, while jehads against the lay school
have been preached by the local clergy. Happily this phase
seems to be passing away, and any attack on the State school
even in a cathoUc district would probably be mal vu.
Otherwise the rural teacher's position is probably from a
social standpoint more comfortable than with us. To begin
with he possesses that indefinite prestige that attaches to all
Government officials.

Again the contour lines of the local society are less abrupt
in France. They do not rise in the terrace-like fashion as
they do in England, with the labourers, farmers, parson,
and squire, all more or less at different altitudes and eleva-
tions, with no definite ledge for the unfortunate school-
master to settle down on. At the present time there seems
to be a growing shortage of teachers, as with us. This is
being happily met in some departments by giving bonuses to
those teachers who prepare pupils for the normal school
examination. An idea has got abroad which, rightly or
wrongly, asserts that the teachers are turning the children
against the profession, though, curiously enough, they con-
tinue to send in their own.

The vast majority of normal students come from the
primary schools. They are practically recruited from the
department in which the college is situate. When they
leave the college they desire to settle in their own depart-
ment, and look on being sent to a neighbouring department
as a sort of exile.

One often hears the departments spoken of as merely geo-
graphical expressions, yet it is evident that this homing
instinct of the teacher is gradually giving each department
its own educational physiognomy, and thus it is reserved for
the primary teachers, whom an impartial philosopher might
call the real children of the Revolution, to give life and
personality to the administrative entities, into which their
spiritual forefathers re-divided France more than a century
ago. Curiously enough, while the teachers remain station-
ary it is the inspectors who move from department to depart-
ment in France. This is the exact contrary to us, where

B.E. N

194 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

inspectors are more or less stationary and teachers more or
less on the move. This no doubt is largely due to the
inequalities in local salaries.

From a financial point of view the French teacher does
not seem to be so well off as the Enghsh, though some of the
EngUsh are worse paid than some of the French. The
Enghsh certified master obtains on an average £127 2s. yd.
The best French male teacher only receives in the country
;^8o a year ; in the town he receives various extra allow-
ances. On the other hand, he is always housed free of
expense, which is not the case with his Enghsh confrere.
Again, he can add to his income by being secretary to the
parish council, or by running evening classes. Living is
probably as dear in France as in England, but the style of
living is distinctly more economical, as a comparison be-
tween the salaries of French and Enghsh civil servants of
the same grade would show. After 25 years' service the
French teacher receives a pension, provided he is 55 years
of age.

The housing question does not appear to be a burning
question in the country as far as the head teacher is con-
cerned. The chief grievance seems to centre round a matter
that has lately been agitating Parhament, the matter of
whitewashing. Members of the parish coimcil, who only
whitewash their own premises once in ten years, cannot be
got to understand the necessity of such proceedings every
other year for the school buildings. Assistant teachers,
according to the law, have adequate accommodation, but in
reality the two or three rooms they ought to have often
shrink to a single room, and that sometimes without a fire-
place. Ninety-five per cent, of the rural schools have
gardens, not, as has been rashly asserted, for experimental
purposes, but for the private use of the teachers.

In the old days the teacher was the priest's man, and was
obliged to sing, himself and his little ones, in the choir.
To-day he is nominally his own master, but owing to his
secretarial duties and his evening classes, he is probably as
hard-worked as any man in the world. Yet the amount of
grumbUng one heard was very small. One comes across

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 195

everywhere signs of the missionary spirit which the desire to
raise the country after 1870, and the militant reforms of
Jules Ferry, have produced. A National Union of Teachers
has just been started, and the late Minister of Public Instruc-
tion, who rightly recognized in the teachers a sort of repub-
lican army of occupation, gave it a hearty send-off.

Other functionaries may change their political colours,
but it wiU take many years to make the vast army of
teachers untrue to their salt. They are to my mind the
sheet-anchor of the Repubhc, and the chief visible, definite,
concrete expression of the nobler side of the Revolution's
aspirations. Their relations with the inspectors are gene-
rally excellent. Their relations with the other grades of
education are singularly distant. Still this has not been a
defect in the past. It has enabled them to cut themselves
adrift from a vast amount of scholasticism which pervades
French secondary education, while social education and
culture have penetrated so far into lower strata of French
Ufe, that the primary teacher has not suffered as might be
expected from his isolation from secondary education.
Lately the need of closing up the republican ranks has been
felt, and a teachers' guild, to include teachers of every grade,
has been started.

After the teacher, the school. AUusion has already been
made to the law that every commune must have, or share
in, a school of its own. So strong is local feeling that the
united district comparatively common in England is rare
in France. Only 2 per cent, of the communes have a
school in common. One pig-headed commune with a school
population of 5 insisted on building itself a school that cost
£800. Such cases of obstinacy would be unheard of in
England. The country is now covered with a complete net-
work of State public schools. Out of 36,174 communes only
47 have no school at all. Communes over 500 are legally
obliged to have a separate school for girls, and even this
provision has been very thoroughly carried out. The
buildings generally are in a good state of repair. Of course,
those built 70 or 80 years ago are less suitable than those
erected 20 years ago.

196 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The school furniture is less satisfactory, but here improve-
ments are being gradually made. An excellent idea is the
distribution of large coloured illustrations by the Ministry,
which are reaUy views of French scenery procured from the
railway companies, with, of course, the time-table part
suppressed. These sheets add a certain amount of attrac-
tiveness to walls that are otherwise bare, for pictures to the
country lad are as fascinating as flowers to the town child.
We might almost look on them as the flowers of the town,
fit subjects of barter for our rustic primroses and daffodils.

The only piece of school furniture which need detain us is
the musee scolaire, or school museum. One finds it every-
where. Its use has been admirably defined as the indis-
pensable auxiliary of the real object-lesson. It must not,
however, resemble a curiosity shop, for collections formed
at hazard, and with no definite plan, are of no utility. The
museum must be appropriate to the teaching, not the teach-
ing to the museum. The use of the museum will be weU
seen when we come to the agricultural teaching. Unfor-
tunately, in a good many cases, it evidently was not utilized
as it ought to be. Not a few that one saw resembled too
much the collection at a marine store dealer's.

And now for the children. They were, for the most part,
neat and tidy in their dress. Their hands especially were
clean. The copy-books, which are usually a fair test in
these matters, were singularly free from " teU-tale " finger-
marks. Their behaviour, on the whole, was excellent.
In the classes of one or two younger teachers one saw a
certain amount of by-play going on, but that is the teachers'
fault. This good conduct is the more surprising, as corporal
punishment has been abolished in French schools, much to
the disUke, it must be admitted, of the older teachers. But
the younger generation seem to get on very well without
it — in theory. In practice I should be inclined to take the
word of a teacher, who said, " There is not a good master
going who has not given a ' sound smack ' to some child in
his fife."

How do the children attend ? WeU, that is a problem
which would take up too much room to discuss fully. One

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 197

can only give conclusions. To begin with, the attempt to
make the duty of compelling attendance a local matter has
been a failure. According to the law, the mayor of the
commune was to summon the attendance committee and,
if necessary, set the law in motion. A good many mayors
did, with the result that they and sundry other zealous
parish councillors lost their seats at the next election. Their
fate has made the law practically a dead letter in the
country. One of the chief sources of irregular attendance
in the north-western departments is the departure of the
children in the spring for the grazing districts, where they
guard the cattle. These little pdtours, as they are called,
often take six months' French leave at a time. Haysel and
harvest, apple-picking and grape-gathering also produce
irregular attendance.

Several remedies have been proposed. Some have sug-
gested that the teacher should be armed with the power of
putting the law in motion — an evident mistake, as it would
bring him in direct collision with the parents. A better idea
is that of vesting these powers in the inspector, who is
sufficiently highly placed to be beyond the reach of local
vengeance. But while those in authority with whom one
conversed, agreed that the law should be made more effec-
tive, they most of them deprecated any wholesale setting in
motion of the legal machinery as likely to do more harm
than good in the country districts, where the peasantry are
by nature highly conservative, and local customs and pre-
judices are strong.

One inspector, in particular, told me he had made a
thorough trial of the legal remedies. It had been a com-
plete failure. Then he had turned round and experimented
with the system of allowing the teachers to inform the
parents that the inspector would always favourably enter-
tain a request for leave of absence if the work was specified.
Eighteen years' experience had proved the system worked
extremely weU. Another way of keeping on the children
was to discourage them from presenting themselves for the
leaving certificate before they were twelve. Much good is
also done by those teachers who make personal inquiries of

198 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

the parents whenever a pupil is absent. To render the
system official, as some propose, would just destroy the
whole value of it. It is appreciated, just because the
teachers' act is voluntary.

In some departments, the method is being tried of giving
bonuses to those teachers who improve their attendance
average, and also of taking the fact into account in regard
to promotion. The practice has been followed by excellent
results, and is one we might well copy. It is suggested, too,
that the little fdtours who are miserably paid, might be kept
on at school, if the caisses des Scales were sufficiently well
organized to give the poorer parents an indemnity equivalent
to the wretched pittance these children earn, but what the
big graziers would say who hve in districts where there are
no hedgerows, must be left to the imagination. Speaking
generally, though the attendance is likely to improve in the
near future, it is clear that the French problem wiU need
delicate handUng for long to come, and that the method of
adaptation to local needs, whether by the half-time system
or by allowing the parents the use of their children's services
at certain times of the year, wiU be the pohcy pursued.

Coming to the organization of the schools, we find them
officially divided into three cours or grades, the higher for
children from 13-11, the middle for those from 11-9, and the
elementary for those from 9-6. The higher cours are
generally a blank in rural schools, as the children in the
cours moyen leave en masse after taking the leaving certifi-
cate ; while it has been found necessary in practice to inter-
calate a cours -prSparaioire between the cours eUmentaire and
the classe enfanline for children under six where it exists.
Classes over fifty have a right to an additional teacher, but
the regulation is broken in 8,422 schools.

Morning school starts at 8.25 as a rule and finishes at
11.30. Afternoon school (or evening as it is called), a
reminiscence of the time when people dined at 10 a.m. in
the morning, begins at 12.55 a°d l^sts till 4 p.m. There are
intervals for recreation in the middle of both schools.
Thursday is a whole hohday. Monitors are not officially
recognized, but one found them in about three-quarters of

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 199

the sixty schools one visited. In the mixed schools it would
seem quite impossible to do without them. They are not,
however, paid, but the top pupils in the highest class are
put on for the day or the week to do the work.

The curriculum includes moral and civic instruction,
which thus head the list, reading and writing, arithmetic and
metric system, the French language, history and geography,
both mainly French ; object-lessons, elementary scientific
notions, the elements of drawing, singing and manual train-
ing, principally in their appHcation to agriculture ; military
and gymnastic exercises. Each cours or grade is supposed
to be a stepping-stone to the next, but the programme
except in history and in geography is concentric, not suc-
cessive — that is, the pupil is introduced to all the subjects
at once, but every year the circle of his knowledge in each
is widened. The elementary grade is pre-eminently that of
initiation, and includes the acquisition of the technique or
tools of knowledge — treading and writing.

The aim of the middle grade is the foundation of the
scientific basis of knowledge, and in the higher cours the
objective is the development of the logical faculty. The
time-table is arranged on the system of putting the harder
subjects in the morning. Teachers may vary the order of
subjects in the time-table, but the hours assigned to the
principal subjects are largely the same in all schools. It is
only in such subjects as manual training and singing that
some option is exercised. The school work is plotted out
with a definite quantum for each month ; the last month,
July, being devoted to revision. This " time-schedule " is
rather intended to indicate the rate of speed than to tie
down the master to the exact points to be taught. The aim
of the whole programme is to teach thoroughly, not to teach
a good deal superficially, and to cultivate the imagination
rather than to overload the memory.

The latter is still the besetting sin of the religious schools,
but the State schools have certainly broken away to a large
extent from the catechismal method of set question and
answer, and the learning of neat and, often to the child,
meaningless formulae by heart. Yet there is still a tendency

200 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

to turn out intelligence on a general pattern, rather than to
develop the individual intellect or to let it grow as it wiU
according to the pedagogy at present in vogue in America.
Still here a foreigner must be cautious of judging, remem-
bering that the French mind takes to logic as a duck
to water.

To discuss adequately the teaching of la morale would
require a separate paper. Here again an Englishman who
is mainly swayed by his feeUngs or by facts cannot easily
understand the force of an ethical system which grounds
itself largely on an appeal to reason. In France, the belief
in reason is part of and parcel of French civilization. As an
Englishman appeals to experience, a Frenchman appeals to
reason. It is to him a cult, a dogma, a religion. None the
less for children of tender years it needs a large admixture of
the emotions. One thing is certain. Where the teacher is
a strong believer in what he teaches, there he finds apt dis-
ciples. Whether the French were right to break thus
definitely with the past by dehberately excluding aU
religious teaching is not for a foreigner to decide Ughtly.
One cannot help thinking that they might at least have
first tried the system of allowing the priest access to the
schools during certain hours.

The writing appeared to me unusually good. The teach-
ing of arithmetic is excellent. The method employed
throughout is that of making the child explain at the side
every step he takes. The inspectors are dead against what
I would call the cookery book system of working out an
example on the board by way of recipe and the setting the
children down to do others like it. Again, all sums have to
be concrete ; either about the number of cows in a yard, or
the cost of a pound of butter, etc. There is no jugghng with
abstract figures. But the chief advantage of all is that the
pupil works with the metric system. Thanks to the latter
every pupil obtains a definite notion of superficies and
volume, which our unfortunate children can never get from
our kaleidoscopic weights and measures, in which gills are
metamorphosed into pints, pints into quarts, quarts into
gallons, at which point a new bifurcation comes on for wet

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 201

and dry measure. The result is that the English child never
realizes that there is any such thing as a scientific unit of
dimension, but vaguely imagines that measures are a mere
affair of pots for wet things and pans for dry.

Composition is better taught in the French rural school
than with us, as more stress is laid on making the essay a
whole in itself. Still it has suffered in the past, and still
suffers, from excessive attention being paid to minutiae in
spelling in spite of the recent reforms. Geography begins
with elementary notions of the world, and of the meaning of
a map. It then comes back to the starting point in English
and German schools, the school-house and its environment.
An excellent practice obtains in some schools of hanging up
maps made by the teachers of the department or commune,
either geographical or agronomic. History is too much of
the blood-and-thunder type which breeds young fire-eaters,
though the social and economic side is being gradually
developed.

Manual training is practically a dead letter in the country.
In one village I went into it had been suddenly dropped.
The local authorities, who were delighted by the great pro-
gress shown by the children at their home work, discovered
that the village carpenter was making a handsome thing
out of doing their work for them. Military exercises have
caught on but little in the country ; singing in the depart-
ments I visited was much neglected. In domestic economy
the French have nothing to teach us. They have not yet
determined its place in the curriculum. The sewing is
probably their strongest point. I only saw one cookery
lesson, and that was given out of a book. The teacher
described the roasting of a fowl to the class. A series of
questions that followed showed the children had only re-
tained half the directions. It is to be hoped for the peace
of the future households over which they will have to
preside that they have already forgotten the other half.

And now we come to the subject which, perhaps, is of
most interest to us here in England to-day, the so-called
teaching of agriculture. Before, however, discussing the
French solution, it should be remembered that the rural

202 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

problem in France and that in England differ in certain
radical particulars. Hence, what may suit France need not
necessarily suit England, and vice-versa. To begin with, it
must be remembered that the rural population in France
outnumbers the urban, whereas in England it is just the
other way. Accordingly country interests in France have
had a greater chance of making their wants heard and
getting them attended to than with us. The French rural
problem has therefore been tackled at least ten years earher.

Again, England is rather a country of large farms, France
of small holdings. In England the bulk of the village com-
munity are landless men, save the squire, parson and
farmers, whose children do not frequent the village school.
In France, in some communes, one person in every four is a
proprietor, and therefore the pick of the village scholars are
the sons of peasants who have been helping their fathers on
their small holdings from their earhest years. Hence, while
the problem in England seems to be to stimulate observation
and dexterity, to provide at most an eye and hand training
in order to improve the future labourer's efficiency, in
France, rightly or wrongly, the aim has been to give the
pupil some grasp of the principles underljring the science of
agriculture.

The first attempt to develop popular agricultural teach-
ing in the primary school goes back to 1866, but nothing was
really done till the law of 1879, which started agricultural
teaching in the normal schools and made it compulsory after
three years in the elementary schools, each departmental
education committee being left to draw up its own agri-
cultural programme.

Unfortunately this local option in programmeTmaking
seems to have produced more harm than good, for the
reason that the aim and first principles of the subject had
not been thought out. A visitor to France in 1891 foimd no
less than six conceptions of agricultural teaching in exist-
ence. The first consisted of stray notions on the subject
being given by the teacher, often out of a book, supple-
mented by passages for dictation culled out of the agri-
cultural journals. The basis of the second was the learning

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 203

by heart of little agricultural catechisms, in which the horse
was defined as a four-legged animal, and the obvious and
the abstruse were delightfully jumbled together. The
others were variations of the gardening method, the fullest
being that in which each child had a plot, and cultivated
another in partnership with his fellows, under the eye of
the teacher.

In 1893 the Ministry took the matter in hand, and order
was evolved out of chaos by the celebrated scheme of
January, 1897, " On the Teaching of Elementary Notions
of Agriculture in Rural Schools." The method was to be
notions of science applied to agriculture, and the procedure
was to be above all practical. The aim was to inspire
children with a love of the country life, and convince them
of the superiority of an agricultural occupation for those
who practise it with industry, intelligence, and enlighten-
ment. Teachers were advised to give the whole curriculum
an agricultural tinge, and to make their lessons in agri-
cultural teaching coincide with the seasons. Inflated pro-
grammes were deprecated, and suggestions for a course
offered. In the elementary grade only simple objects
should be given. For the middle grade there should be
more object-lessons, together with reading lessons and
school walks.

Simple experiments in the three states of matter, the study
of useful and noxious plants, of combustion, of composition
of soils, etc., should be included, as well as experiments with
different manures, including the five-fold experiment with
the different chemicals necessary for the support of plant life,
potash, super-phosphate, and nitrate. The need of champs
d' exp&rience, or trial fields, is also insisted on. An inspection
of the present departmental programme reveals that they
are all maxima programmes. In fact the teacher is not so
much supposed to follow them implicitly, but rather to pick
and choose those portions which best suit his own district, be
it a grazing or arable country, a wine or a cider district.
Another point which an inspection of the programmes
brings out is, that though the majority of them are far more
practicable than the old programmes, there is still doubt

204 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

whether the scientific and general side, or the agricultural
side, should predominate.

These programmes are meant for boys, but girls are also
taught horticulture, a matter the French peasant largely
leaves to his womankind. They are also given some
instruction in poultry-keeping and dairy work.

As regards text-books their employment is well defined
in the Calvados programme. " Books wiU be useless in the
cours eUmentaire ■prtparatoire ; optional in the cows moyen ;
indispensable in the cours superieur." The work placed in
the hands of the pupils will only serve for reference. In no
case will it take the place of oral teaching. Of those who
would do entirely without books, one is compelled to ask.
What is the use then of libraries ? Pictures, diagrams, and
the musee scolaire are all useful adjuncts to the teaching of
the subject.

But, as the Ministry have recognized, the chief value of
the subject Hes on its experimental and practical side. The
experiment in pots is pretty, but insufficient ; more fruitful
have been the outdoor experiments in the teachers' gardens,
or in the champs d' experience. In two directions the school
has been able to render valuable service to the cause of agri-
culture. One is the teaching of grafting in the vine dis-
tricts, where the reconstruction of the vineyards is of
capital importance, owing to the devastation of the phyl-
loxera ; and the other is the wider and more inteUigent use
of natural and especially artificial manures. The employ-
ment of the latter is especially needful in a coimtry where
the head of stock kept by the peasant is comparatively
small.

The agricultural education of the department outside the
primary school is one of the many functions that concern
the professor of agriculture, but, in looking after the " trial
fields," the teachers often prove to be his most valuable
henchman. In some departments these champs d' experience
are quite insufficient. In Calvados, for example, there are
only some 20 or 30 in 763 communes. In Sarthe, on the
other hand, with 386 communes, they numbered 167 in
1898-9, of which some 80 were looked after by the teachers.

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 205

A further aid to the outside work of the school is the
school journey, during which the children take notes, and
occasionally botanize.

To sum up, while the older teachers seem generally in-
different, there are many among the younger generation
who, thanks to the teaching in the normal schools, take a
keen interest in the subject. The chief desideratum seems
to be the estabhshment everywhere of a small garden. This
is so strongly felt by the Ministry that at the Exhibition of
1900 there was a small model garden which, although it
occupied only some 75 square yards, allowed room for a
largish number of experiments. Most of the plants it con-
tained came originally from school gardens. The botanical
bed in the middle was composed of field flowers. It
sufficed, as the ofi&cial report says, for the study of the
principal famiUes, and was none the worse for being orna-
mental.

In the foreground was a narrow bed containing the
principal leguminous and gramineous plants that every
cultivator ought to know. To the left, five Uttle squares
were sown with mixtures of these plants in order to form
specimen meadow plots. Behind them were four quad-
rangular plots sown with maize, potatoes, tomatoes, etc.,
each being treated either with no manure, or with different
dressings to show the effect of proper manuring. Against
the wall at the side were climbing plants, vines, and fruit
trees. In spite of the torrid heat and the attentions of the
Paris sparrows, the garden looked very well, and the experi-
ments were most satisfactory. Some English critics, no
doubt, wiU not be able to completely approve of the French
solution, though experiments on more or less similar hues
have been carried out with much success in this coimtry,
notably by the Surrey County Council, in Norfolk, and the
Isle of Wight.

It is possible that the advocates of nature-study would
insist on the superior educational Vcdue of an education
whose first principles are rather based on training the
observation and the imagination. The French system bears
on the face of it a practical and utilitarian aim. Yet any

2o6 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

judgment passed upon it must take into consideration the
requirements of the French rural problem.

To encourage the teaching of the subject in the rural
schools, examinations written and oral are held, and prizes
awarded by the different departments. The examination
papers include questions framed on the missing word prin-
ciple, questions demanding an answer of two or three Unes,
agricultural book-keeping, which is really a short problem
in arithmetic, an essay, and a simple design from memory.
In Sarthe, there are not only school examinations but school
exhibitions, which are apparently very successful. Prizes
are given by the local agricultural societies — a point that
might well be copied in England.

The French programme, as the examination paper just
quoted shows, attempts as far as possible to dovetail the
subjects into one another. As was indicated at the outset,
a subject is not so much squeezed into the curriculum
because it " pays " or because it is a fad. To gain entry it
has to prove that it will better the all-round efficiency of the
pupU. None the less there is a general feeling that the
curriculum is overloaded, which is plain, when, as we have
seen, the school working-week is 30 hours, and the mmiber of
hours required by the subjects is 34. French teachers are
already asking whether the wisest thing would not be to
have the main programme the same for town and country,
with certain optional subjects for urban or rural children.
The teachers themselves favour some such form of decentral-
ization, and probably some sort of restricted local option
wiU be possible in the near future.

As a sanction to aU these studies, the French have created
a merit or leaving certificate called the certificat d' etudes. It
has its drawbacks, the principal one being the premature
age at which the pupils take it, with the result that it leads
to cramming. Yet, on the other hand, it is held in high
esteem by parents and by the business world. It also gives
the State a valuable means of audit, all the more valuable
because part of it is oral. Happily, in France, the fetish of
paper-work has not reached the dimensions it has with us.
The French have all along seen that viva-voce is an indis-

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 207

pensable supplement to a written examination, because it
tests qualities which are of real worth in daily life, presence
of mind, power to mobilize one's knowledge and intelligence
at a minute's notice, and to think out a problem quickly.

Paper-work is a good test for the closet student, the
recluse, but oral examination brings out as no other test the
strong points of the business man who has got to keep his
head and to come to a sound decision — more speedily than
his fellow competitors. In any case, the advantages of the
examination appear even in the teachers' eyes to outweigh
the disadvantages. For those who would learn more of its
working I must refer to an excellent monograph on the sub-
ject by Sir Joshua Fitch. If such an examination were
adopted in England it would probably be best to entrust
it to a board, consisting of the inspectors, with representa-
tives from primary, secondary, and technical schools and
committees. Were the examination conducted by districts
in the counties and by group centres in the large boroughs,
the whole examination could be got through generally in a
single day, provided the examining board were big enough.

Most of the foregoing remarks refer to the State lay
schools, as the rehgious schools in the country are compara-
tively few. Their strength lies strangely enough in the
towns where they can charge fees. In teaching methods
they are and have been generally inferior, but this is scarcely
surprising when one realizes that they are entirely self-
supporting. The " intolerable strain " with them is not some
20 per cent, of the maintenance, but 100 per cent. Under
these circumstances one can only admire the spirit of self-
devotion that keeps them alive. Many will probably go
under owing to the financial strain, quite apart from any
alterations that may be made in the new law on the right
to teach.

The agricultural training given in the normal schools is
naturally of vital importance to the rural school. While it
appears to be sound upon its theoretical side, it probably still
requires a good deal of attention to make its practical side
as effective as it might be. The truth is in many cases the
agricultural professors are so hard-worked they have not the

2o8 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

time to pay the requisite attention to their outdoor courses
at the normal colleges, and, on the other hand, there is not
always that close correlation that ought to exist between the
teaching of the agricultural professor and his confrtre the
professor of science. Agricultural teaching in the training
colleges for women largely, consists of horticulture.

The chief lesson to be learnt from the French training
colleges is that we must copy them in immensely increasing
our faculties for training, while we must avoid their mistake
of setting up a brace of normal schools for each county or
department. What our authorities should rather do is to
group their schools round the universities or existing train-
ing colleges, or perhaps in the case of some of the rural
counties build small hostels round some of the agricultural
colleges, which the students could attend for certain courses ;
while in other respects they would receive a hterary training.
In any case, we want on the one hand to centralize the
training centres, and on the other to encourage the counties
to go shares as much as possible in the building of new
schools, or at least, to place their hostels alongside one
another round a nucleus of class-rooms and school buildings
to be used in common.

The opportunities for agricultural education in secondary
French schools are so insignificant they need not be
mentioned. The local grammar schools are far more out of
touch with the locahties than with us. Far more promising
is the creation of ex-standard classes and higher primary
schools in the country districts with a view to catering for
rural needs. This is a species of school which it ought to be
easy for the rural counties in England to erect in the near
future. Only the authorities must steadily bear in mind
what sort of pupil they mean to produce, and to be certain
to produce one who will not be a dSclasse. But the rural
problem in France is complicated as in England by class
distinctions. Parents will still go on sending their boys to
the religious high school or the college because it is the
fashion.

The remedy in both countries, therefore, seems to be to
modernize the college course and make it give, as the

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 209

great majority of country grammar schools should give, a
thoroughly modern education. The scholarship system
properly arranged should provide for moving on a clever
lad to some central county school which prepared for the
universities on classical Unes. If a classical side exists
in such schools, it should really be a side and not the main
aim of the schools. These schools had a regular raison
d'etre for being classical schools in the days when the local
upper ten frequented them. But with the revolution of
transport, their clientele has greatly changed, and the educa-
tion they give should follow suit.

Of the extraordinary ardour with which the French
teachers have thrown themselves into the extraneous work
connected with the school, a few words must be said. Many
of these works of supererogation are performed by the
Enghsh teacher, but nothing like to the same extent. One
thing we might copy is the mutualite scolaire, or the system
of old age pensions, which starts in the elementary school.
Had the children's fees in English schools been devoted to
this purpose instead of being abolished, we might have
created with a stroke of the pen a complete system of
old age pensions.

Allusion has been already made to the evening classes
and lectures carried on by teachers in connection or not with
old boys' clubs. Some idea of the magnitude of the work
may be gathered from the fact that in 1900 the number of
people attending these lectures amounted to 3 J millions.
It is not necessary to dilate on the value of these good works
in bringing together parents and teachers in the rural
districts, in brightening village Ufe, and in stimulating and
consoUdating village interests. Let it suffice to say that in
many places it is helping the schoolmaster to become the
" lay rector " of the parish.

Such then is the sketch of the French school, and especially
of the French rural school, I have to offer you. Incomplete
and superficial as it is it may nevertheless perhaps produce
on you some faint impression of the effect it produced on me
by the thoroughness of the organization, by the capability
of the expert element in supervision and guidance, by the

210 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

rare enthusiasm and self-devotion of the teachers, and by
the correlation of subjects and the coherence of aim that
distinguish the curriculum of the primary school.

Of course there are blots : in some places the supervision is
too drastic, the intrusion of poUtics too obvious, the teach-
ing is lukewarm, and part of the programme remains un-
realized. But judged en hloc — and I think my opinion will
be endorsed by my colleague, Mr. Medd, of whose com-
petence I do not need to speak here — the general efficiency
of the school is certainly remarkable. Mr. Medd and myself
wrote entirely independent reports, yet anyone must notice
that on all great questions we somewhat arrived at practi-
cally identical conclusions.

And this brings me to the last and most difficult part of
the problem. How does the school stand in relation to
the rural problem ? Is it a power for good, or does it merely
help to accentuate the rural crisis ? Judging by what I saw
and heard, the French school is not out of sympathy with
the home. At the time of my visit its struggle with the
Church was distinctly on the wane, while the school is
certainly in good odour among the vast majority of country
folk. The great mass of those one interviewed asstiredly
did not look on it as an engine for setting boys against the
land or increasing the longing for town Ufe.

Yet so much has been said, often unfairly, against the
EngUsh rural school, such extravagant ideas have been
advanced about the extent of its evil influence, that a state-
ment of the French rural problem may help to open the
eyes of those people who apparently think that a few changes
in the school curriculum would prove a "cure-all" for every
ill the countryside is heir to. Let us first consider, very
briefly, the French rural problem, and then we shall be able
to see whether and to what extent the school exercises an
alleviating or an aggravating influence.

Here again, of course, one can only speak of the five depart-
ments which one visited ; yet lying as they did on the
borderland between north and south they are probably
typical of a great many other departments.

Speaking broadly, then, local industries except when

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 211

grouped round centres like Flers and Lisieux seem to be
declining. The village industries, once such a feature of
these parts, are practically extinct. Agriculture while not
the prosperous thing it was under the Empire (a matter that
still makes the older peasant a Bonapartist at heart) has
certainly improved during the last ten years, though land
has fallen one-third in value. In many places the yield per
acre of corn has doubled, thanks to the use of artificial
manures. Dairy-farming and cattle-breeding are flourish-
ing, except where the foot-and-mouth disease is prevalent ;
but the great change from arable to pasture has had a bad
effect on the peasant. It has made him more lazy than he
was. Horse-breeding, especially for the remounts (the
French prefer encouraging home industries to buying
" screws " in Hungary), is a pajdng business, and hundreds
of thousands of fowls and milUons of eggs are sent from these
districts to Leadenhall Market.

The cider districts are the most prosperous in France. If
the apple crop is a failure owing to the wet, the hay crop
grown under the trees is usually heavy : if the season is too
dry for hay, the apple crop is a bumper one. The vine
districts seem to have turned the comer, and nearly every-
where vine-growers are making money. The new method
of replanting and grafting have robbed the phylloxera of its
worst terrors. Agriculture has been immensely aided by
the estabUshment of agricultural professors, who not only
conduct local experiments but analyse soils, suggest the
proper manures, and encourage co-operative purchase on a
large scale. Much again has been done by the construction
of light railways, the foundation of agricultural shows, the
creation of syndicates among the farmers for buying
manures, implements, and pedigree bulls. Some of these
societies run into thousands of members.

Mutual assurances against loss of crops or cattle are very
widely practised, although co-operative selling is in its
infancy. But le manque de bras c'esi la plaie du pays.
Labour is getting ever scarcer. The harvests would stand
rotting in the fields if the foreigners did not arrive in shoals
to reap them or the Ministry of War did not allow the

212 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

soldiers to go and lend a hand. Still the sons of the land-
owning class no longer flock to Paris as they did. But the
landless men still go. The attractions are higher wages,
the glamour of town life and conscription. Half the
rural conscripts, says one authority, never come back
to till the soil. Those interested in preserving our village
life had better note this when they hear conscription
mooted in England.

Another cause of the depopulation is the low birth-rate.
This is due in part to the love of comfort which restricts the
number of children in the family, and to the absurd system
of inheritance. " The Enghsh system of primogeniture,"
says a witty Frenchman, " confines the number of fools to
one per family ; we French have f oimd a method for render-
ing the whole family imbeciles." Certainly the division of
property in assuring to each child a pittance, is a great
incentive to slackness and lack of enterprise. But the chief
cause of depopulation is alcoholism. Fifty years ago France
was probably the most temperate country in the world.
Now it is by far the greatest consumer of alcohol. Accord-
ing to statistics France consumes annually 14 litres of pure
alcohol at 100 per cent, per head. We only come a bad
sixth in the list with 9.23 litres, but even our record looks
black beside Canada's figure of 2.63 litres per head.

The cause of all this paradoxically was the phylloxera,
which, by making wine comparatively dear, drove the
people to beetroot spirit, absintihe, and other deadly poisons.
The effects have been appaUing. In Rouen a workman's
morning breakfast often consists of slices of bread served in
a soup tureen containing a htre or half a litre of spirit ; the
coffee even is left out. The same soup is not infrequently
served at the evening meal, and this is the fare the children
are brought up on. The whole race seems threatened.
In the fourteen years between 1874-1888 the number of
recruits in the northern departments unfit for service had
increased sixfold, and in the district of Domfront there are
some cantons in which, owing to the prevalence of alcohol-
ism, the recruiting of young conscripts is becoming almost
impossible. The asylums are filled up with these alcohohcs.

FRENCH RURAL EDUCATION 213

In that of Alenfon 60 per cent, of the males and 70 per cent,
of the women belong to this category.

In the hght of the above facts it is clear that the higher
primary school may do something for industry ; the agri-
cultural education given in the primary and higher schools
should make the pupils they turn out more anxious to follow
the profession of their fathers and to profit by the services
of the agricultural professor. But the other problems are
clearly beyond the competence of the school to solve, except
that of alcoholism, and here the teachers, though rather in
the towns, have already started a vigorous campaign to
rouse the younger generation to its dangers.

So much then for the school and its services to the
locality. But the French, while not unheedful of local
needs, none the less recognize that the school has also a
national and a world-wide aim. They do not forget that
it is the nursery of the citizen of to-niorrow, and true to the
teaching of the French Revolution they are far from neglect-
ing the claims of humanity. While the French secondary
school represents in some ways the quintessence of the cul-
ture of the past, the French primary school embodies to a
certain extent some of the newest and most modern ideals
in education.

Their ways are probably not altogether our ways. Their
aiins may differ, but the principles they have set before
them seem well worthy of our consideration and imitation.
They desire to give the pupil a practical education, to render
him as much as possible in sympathy with his present and
with his future surroundings ; but they none the less desire
to keep his education general. They do not degrade the
literary side of the curriculum, but transform it by choosing
more suitable subjects. They try, in a word, to combine
the education of the enlightened worker with that of the
enlightened citizen.

THE TRUE INWARDNESS OF MORAL
INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE

The teaching of la morale in France is far from being
perfect, but that is a disability it largely shares with other
subjects. Further, owing to its comparatively recent intro-
duction into the curriculum, it has, like every other new
subject, laboured under the disadvantage of having to de-
fine its content and evolve its methods. At the outset it
undoubtedly aimed too high, but every year efforts are
being made to bring it down to the children's level. Again,
it started by being too individuaUstic, but this mistake is
now being rectified by the greater prominence given to the
doctrines of solidarity. It has even developed in certain
individuals sundry heretical tendencies, but that is a feature
that is also common to all known religions.

We must also make allowance for the fact that the
organization of moral instruction has taken place " under
fire " from one of the most powerful rehgious bodies in the
world, whose teachers have been evicted wholesale from the
schools. Personally, one may deplore that it has broken so
completely with what I would caJl by a paradox the meta-
physics of the unknown and the imseen, though I am not
so sure whether, in having practically excluded the religious
element, it will not the more readily bring to light in the
end certain elemental needs that appear to be latent in
every human soul and thereby ensure their recognition. I
do not mean that this will necessarily produce a general
return to Cathohcism, but I think it has yet to be proved
that Positivism in its narrower sense will ever content the
mass of mankind.

But this line of thought is likely to carry us too far afield.

MORAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE 213

What I want, if possible, to explain and illustrate here is the
true inwardness, as I conceive it, of French moral instruc-
tion, because it seems to be perpetually overlooked, ignored,
or underrated by the majority of foreign observers, who,
forgetting the golden rule not to chercher midi d quatorze
heures, ailow fuU play to their preconceptions of education
and moral instruction. They not unnaturally fail to find in
the French system the strong points of their own, much less
a recognition of the postulates on which their own is based.
Accordingly, on their return home, they say they have
nothing to learn from French education, which is only true
as far as they themselves are concerned, and that the
French system of teaching morals is more or less a sterile
system of phrases and formulae, as often as not above the
pupil's head, incapable of touching his feelings' and emotions,
with no effect whatever on the training of his will — ^in a
word, a sort of juvenile scholasticism. I venture to think
that their error is profound. Of course, I freely grant that
the French system of moral instruction is not made for
export — ^it would probably be worthless if it were — ^yet if
it can be shown that it is a natural outcome of the French
system of education, it seems to me quite another matter to
say that it is practically sterile or unsuitable for the French
character, unless our critic is prepared to go the whole hog
and condemn outright the whole of French education.

To my mind, there are three possible ways of teaching
moraHty, as, in fact, of teaching any other subject. You
may teach the theory first, as is done stiU in most of the
churches, who begin with a catechism — a sort of pocket
atlas of Life and Eternity — which the small child of nine is
supposed to master mainly for future use ; or you may
teach theory and practice side by side ; or you may rely on
the influence of the milieu and make practice, to all intents
and purposes, your instrument. The last method is very
successfully followed by the big public schools, in which we
are told by certain critics that, in spite of chapel and
Scripture lessons, the boys remain largely unconscious
pagans. Personally I have a preference for the middle
system, in which theory and practice go hand in hand.

2i6 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

To propose gravely, as some do, to keep the child from
all direct moral teaching until he is fourteen or fifteen is
really nothing more nor less than modified Rousseauism,
the " Vicaire Savoyard " being brought in three or four
years earlier than in the eighteenth-century programme. I
freely admit that the amount of theory should vary accord-
ing to the environment of the child ; more prophylactic is
necessary for the slum child than for the boy in a well-
ordered home. But to refuse to help the child to codify his
moral experiences as he goes along seems to me as unsound
as the doctrine of the early modern language reformers, who
would, if they could, have burnt all grammars. Imagine
the prohibition of all English grammars to children imder
fourteen, and the absurdity of the position becomes patent.
Besides, a purely instinctive moraUty at its best is about as
meritorious as that of the weU broken-in horse or thoroughly
trained sheep-dog.

Now it seems to me that the French system is faulty
because it unduly exalts the theoretical side. Where, how-
ever, its critics usually go wrong is that they condemn root
and branch the theory itself. They don't, apparently,
grasp the fact that the theory is so clear, so well put, so full
of meaning to the French child that it makes a definite
appeal to his emotions. On the other hand, the distinctively
English fashion of making morality mainly consist of right
habits seems to me to rely too much on the practical side.
But vis consili expers mole ruit sua. It would seem, there-
fore, that an ideal education in conduct should be one
which, while taking full cognizance of national idiosjm-
crasies, should appeal ahke to the reason, as in France, and
to the will, as in England.

No doubt the average EngUshman wiU declare with indig-
nation that I have taken an extreme case, and that the
training of the will in England does, as a rule, include an
appeal to the reason as well. I concede that we have some
intellectual training, but its inadequacy is shown by the
widespread discontent with existing methods. But, in
return, I ask him to concede — what the majority of critics
of the French system have hitherto refused to concede —

MORAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE 217

that, granted that the French system does appeal too
exclusively to the rational faculties, it does also appeal to
the emotions, which are the raw material of the will ; and I
wiU try to prove, or at least to indicate, that my contention
is weU grounded.

If EngUsh education is based on the belief of the efficacy
of an appeal to the will of the child, French education is
based on a similar behef in the efficacy of an appeal to his
reason. This appeal is not confined to the school : it begins
within the family itself. The Uttle child of two or three,
when appealed to by its mother, is not told to be good or not
to be naughty ; but the exact words used are " Sois sage ! "
or " Sois raisonnable ! " To tell an Enghsh child to be
reasonable would be an absurdity. It is the ordinary term
of the nursery (if I may use the word) in France.

Of course, I do not mean to imply that the small child of
two or three understands all that is meant by the word sage
or raisonnable. The point is that his ideas of conduct grow
up and associate themselves around such words as sage and
raisonnable. He is, in fact, brought up under the regime of
reason, and his rules for conduct are couched in rational
formulae. The psychology on which the theory of education
is based is undoubtedly too exclusively intellectual, but is not
the current underljdng the psychology of the English nursery
equally incomplete in what it lacks in the opposite direction?

I do not know whether the French system of education is
the cause of the precocity of French children, which is not
the precocity of the street arab, but a real intellectual pre-
cocity. Maybe it is due to race or cUmate, but the fact re-
mains that the young French boy of twelve or thirteen is as
intellectually mature in some ways as the Enghsh boy of
fifteen or sixteen. This is a fact constantly lost sight of by
foreign critics when they condemn the programme as too
abstract in form. Not only is the whole school curriculum
permeated by the logical idea, but the very Uterature on
which the pupil is nurtured presupposes a sort of tacit belief
in the raison suffisante.

The whole of French literature since the seventeenth
century is, with certain exceptions, saturated with the behef

2i8 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

in reason, as set forth in the doctrines of Descartes, the
encyclopaedists, or the dogmas of the French Revolution.
Boileau made reason the soul of poetry, and he was merely
the representative of his age, which was, according to
Nisard, with the exception of Moli^re, almost entirely Car-
tesian. For Voltaire and the encyclopaedists reason was the
one bulwark of the human race against authority ; Robes-
pierre's Feast of Reason was but the logical outcome of the
eighteenth-century teaching. The great majority of nine-
teenth-century literature is profoundly affected by the poUti-
cal and social struggles that have agitated France for the
past hundred years. But whether the struggle has been for
political power or social justice both parties have had to use
the same weapon — the logical appeal to the national sense of
right and wrong. It is therefore clear, I think, that the
atmosphere inside and outside the schools, in which the
French child grows up, is essentially a logical one.

But to say that French education is merely logic seems
to me to be stating a half-truth. I would rather define it as
logic touched with emotion. Abstract reasoning, no doubt,
leaves everyone cold, but reason that appeals to motives is
Uke a lever that at once sets the emotions in motion. And
this is what actually occurs in French education. The
language of reason, being appUed to control emotional
crises, even if they be only nursery tears, speedily assumes
an emotional cast ; and this is only natural, for the emotions
are there, and if they are prevented by educational tradition
from developing their own vocabulary, they must inevitably
tinge, if not entirely colour, expressions that originally were
purely intellectual — let alone the fact that the average man
does not keep his inteUigence in one compartment, his
morals in another, and his emotions in another, however
much he may isolate and insulate, or partly disconnect, his
conscience from large tracts of his daily hfe.

This overlapping tendency may be weU illustrated by the
analysis of the word raison, of which the uses are far wider
than the corresponding English word. They intrude, in
fact, into the moral domain and even into the sphere of
action. It is probable that some of these more varied uses

MORAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE 219

are reminiscences of the original meanings of ratio ; but if
this is the case, it is French exigencies which have kept these
meanings ahve in the French when they have died out or
never taken root in EngUsh. Note, for instance, the moral
nuances existing in the uses of avoir raison (to be in the
right), donner raison d quelqu'un (own that some one is in
the right), dire avec raison (rightly, justly, equitably), en-
tendre raison (to comply with something just), comme de
raison (as is just), pour valoir ce que de raison (in equity),
entrer en raison avec quelqu'un (to remonstrate, reason
together — as to rights and wrongs), lui demander raison de
quelque chose (ask him to justify himself), rendre raison de
quelque chose (justify), point de raison I (no justification).

Note, again, the nuance of action impUed in the phrases
avoir raison de ses vices (get the better of his vices), demander
raison au tyran (challenge, attack), faire raison {render
justice), conter ses raisons (business). But the full
strength of the word raison is best seen or felt in such
phrases as raison suffisante (sovereign reason) or raison d'etre
or raison d'Uat. How much more fundamental is raison
d'Uat (suggesting, if necessary, the life and death of the
State being at stake) than " reasons of State " — the very
plural in EngUsh showing how far weaker the meaning of the
EngUsh word is, though how typical of the English mind,
with its greater sensitiveness to the number of factors to be
considered !

If the above considerations are weU founded, it is prob-
able that much that seems to the bulk of foreign observers
either wooden or sterile is usually as fuU of meaning and
significance to the pupil as, say, the whole gamut of the
theological vocabulary is to an inteUigent young Calvinist
brought up in a strictly pious EngUsh family, Uke the author
of Father and Son. What, in fact, to the English observer
appear to be mere sterile symbols are to the French child not
merely intelligible, but fraught with meaning and sugges-
tion, because they are largely the language of everyday Ufe
and Uterature. There is in France no separate philo-
sophical or theological phraseology to darken counsel in the
child's mind.

220 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

No doubt there is a certain gain in the double vocabulary
as far as theology is concerned ; but it is dearly purchased
in the case of those who think they can worship in one lan-
guage on Sunday and outwit their neighbour in another for
the rest of the week, as Herbert Spencer pointed out. What
I want to insist on here is not merely the value, but the
vitaUty, the vivida vis, of inteUigible sjmibols. Foreign
observers seem to condemn all symbols which are unf amihar
to the children of their own people, forgetting that even the
common folk have been ready to slay and be slain for such
an abstract thing as the omission of an iota when they
grasped its tremendous importance.

But I would push the analysis, if possible, yet one step
further. Not only do I think the real raison d'etre of the
logical education is that it seems to the French mind the
most intelUgible way of reaching the child's emotions
through the discipUnary categories of reason, but its ulti-
mate sanction appears to me to rest on something even
deeper than the ideal that man should be a creature of
thought, as weU as of action. It is based, consciously or
unconsciously, on the sentiment of personality, the adytum
of our being, the last solid foundation, ere we descend into
the vast and endless catacombs of the subconscious and the
unknown.

I venture to think that the craving for the unification of
one's personaUty — the instinct for physical, mental, and
moral self-unity — ^is quite as fundamental and primordial
as the instinct for action. Both are, in fact, but different
facets of the same desire for self-realization, which, whether
it postulates a soul or not, recognizes in the individual the
necessary unit in any system calling itself a cosmos. I do not
say, for one moment, we should at once attempt consciously
to individualize the child. The result, if successful, could
only be something miserably stunted and stereotyped, but
surely we should prepare for its gradual realization, as I
hope, in conclusion, to show.

The truth is, the moment that children begin to reflect —
and they do so at a very early age — they want to inquire
into the why and wherefore of conduct just as much as into

MORAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE 221

the why and wherefore of anything else. Nurses and
parents do their best to stifle this spirit of free inquiry by
discouraging questions. They thus maintain an environ-
ment more or less hostile to the legitimate development of
curiosity. The public schools are generally equally success-
ful in damping down the remains of these searchings of
heart by speedily impressing on each newcomer that what-
ever is, is right in their particular milieu. Happy the small
boy who does not lose his sense of wonder and curiosity in
intellectual matters as well !

But even the boy who lives in a definite and regulated
atmosphere at home or at school reaches a time when, if he
is not a mere drifter intellectually and morally, he asks him-
self : " Why am I here ? what am I to Uve for ? what is
my hereafter ? " and a hundred other questions about
conduct besides. He realizes that he must have definite
standards to hve by, and becomes aware of the discrepancies
of the various codes under which he has hitherto been
living in bUssful unconsciousness. He sees, in a word, the
need of an ideal to live for. A conscious or unconscious ideal
is, in fact, a sine qua non of hfe. It may be merely the work-
ing hypothesis of getting all the pleasure one can out of life.
It may, in fact, be something infinitely degrading. But it
is no paradox to say that it is better not to have enough
to live on than to have nothing to live for. Millionaires
commit suicide because that one essential is lacking, and the
chief thing that keeps the dram and drug drinkers, apart
from the fear of death, from ending their miserable lives is
the prospective joys of intoxication or obUvion.

If this is true, then surely the province of moral teaching
is to provide humanity — directly or indirectly — ^with the
highest ideals it can reasonably attain or assimilate. This
involves not merely the formation of right habits, but also
of right thinking — ^not merely of right-mindedness. Socrates
declared that virtue could be taught, and Tennyson has said
the same thing when he declared, " we needs must love the
highest when we see it " — an apphcation of the Cartesian
theory that an idea may be so clear as to become irresistible.
We in England have clung too exclusively to the opposite

222 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

theory of training. I fully believe that, being English and
not French, we have been essentially right in the main, but
I as fully beUeve that if more will-training would be good in
France, a certain amount of carefully administered theory
would not be amiss in the teaching of moraUty in England
in the form either of definite moral instruction or of ampli-
fied and modernized religious teaching. In a word, virtue
must be taught as well as practised.^

1 Note. — (1913.) The aesthetic and emotional factors in French
education are well illustrated by a delicate piece of analysis by that
well-known cosmopoUtan writer Claire de Pratz, who in her book
France from Within points out that a French mother will say to a
child who is doing wrong, " Ce que tu fais n'est pas beau " (beautiful !),
and if this does not avail she adds, " Tu fais de la peine k ta mSre "
(appeal to the emotions). Compare with this our normal English
discipline — " Won't you be good ? " possibly followed by an appeal
to physical force — a quaint illustration of doing evil that good may

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE

A Monograph included in the Report of the Royal
Commission on Physical Training (Scotland)

The Beginnings of Physical Education. The necessity
of building up the nation after the war of 1870 induced the
French statesmen of the day to pay increased attention to
education of all kinds, including physical. Jules Simon, in
his book on the reform of secondary education, declared that
the scholastic contempt for health and hygiene had been a
potent factor in the disasters that had befallen the nation.
The reforms in physical education took the shape of gym-
nastics and military exercises, the chief aim in view being
the preparation of the rising generation for their future
share in the national defence. The hands of those who
took this patriotic view of physical education were greatly
strengthened by the growing danger of a fresh invasion
towards 1876.

G5annastics with apparatus were everywhere rendered
obhgatory, and the movement in favour of miUtary drill
culminated in the creation of regular cadet corps in the
schools, both primary and secondary. These cadet corps
were known by the name of bataillons scolaires. As these
cadet corps, after a briUiant debut, feU into discredit,
and later on into complete ridicule, it is probably worth
while giving a fairly full view of the causes of their inception,
and particularly of their failure, since there is often as much
to be learnt from experiments which have failed as from
those which have been successful. Besides, the subject has
some interest for us in this country, as there is to-day a
distinct movement in favour of estabhshing some form or
another of military drill in all the schools.

224 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The Cadet Corps. The chief cause of the foundation
of these corps was the desire to make the school a sort of
nursery for the future defenders of the country. The idea
was naturally most widely adopted in the large centres of
population, and especially at Paris. The children were
armed with wooden swords and muskets, and provided with
special uniforms. There were fifes, trumpets, and drums.
Some of the children were appointed non-commissioned
officers. The higher posts were filled by the sergeant-
instructors, aided by several officiers de riserve, who
were only too glad to air their uniform. Regular parades
and reviews wfere held in the Garden of the Tuileries and
elsewhere. Those whom I consulted on the subject ad-
mitted that the object in view of accustoming the child
from its earliest years to consider itself the natural defender
of its country was an excellent one, but they, one and all,
declared the movement in France had been a complete fiasco.

Causes of Failure. A good many reasons were given.
The cost to the town was altogether out of proportion to
the results obtained, and the results themselves were un-
satisfactory rather than satisfactory. The children, espe-
cially those who were made non-commissioned oflScers,
affected the manners and language of the drill sergeants,
who imported into the playground the phraseology of the
barracks. The teachers began to take alarm at their
children, who swore and expectorated after the most
approved mihtary fashion. Then, again, the children who
had been made corporals and sergeants tjrrannized over the
others. The discipUne was often very slack. One witness
told me of a case in which he saw a real colonel surrounded
by his youthful recruits, who kept him a virtual prisoner
by crowding round him, while those in his rear decorated his
uniform with elaborate designs in chalk.

But the teachers were not the only opponents of the move-
ment ; the regular officers were also hostile. Experience
showed that the children who had left the school at thirteen
or fourteen had mostly forgotten what they had learnt when
they became soldiers at nineteen and twenty. This was not,
however, an unmitigated loss, as it was generally admitted

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 225

that the young people who had taken part in these exercises
had, as a rule, a good deal more to unlearn than those who
came to the barracks without any preliminary training.
Started in 1873, the last of the bataillons scolaires were
suppressed in 1890. The moral of the whole experiment
was summed up to me by one witness in the following
words : " It is just as necessary to give the body a general
training as it is to give the mind. Speciahzation must come
later. To expect to make a soldier of a boy of ten is as
sensible as to try to make a boy of the same age into a
dentist." 1

Gymnastics. This does not imply that the French
have given up all idea of utilizing the school as a prepara-
tion for the regiment. On the contrary, the gymnastics,
with or without apparatus, were until recently far too much
of a miUtary tj^e. While the bataillons scolaires have
fallen out altogether, the societies of gymnastics still exist,
though their career has been rather a chequered one. Up
to 1887 the number of the private societies, recruited mainly
from the primary schools, increased. Their numbers then
remained stationary for several years, and have since de-
cUned. The reasons for this falling off are several. Their
most severe critics have been those who have made a study
of physical education on scientific Unes.

Objections to the French Gymnastics. It has been
shown that the exercises with apparatus are often injurious
to those who are weakly constituted. Besides, the whole
aim of such a system is to form rather acrobats than well-
developed and well-proportioned individuals. Instead of
seeking to increase the respiratory powers, its chief object
is the formation of muscle. During the last year or
two, however, a great effort has been made to introduce
the Swedish exercises, or at least the principles under-
lying them. The opposition has been very bitter on the

1 Note. — (1913.) The Boy Scouts movement has just been intro-
duced into France with apparently good results. The inevitable
religious difficulty has, however, arisen, owing to the question of the
scouts swearing allegiance to the Divinity, and two rival societies
have been formed, Les ficlaireurs de France and Les £claireurs
franjais.

E.E. P

226 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

part of the military instructors brought up under the old
rigime.

All sorts of reasons have been advanced, not forgetting
the patriotic. But, as one critic has pointed out, the so-
called French system is really German, having been adopted
in France after passing by Spain. Still the theories of which
M. Demeny of Paris, and M. Tissi6 of Bordeaux, are advo-
cates, appear to be getting the upper hand to-day, so much
so that at the miUtary school of JoinviUe le Pont, at which
the military instructors for the army are formed, M. Demeny
has now a class of his own. As these instructors become
later on professors of gymnastics in the lycees and primary
schools, it is evident that the gymnastique raisonnee, as
it is called, is sure of success in the long run.

Gymnastics in the Primary Schools. An important
Commission in 1887 was nominated to revise the pro-
gramme of g5^mnastics. Their new programme, issued in
1890, was followed by an official manual on gymnastic
exercises and school games. This, however, was merely a
book in which the teacher could pick and choose, and no
indication was given as to how the teacher should form for
himself a scientific course of instruction for his pupils. This
gap was filled in 1899 by the publication of a volume by M.
Demeny, entitled, L'Exercice a l'£cole, in which a number
of graduated courses were suggested.

French v. Swedish. Meanwhile the old battle between
the so-called ^ French methods and the Swedish had been
gradually fought out in the schools. The chief argu-
ment of the opponents of the Swedish system was that the
spirit of the training given on the Swedish system was not
in sympathy with the temperament of the French child,
who has the greatest difficulty in remaining still or con-
centrating his attention for any length of time.

The Swedish method triumphed nevertheless, and to-day,
although the new exercises ^ have only been introduced into

^ French here means the old gymnastic methods,

^ The thoroughness and scientific nature of these exercises may be
judged by the fact that before they were adopted in the schools tiiey
were submitted to the Faculty of Medicine, who approved of them
unanimously.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 227

the Paris schools since October, 1901, the children have made
excellent progress, thanks to the twenty-five teachers that
M. le Colonel Derue, inspector of gymnastics to the city of
Paris, has been able to gather round him and train. Part
of his success, no doubt, is due to the fact that the professors,
though appointed by the town, are selected by himself.

Description of a Girls' School. I saw several large
classes of girls, one amounting to ninety pupils, under-
going a course of Swedish drill at the command of a lady
instructor. There was very little shirking, the precision
was very fair, and the discipline unimpeachable. The
directress of the school, who was present, told me she had
already remarked a distinct improvement in the deportment
of the girls. The exercises were interspersed with short
marching exercises, concluding with a pas-de-quatre step.

During these exercises the children sang various rounds
and ballads. The younger ones also sang while playing at
catch-ball — a game at which some of them were not very
expert. The practice of singing was much criticized at the
International Congress of 1900, but provided it is restricted
to marching exercises it has certainly a good effect on the
pupils. There are no pianos in the schools ; the cost of
supplying them seems to be too great. The exercises took
place in the covered playground, and it was somewhat re-
markable not to see a single window open. In fine weather
they take place in the open playground.

Description of a Boys' School. In the boys' schools, in
addition to these exercises, the pupils are taught a certain
amount of mihtary drill, including la boxe, which is roughly
an exercise of arms and legs without apparatus. In one
school I visited the military instructor took up a position at
the side of the open playground and blew his whistle. In-
stantly the boys, who had not been warned, came tumbling
out of the class-rooms, and in one minute forty seconds
the whole 800 children had taken up their position in the
playground in regular lines, with the masters beside them.
They then proceeded to perform with precision several
simple military exercises, after which the instructor dis-
missed them, and kept back one class which he put through

228 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

various military exercises, such as forming fours, etc. In
this case the drill took place in the open playground, but
although in the open air the smell of the latrines was
unpleasantly obvious.

In aU these cases the exercises are more or less the same
for all classes, and no initiative is left at all to the instructor.
There seems, therefore, a possible danger that teachers and
taught may find them in the long run monotonous, though
at present I did not see any sign of this.

The instruction given by the official instructor only
amounts to half an hour per week for each class, an amount
that the inspector himself regards as woefully inadequate.

The R8le of Teacher. This is indeed supplemented by
another half-hour in which the exercises are repeated by
the teacher of the class, but the time is sometimes spUt
into two quarters, which renders it thereby insufficient.
Moreover, the teacher, so I was told in more than one
quarter, is not always equal to the task. Unfortunately
the teaching given in many of the normal schools is not at
present adapted to enable the teachers to give the right
sort of training in the primary schools, though teachers are
encouraged to obtain at the school a gjonnastic certificate,
with a view to earning the prize given by the city of Paris
to those who possess it.

Still the Administration is anxious to see the instruction
largely given by the teachers. M. Bayet, the Director of
Primary Instruction, told me that in Switzerland the physi-
cal education is given by the ordinary teachers in the normal
schools, or, in fact, as it is often given in our London
schools, only instead of the teacher receiving additional
pay, the hours he puts in in teaching g5minastics count
the same as the hours devoted to teaching French or
mathematics in the total number of hours he is supposed
to work per week.

Gymnastics in Country Schools. G3nnnastics and miU-
tary drill in country schools are largely regarded as an
optional subject. In some sixty schools that I visited two
years ago, in North-west France, I only came across a few
instances in which they were taught. As one teacher

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 229

pointed out to me, the children got, as a rule, enough
exercise by trudging to school and playing among them-
selves. What is often wanted in the country, however, is
not the cultivation of muscle, but the cultivation of adroit-
ness and agility and handiness ; in fact, the problem in the
country is exactly the reverse of that in the towns, where
the children are nimble-fingered enough, but lack the
physique of the rural lad. It is curious to note that in
some programmes of school work the " school walk " is
ranked under the heading of gymnastics.

Kindergarten. In the kindergarten the gymnastics
are naturally confined to singing, games, and simple
manoeuvres. I visited one school in which the children
sang and performed some of the simple movements ; they
were rather hstless, but it is only fair to state it was near
the end of the afternoon.

Higher Primary Schools. I was told there was not
much to be learnt in the Paris higher primary schools for
boys distinct from what is done in the elementary and
secondary schools. The head of one of the two higher
primary schools for girls informed me that the gymnastic
programme of the school was taken out of the general pro-
gramme, the selection being made by the teacher of gym-
nastics and herself. Very httle use is made of apparatus.
They had given up the employment of staves from lack of
space. The exercises took place either out of doors or in
the covered playground. An attempt has been made to get
the teaching given by the ordinary teachers attached to the
school, a plan the directress preferred in the abstract, but
it had not been successful.

Continuation Classes. There are no official evening
classes in France for those who have left the primary
schools, though much has been done by private societies
and teachers in creating patronages and associations d'anciens
eUves. In many cases the school is used as the meeting-
place, and a certain amount of gymnastics and dancing goes
on, but as the associations are under no control there is no
unity of method in the gymnastics as practised in these
establishments.

230 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Normal Schools. In the normal schools a consider-
able amount of time is given to gymnastics, but, as has
been already stated, it is not always of the kind calculated
to make the teacher an instructor in simple gymnastics for
the school. Thus in comparatively few normal schools for
women are Swedish exercises taught. StiU the time given
to the subject — three hours a week— permits both the men
and women in the different normal schools to gain a
certificate in the subject. At Auteuil I saw a certain
amount of drilling out of doors, combined with mihtary
exercises of the foot and hand [la boxe). Several exercises
on the horizontal bar were very well done. The professor
told me that he every year " created " fresh movements,
in order to prevent monotony.

The gymnasium had the advantage of having one side
completely open to the air. Like all the others that I saw,
the floor was covered with sawdust. According to the pro-
fessor, the pupils learn aU the more common mihtary
manoeuvres, and they dance also among themselves twice
a week. The gymnasium also is always open, so they can
practise whenever they like. In addition, they teach gym-
nastics in the practising schools, so that when they leave
they are efficient in every way. I was told that in aU
schools the use of the musket had been suppressed. I
came across one school, however, in the coimtry in which
it is still retained. In the other schools the pupQs now use
staves in their place in the gymnastic portion of their drill.

Fire Brigade. In one school in the country that I
visited I saw the pupils of the first year had been formed
into a fire brigade. I saw them at practice, and they
certainly worked with a wiU. They had already received
their baptism of fire at a conflagration in the neighbourhood.
The practice might certainly be extended to other schools
with advantage.

Secondary Education. As for the gjrmnastics in the
lycSe, they have never been really obhgatory, except for
the boarders. The day boys take an interest more or less
in them. Thus of some thousand day pupils at College
Rollin, about 400 attend the gsminastic classes. A few

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 231

years ago, so I was informed, the subject was so unpopular
with the boys in some lycSes that the winner of the prize
for gyirinastics did not dare to go up for his prize for fear
of being jeered at by his fellows. This spirit cannot, how-
ever, extend to all the schools, as at the CoUege Chaptal,
which is in part a secondary school, there are supplementary
classes for those who care to pay for them, and they are
well attended.

In these schools, as elsewhere, the instruction is given by
anciens sous-officiers, who are often also employed in the
primary schools. The exercises themselves are largely
taken out of the big manual published by the Ministry.
Nominally there is a general inspector, but as he never
appears in the schools, each teacher makes up his own pro-
gramme. The time given to the subject seems to vary.
At the College Rollin the pupils have three half-hours a
week.

I saw several classes at exercise in this school. The
dumb-bells in use for boys of sixteen and seventeen seemed
far too heavy, weighing something hke 13 pounds ; the
smaller boys had also dumb-bells weighing from 4^ to 9
pounds. The exercises consisted of various dumb-beU
movements, varied with practice on the horizontal bar,
which was a mere bar of iron uncased with wood, or else
consisted of rope and ladder climbing. The professors had
sixteen hours' work a week.

At Chaptal, which is partly a higher primary and partly
a secondary school, gymnastics are obligatory. The number
of hours per week is two. Here each lesson consists of
twenty minutes of Swedish exercises, followed by forty
minutes of mihtary exercises with dumb-bells or other
apparatus. I was present at a supplementary class. One
squad practised on the horizontal bar, the other took
a turn at jumping off a spring-board, and then had a lesson
in rope-climbing. In the latter the teacher rightly laid
stress on the chmbing being done hand over hand, in order
to develop each arm evenly.

Competition between the Schools in Gymnastics. Every
year there is at Paris a general competition in g3mi-

232 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

nasties for the secondary and normal schools, in which
the schools compete against one another either by single
champions or by groups. Each school goes through, among
other things, a selection of the exercises it has practised
during the year, and this helps to keep the teaching in the
different establishments more or less together. It was at
the general competition of last year that the normal school
of Auteuil, mentioned above, won the first prize.

Athletics. There is, no doubt, a certain disciphne at-
tached to the practice of gymnastics, but as a means for
developing the character and individuality of the pupil they
are obviously insufficient. Hence the necessity of combin-
ing them, as far as possible, with the numerous games and
sports, either individualistic or collective. This combina-
tion found recognition in France in the composition of the
official manual on physical exercises already alluded to. It
also formed one of the chief subjects set down for discussion
at the International Congress of 1900.

This belief in the need of outdoor athletics was largely
strengthened by the overwork in secondary schools that
resulted from the alterations in the official programmes in
1885. The Baron de Coubertin, to mention only one of the
numerous reformers, came to England, saw and was con-
quered by the system of education which obtains in our big
public schools.

(i) Recreative Side. Some of these reformers, it is true,
only saw in the EngHsh system an excellent means of recrea-
tion, supplying the requisite antidote to the over-pressure
from which the French schools were suffering. Others, on
the contrary, regarded the English games as a capital device
for keeping their pupils out of mischief — the French boy,
in the eyes of the majority of the teachers, is, to parody the
words of Rousseau, born fundamentally wicked.

(2) Pastimes. Here, however, the creators of new schools
on the EngUsh model, such as MM. Demolins and Duhamel,
have seen that for filUng up a boy's spEire time carpentry
and other forms of manual work are distinctly preferable.

(3) Discipline of Games. There remains, then, the third
conception of outdoor games as a school for the will. The

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 233

necessity for self-improvement in the case of anyone who
desires to excel in games is in itself a liberal education,
while the games in concert, such as football and rowing,
provide an admirable field for the cultivation of social and
public spirit. So truly is the British pubUc school a minia-
ture republic, a training ground for civic life on a larger
scale, where the pupils learn aUke to obey and to lead, that
the celebrated French educator, the P^re Didon, after
visiting Eton, said the boys who learn to command in the
games there are learning to command the Indies.

The First Phase of the Athletic Movement in France. The
movement in favour of outdoor games and athletics in
France took, however, at first a distinctly individuaUstic
turn. The Lendit, as the annual championship founded by
M. Grousset was caUed, was practically confined to competi-
tions between the best individuals in each branch of ath-
letics. This led in not a few cases to physical over-training,
and had the unfortunate effect of revealing to French parents
and school authorities the bad side of outdoor sports with-
out bringing home to them the moral benefits derived
therefrom.

In fact, the great obstacle to the development of athletics
in France has been the opposition offered by parents and
school authorities. Though much has been done for the
education of these persons, much remains to be accom-
phshed. BUnd by education to the advantages of games,
both parties aHke dread them as a possible source of dis-
traction to their boys. In the present fierce competition to
enter the pubUc service, every hour given to exercise is apt
to be regarded as an hour lost to work.

The fear, again, of accidents is a potent factor with the
French mother, and in the majority of cases the French
mother is the btisiness head of the family, as far as the
education of the children is concerned. The question is
evidently bound up with the future education of French
women.

As for the teachers, the fear of accidents is also an
important cause of their hostiUty, though the actual reason
itself is different. Until recently they were held pecuniarily

234 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

responsible for any accident to life or limb of the scholars
under their charge. No matter however morally innocent
the teacher was, he was legally liable. The classic instance
— so M. Rabier, the Director of Secondary Education, told
me — ^was that of a teacher who was condemned to pay for
an injury which happened to one of his scholars in a fight
with another, 300 yards from the school. Lately the law
has been changed, and the State now assumes responsibility,
reserving, however, to itself the right of making the teacher
responsible if it thinks fit. Naturally, the average teacher
still considers it is better to avoid accidents at any price,
and therefore looks coldly on any form of exercise which
may occasion them.

None the less, the school athletic associations, which
started in 1890, have managed to interest a certain number
of secondary pupils in games, and a stiU larger number of
associations have been founded by pupUs from the primary
schools. A good instance of the progress is the Union of
French Athletic Societies, which embraces some 340 societies
and contains some 16,000 active members.

Hindrances. The movement in the schools has, how-
ever, not only suffered from the opposition of parents and
professors ; it has also been undermined by those who ought
to have served as its best friends.

The larger athletic clubs for adults, such as the Racing
Club, the Stade Fran9aise, etc., in their desire to augment
their members and prestige, have treated the school associa-
tions as a happy hunting-ground for providing members for
their football and athletic teams. They have thereby
greatly increased. The Racing Club has over 1000 mem-
bers, but the effect on the school associations has been
deplorable. The average boy of fifteen or sixteen cannot
be expected to resist the blandishments which membership
of a well-known club offers, more especially when he is
expressly invited to join by the committee.

The results have, however, been disastrous in the long run.
Perpetually drained of their best blood, many of the school
associations have either dwindled away or remained station-
ary. Lacking the prestige that numbers alone can give.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 235

they fail to attract into their ranks more than a tithe of
the pupils of the school.

The evil does not end here. The vast majority of French
students not having belonged to their school association,
naturally fall into the idle and inactive ways of the Quartier
Latin. To profit from the physical, and, above all, the
moral advantages of athleticism, one must be caught
young.

Athletics in Primary Schools. As regards the pupils and
former pupils of the primary schools, the most striking
feature has been the enormous number who play at Associa-
tion football every Simday in the Bois or the Fortifications.
According to a competent authority they number thousands.

Bicycling. The bicycle may also be mentioned here,
not so much for its influence on the education of character,
but for the immense impetus it has given to the French
people generally to take exercise and live more out of doors.
This is especially true of the female sex.

Swimming. The number of scholars who take up
swimming is likewise growing. Some of the primary
school teachers take their pupils to the baths, and this
custom also obtains in many of the religious private schools.

Shooting. As regards shooting there exist a few school
ranges at Paris, from thirteen to sixteen yards long. There
are also six or seven targets at the municipal gymnasium
in the Rue d'AUemagne. The children in the neighbouring
primary schools who are nominated by their teachers for
meritorious work go there and shoot. The range is also
open to adults. The weapon generally employed is the
small French carbine. The associations of former pupils
also practise at the Stande Militaire at the Point du Jour
near Auteuil, and use the Lebel rifle with a reduced charge.
There is no long range in the immediate neighbourhood of
Paris. There are a certain number of tir scolaire in the
country ; I met with one or two when inspecting the
schools, but they did not appear very numerous. In the
same year there was a tir scolaire at Rouen for the whole of
Normandy, but only fifteen schools competed. In two
schools I found the teachers allowed certain of the elder

236 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

pupils to fair e un carton (fire a set of rounds) once a week as
a reward for good work.

Medical Inspection. The French schools, both primary
and secondary, are subject to medical inspection.

(i) Primary Schools. In the towns, according to Dr.
Philipp, the school doctors go round the primary schools
twice a month. They inspect the buildings and sanitary
arrangements, and the teachers point out to them any of
the pupils who seem to need attention. In some schools
they also examine in detail the teeth, eyes and ears of
the scholars. In case of any epidemic the teacher is
required to call in the doctor. Those children whom the
doctor considers unfit to attend school are either sent home
or to the hospital. In the former case they are attached as
out-patients to a free dispensary, of which there are three or
four in each arrondissement of Paris. The pay of a school
doctor at Paris is £32 a year, and he has five groups of
schools to look after.

(2) In Secondary Boarding Schools. In secondary board-
ing schools belonging to the State, the doctor generally pays
a daily visit. A league founded by Dr. Mathieu to look
after the lycUs has done a great deal of good ; great improve-
ments have been made in the quality and variety of the food
supphed in the State boarding schools owing to the efforts
of the league.

Absence of Statistics. I was unable to obtain statistics
on physical education in France, and no one I consulted
seemed to know whether any were procurable, but some
might probably be obtained at the physical laboratory of
the College de France. The only school I am aware of
where statistics are kept of the growth and weight of the
pupils is the newly founded College de Normandie, which is
largely run on British lines.

A Book of Health. A few doctors of Paris, however,
have started a movement which may have, later on, far-
reaching consequences. At the lying-in clinic of Dr.
Budier the mothers are given a livret de saniS of their
children, and encouraged to bring them every three months
to the clinic. At first they could not understand the good

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 237

of bringing their children when they were well. But now
they have reaUzed that there is also a preventive side to
medicine, and they are only too wiUing to bring their
children, and listen to the doctor's advice on their bringing
up. A similar livret de santS has been established at the
school of Rambouillet, attended by the children of those
soldiers who are too poor to bring them up. A similar
sj^tem is about to be started at the establishment for re-
cruits who have been rejected for some physical defect from
the army. The difficulty against extending such a system
lies in the material opposition of the parents, as a rule,
to any detailed inquiry into the state of their own health.

Physical Degeneration in the Towns. Two schemes for
combating the general degeneration of urban populations
are sufficiently important to be mentioned here. One is the
system of planting out in the country the enfants moralement
abandonnis, or pauper children, and the other is the colonie
scolaire, or the sending into the country for a time ailing or
sickly children in the towns.

(i) Les Enfants Moralement Abandonnis. In the former
case, the town of Paris has rescued some 50,000 children from
certain ruin and degradation, and settled them out in the
country with foster-parents. The latter are carefuUy
watched, while the education of the children is safeguarded
by the teachers under whom they are placed being remune-
rated in such cases as when their pupils obtain the school
certificate. To prevent any distinction between these and
the other children of the village they are provided with the
ordinary costume of the children of the peasants. I was
assured by the municipal councillor who superintended the
scheme about four years ago that 80 per cent, of these
children remain in the country. 10 per cent, have the love
of a city life too strong in their veins. They return to Paris,
the city finds them situations, and they settle down. The
remaining 10 per cent, are lost sight of, but this does not
necessarily imply they have lapsed into a life of mendicity
or crime.

(2) Colonies Scolaires. The school colonies take two
forms. In the one case the arrondissement hires or borrows

238 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

a boarding school in the country during the summer holi-
days, to which it sends several hundred children. In the
other case, it acquires a former chdteau in the country, to
which it despatches relays of children during the year. The
ordinary duration of stay is three weeks. In the majority
of cases the locaUty is an inland one. The children are
selected by the head teachers ; the very poor and aihng are
taken by preference. Each child must be at least ten years
old. In a school of 800, the headmistress told me she was
requested last year to select not less than eight or more
than ten.

School Kitchen. In connection with this, allusion may
be made, perhaps, to the cantine scolaire, or school kitchen,
by which free meals are provided in each arrondissement
for the children of the indigent, while those who desire can
share in the meal for about three-halfpence a day. The cost
is partially borne by the school fund which is raised to aid
poor children ; but, as there is always a large deficit, the
great proportion of the cost falls on the city of Paris itself.

Authorities Consulted. In conclusion, I should like to
say that, whatever merits this imperfect sketch of physical
education in France possesses, they are largely due to those
whom I consulted on the subject. Among those to whom
I am particularly indebted I should hke to mention M.
Rabier, the Director of Secondary Education ; M. Bayet,
the Director of Primary Instruction ; M. le Colonel Derue,
Inspecteur de la Gymnastique dans les ficoles de la Ville
de Paris ; M. Flamand, Inspecteur Primaire ; M. Demeny,
Rapporteur de la Commission Sup6rieure de 1' Education
Physique au Ministere de 1' Instruction Publique, and Sec-
retaire Gen6ral du Congres International de I'fiducation
Physique ; M. le Docteur Philipp ; and M. J. Manchon,
Professeur au College de Normandie, as well as the various
heads of schools and teachers of gymnastics that I met.

Note (1913). — The actual system of physical exercises in
the schools of France in 1913 appears to be roughly as
foUows :

Swedish exercises of a kind are practised in the primary

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 239

schools of Paris, though they do not seem to have gained
much ground elsewhere. The state of physical exercises in
the rest of France may be roughly judged by the fact that
there is no definite inspection for the subject. In the secon-
dary schools the system most in vogue is not the Swedish but
the French. The creation and adoption of a definite French
system has been very largely due to the efforts and propa-
ganda of M. Demen3f, who at present is Director of Physical
Exercises in Secondary Schools. In spite of very grave diffi-
culties he has been able to train on his own lines a large
number of teachers, who now amount to more than half the
personnel in secondary schools. It is urged on many grounds
that the French system is superior to the Swedish, though
the latter, no doubt, marked an advance on the older system
of unscientific gymnastics. Thus while, apart from health,
the Swedish is fundamentally anatomical and physiological,
the French is psychical as well as physiological. To judge by
French criticisms the Swedish system, in its most orthodox
form, attempts to train the body by taking as its initial data
in practice certain artificial simplified concepts, i.e. certain
artificially detached movements, many of which occur com-
paratively infrequently in an isolated form in real life, such
as arch-flexions, shoulder-blade movements, etc. The
French system, on the other hand, directly springs out of
certain fundamental purposeful natural actions, such as
walking, running, etc., and the exercises are such that they
are appUcable from the very first. The Swedish exercises
are too often meaningless as far as such ordinary purposeftil
actions are concerned, though they may possess scientific
or partially scientific explanations in terms of health or
physical activity. They represent in such cases analysis
pushed to such a point of simplification as to become mean-
ingless to the average pupil, whereas the French never lose
sight of the synthesis of some natural action or other to
which any particular action is directly applicable. The
Swedish exercises appear in many cases to bear the same
relation to actual normal actions as the definitions of Euclid
to real hfe. Speaking generally, the Swedes would seem to
have taken unconsciously for their ideal that of the statue in

240 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

repose of a muscular-looking individual, which they attempt
to build up piece by piece, whereas the French ideal appears
to be that of a living being in movement, whose development
takes place not by excessive attention first to this part and
then to that part, but to a large extent sjmthetically and
harmoniously. Physical education, apart from the question
of health, is not the production of brawn for the sake of
brawn, but the development of muscle through useful and
graceful movements, and above all for the sake of useful
and graceful movements. In a word, it deals essentially
with the art and science of human movements. M. Demeny
notes the lack of grace that is apparent and inherent in the
stiff, jerky, military, over-precise movements of the Swedish
system, which are the antipodes of the movements of the
most graceful animals in the world, the cat and the tiger,
which represent the quintessence of litheness and supple-
ness. This lack of grace has been pointed out by several
critics in reference to the ordinary gait and bearing of those
trained on the Swedish system, when not corrected by games
or dancing.

More serious is the criticism that persons trained on
Swedish lines are unable to vary freely the tempo of their
movements, a grave defect, since in real hfe this is per-
petually necessary. This is no doubt largely due to the
staccato method (orders given in the " one-two " form) in
which the pupils are trained, which is the antithesis of the
truly rhythmical, in which one phase in a movement uncon-
sciously passes without a break into another. Again it has
been observed that the abstract, isolated and incomplete
training given to the different groups of muscles under the
Swedish system does not necessarily make for endurance in
such an exercise as mountaineering, for instance, probably
owing to the lack of practice in making the necessary cor-
related movements common to ordinary natural actions.
Another alleged grave defect is that the jerky movements
as practised by Swedish exponents are the most fatigiung
and least satisfactory form of exercise. It seems probable
that the dislike of music shown by some of the straiter
sectarians of the Swedish doctrines is due to the fundamental

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE 241

antithesis between these staccato exercises and the more
subtle musical rhythms — any Bergsonian will appreciate
the difference. Yet if we are to follow the line of least
resistance which is the normal tradition that governs aU our
actions, that is to say, if we are to get the maximum of effect
with the minimum of effort, we must avoid anything of the
nature of a jerk, and instead of making a fetish of rigidity
we must cultivate the greatest possible litheness and supple-
ness compatible with the attitude necessary to assume for
the performance of the action we are attempting. No one
knows this fundamental truth better than the golfer, to whom
anything in the nature of a jerk in his play is disastrous, while
aU unnecessary rigidity is equally harmful. Our ideal must
be to cultivate as far as possible a voluntary relaxation of
the body, which alone can produce the maximum of supple-
ness and Utheness, and to ensure this our movements must
be complete, continuous, and rhythmical. In this way only
can we secure that grace of movement so often wanting in
Swedish exercises. In fact, based as they are largely on
antagonizing or stiffening certain muscles, they not only
cannot produce it, but actually prove a hindrance to its
acquisition. When grace has been acquired, it has been in
spite of, and not by reason of, the exercises, which are
geometrical rather than harmonious. Still more serious is
the criticism that in not a few cases the pupil is compelled
to assume an attitude which in itself involves very severe
strain, and in addition is set to perform an exercise which
further demands a most severe effort, with the result that
neither the attitude nor the execution of the exercise is
satisfactory.

Perhaps it would be fair to say that Swedish exercises are
largely a collection of remedial exercises expanded into a
system of general physical culture, and as such they bear
the marks of their origin, in the shape of an excessive cult
of the part, which necessarily arises from looking at the
curing of a specific defect here or a specific defect there,
whereas the French ideal appears to aim as far as is practic-
able at the harmonious development of the body as a whole,
through the natural actions that centuries of evolution have

B.E. Q

242 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

produced or by exercises arising directly out of these actions.
In so far as the Swedish is truly remedial, it is probably of
value, but those who value grace, and the creative spirit in
education, cannot fail to see the mechanical defects, or
rather limitations, of this system, which through its own
insistence on precision and formality is the negation of the
artistic and creative spirit, which is essentially individual.
There can rarely be scope for any great volume of self-
expression when the form of expression is so rigidly pre-
scribed. The one is, in fact, practically exclusive of the
other. Yet self-expression, whether it take the form of
composition, speech, acting, dancing, or graceful gesture, is
at bottom one of the most potent means of developing
personality. So that it is no exaggeration to say that
physical culture, if rightly directed, is one of the best ways
of enabUng the predominantly artistic chUd to " find itself."
Speaking generally, it is obvious that what is most wanting
in English education to-day is not moral or intellectual
stimulus, but the encouragement of the aesthetic and
creative faculty in our children.

And, lastly, there is the moral or educational effect of
these exercises to be considered. We are beginning to
recognize in all subjects the need of initiating the pupil into
the purposefulness of the particular task he is attempting.
The Swedish exercises being largely too discoimected and
abstract in themselves and only leading indirectly to the
actual fundamental movements of the body, tend to become
mechanical and distasteful, especially to the average boy.^
They are, in fact, hke the abstract rules of a grammar of
which he does not see any immediate application. As M.
Demeny says, " the teaching should be varied, attractive,
and full of practical interest." " The choice of movement
should manifest at the outset a frankly utilitarian tendency."
The pupils should be able to see " what it is aU driving at."
One cannot deny to the Swedish exercises a certain pleasure

1 Their inherent dullness is revealed by the fact that in over 190
evening classes in London in which the attendance is voluntajy
not a single Swedish class has been able to establish itself perman-
ently, though introduced under the most favourable conditions.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN FRANCE ^43

that comes from stretching one's limbs, or that pleasure
that comes after mastering a certain technique, hke, say,
the multiplication table. But such pleasures are but pale,
ineffectual and uncertain in comparison with the joy that
accompanies the acquisition of intelligible dexterity.

Again, by largely eliminating the competitive and feat-
performing element the Swedish system deprives itself of the
power of appealing to that sense of daring and adventure
which is, or ought to be, the bottom instinct or at least the
heritage of every normal boy. We do not want him to
break his neck, but we do not want either to deprive him of
the possibility of trying his hand at feats that are calculated
to develop his pluck, self-reliance, and endurance. All that
is necessary is to see that such feats are properly graded and
under due control.

Of course in not a few English schools the Swedish system
has only been adopted in a more or less modified form. Some
such modification seems to be almost inevitable in the case
of very young children. They are unable aUke to give that
concentration of attention that the exercises are supposed
to require, or to attain the degree of precision that is de-
manded, without seriously over-taxing their energies.
Music, dancing, and games appear in such a case more or
less an absolute necessity, and even with the older pupils a
large amount of the time set apart for physical exercises is
devoted to games or gjnnnastics with apparatus. Such
modifications, however, are a clear indication and admission
of the incompleteness and deficiencies of the Swedish exer-
cises in themselves, apart from the defects indicated by
French and other critics.

It is to be hoped that those who read this note wiU make
further inquiries into the respective merits of the Swedish
and French systems. The way in which the former has been
dumped down on this country is not particularly creditable
to our national inteUigence. On the other hand, it might
not be advisable or even possible to adopt here en hloc the
French system, and as nothing is perfect here below it is
quite likely it has also its defects. What is wanted is the
development of a really English system, of which there are

244 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

here and there promising signs, really scientific in principles
and in harmony with the needs of English psychology and
character. Those who desire to get a still more detailed
idea of the comparative merits of the two systems should
consult the following works of M. Demeny : Evolution de
l'£ducation physique — I'Bcole frangaise (La Librairie Mili-
taire UniverseUe, L. Fournier, Paris). Education physique
de la Jeune Fille, Education et Harmonie des Mouvements
(Paris, Librairie des Annales ; translation rights acquired
by Messrs. Gill & Sons, London). Troisifeme Congrfes Inter-
national de r Education Physique de la Jeunesse, Bruxelles,
1910, Sixi^me Question : Erreurs de la Methode rationnelle
en Education physique ; Rapport presente par M. Georges
Demeny. Institut G6n6ral Psychologique, Section de
Psychologic individuelle : Nos Mouvements — comment ils se
font, comment nous devons les apprendre ; Conference par M.
Georges Demeny, Directeur du Cours superieur d' Education
physique de I'Universit^ (Extrait du Bulletin, 1912).

One other system of physical education shotild be men-
tioned here, which again is based on natural actions, swim-
ming, climbing, etc., and not on artificially detached
exercises of groups of muscles, namely, that of Lieutenant
Hebert. It is interesting to note that the Government
have recently created a school for marines, midshipmen,
and naval cadets, in which Lieutenant Hebert's so-called
" natural method " is carried out under his direction.

THE INFANT SCHOOLS OF FRANCE

Children are certainly not neglected in democratic France.
Public education may be said to start from the cradle, if not
earlier, for even antecedent to the creches for babies come the
couveuses (incubators) for those born out of due time. After
the creches come the Scales maternelles, or baby-schools,
which were estabUshed in 1887. They receive children of
both sexes from two years old and upwards, who can remain
till the age of six, when they pass into the infant classes,
that are attached sometimes to a primary school, and some-
times to an ecole maternelle, and form a sort of transition
class between the two. No child is admitted to these schools
without a billet signed by the mayor of the arrondisse-
ment, or vestry, and a doctor's certificate to state it has been
vaccinated.

There is no compulsory vaccination in France, but the
government encourages it indirectly by every means in its
power. The work in the baby-schools and the infant
classes includes, among other things, games and graduated
movements accompanied with singing, manual exercises,
the first notions of morality, a knowledge of the facts of
everyday hfe, exercise in speaking, recitations and stories,
and the elements of drawing, reading, reckoning, and
writing.

The sanitary and hygienic rules of these estabUshments
are subject to special ministerial supervision. AU head-
mistresses (or directrices, as they are called) are obUged to
possess the certificate of efficiency in teaching. They must,
further, be twenty-eight years of age at least, and have had
two years' experience in an icole maternelle. The children
are divided into two sections, and if over fifty in number.

246 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

a second teacher is added. A charwoman is attached to
every school, the commune being responsible for her wages.
Apart from the oversight exercised by the inspector, one or
more local committees of lady-patronesses are nominated
by the inspecteur d'academie to supervise the carrying out
of health rules and other important matters.

The schools are open from the first of March to the first
of November from seven in the morning to seven at night,
and for four months from eight to six. The holidays are
neither long nor numerous. Besides Sundays, there are
seven or eight public hohdays, and a week at Easter. Only
children over four years of age are allowed to go home alone,
and the headmistresses are forbidden to ask parents to caU
for their children earlier than the appointed time.

On the arrival of the children in the morning, the direc-
trice assures herself of the health and cleanliness of each
pupil, and also of the quantity and quality of the food that
is brought. There is a cantine attached to the school, and
free meals are given to those who are really in need of
assistance. Each child is furthermore required to bring a
fork and spoon and a pocket-handkerchief. The health of
the school is further looked after by a doctor, who inspects
the school from time to time. Strict rules are enjoined in
regard to keeping the premises clean and weU ventilated.
No pets or animals of any sort are permitted in the class-
rooms.

Marks are given to the children as rewards, and at the end
of the month these caji be exchanged for toys or useful
objects. The only punishments allowed are exclusion from
the class-room or playground for a very brief interval, or the
taking away of marks already eaxned.

Lessons last from 9.15 till 11.30, and from 1.15 till 4.
Each period is cut in two by a break for recreation. If the
weather is bad, the children have ten minutes' exercise in
marching round the schoolroom. No books other than
those of the school are allowed in the buUding. No collec-
tions, raffles, or subscriptions are permitted in the school.

The children are never left alone. No teaching out of
doors in the playground is allowed without special per-

THE INFANT SCHOOLS OF FRANCE 247

mission. It is forbidden to overburden the memory of the'
children with learning by heart. There is likewise no home-
work. No " horrible tales " are to be told to the children.
The teacher may neither work nor read when with the
children, but must devote herself entirely to them.

The following is a sketch of the daily programme : From
9 to 9.15 the children are inspected and their various wants
attended to ; from g.15 to- 10.15, exercises in reading,
writing, and speaking. Then comes half an hour for play,
school games, or gymnastic exercises. From 10.45 to 11.30,
object-lessons or story-teUing ; 11.30, lunch and play-time ;
I to 1. 15, conduite aux lavahos ; 1.15 to 1.45, exercise in
reading and speaking ; 1.45 to 2.30, reckoning ; 2.30 to 3,
play ; 3 to 3.30, drawing and moral instruction ; 3.30 to 4,
manual work.

The object of the &cole maternelle is to commence the
physical, intellectual, and moral education of the children.
It is not, however, a school in the strict sense of the word,
but is meant to form a transition between the family and the
school proper. It attempts to preserve the kind and indul-
gent gentleness of the family at the same time that it intro-
duces the child to the ideas of work and regularity. Its
success is not to be judged by the standard of knowledge
attained by the pupils, but rather by the sum-total of good
influences to which the child is exposed, by the pleasure it
takes in the school, by the habits of order, cleanliness,
poHteness, attention, obedience, and intellectual activity it
has unconsciously acquired there.

In a word, the idea is to develop the faculties rather than
to fvurnish and stock the mind. First in importance comes
health ; then the education of the senses ; then a few
notions on the commonest things ; the formation of school
habits ; the taste for gymnastics, singing, dancing, etc. ;
eagerness to listen and question, to see, to observe ; an
aptitude for attention, that the loving care of the teacher
has formed and fostered ; an awakened intelligence ; a soul
open to all good impressions. Such, in the words of their
founders, ought to be the ideal aimed at and attained in the
maternity schools.

248 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The method proposed is equally admirable — a harmonious
development of all the faculties, in which one does not
gain at the expense of another. The manual work consists
of things as simple as folding a sheet of paper in various
shapes, working up to the making of veritable articles de
Paris : the skUl with which these are made betrays the
essentially artistic nature of the race even in these children
of tender years. Sewing and other monotonous work are
forbidden. No dogmatic teaching is allowed, though insist-
ence is laid on the ideas of God and duty, and naturally
patriotism is a class subject.

A good idea is the co-ordination of the lessons, as far as
possible, with the time of year. Thus, in October object-
lessons are given on the vine and wines, bottles and barrels,
hops and beer. Drawings are made of bunches of grapes,
glasses, etc., the easier designs being copied by the children.
As poetry, L'Automne of Delbruch is learned. In December,
again, cold, snow, ice, avalanches, Switzerland, the Alps,
skates and sledges, stoves, chimneys, coal, wood, matches,
chilblains and colds, the hearth, the family, are among the
subjects treated ; such of these as lend themselves to design
are drawn on the blackboard, and an appropriate piece of
poerty is also learned.

I have visited several of these schools. The hygienic
appliances are of the very latest and best ; everything has
been studied and brought up to date ; benches, Ught, light-
ing, ventilation, sanitation, seem perfect. One of the
inspectors remarked, " We are not yet content with the
results of our schools " ; but as far as one could judge, he
seemed somewhat difficult to please. So much the better
for the system, as such discontent is the true spur of pro-
gress. The different classes visited were exceedingly well
organized. The teachers appeared to maintain without
difficulty the attention of the children, which is so butterfly-
hke at that age, flitting incessantly from object to object,
and never remaining long fixed on ciny one point. The
children, though poor, were clean and neat. These schools
seem to have indirectly a great effect on the national cleanh-
ness. A good many of the children were questioned on the

THE INFANT SCHOOLS OF FRANCE 249

subjects they were learning, which seemed to interest them
deeply, although it was the afternoon, and they had already
had several lessons.

One of the schools visited will long remain implanted in
our memory, for it stands facing the terrible fortress-like
prison of Mazas, that has long been the Newgate of Paris,
and is now on the point of being puUed down. It seemed on
looking at these two buildings — this grim, frowning Bastille,
with its gloomy dungeons, already doomed to demolition,
and this smiling children's palace, all hght and air, but
scarcely out of the masons' hands — we were regarding the
embodiment of the two ideas of justice : the justice
vindictive, that is passing away ; and the justice of pre-
vention, that is taking its place. For the modern state has
seen at last the foUy of its ways in spending all its time
and money on jailers, turnkeys, and poUcemen ; and, no
longer content with merely trying to repress crime, has gone
a step further back in attempting to prevent it altogether,
by watching over the education of its future citizens from
their very earliest years.

THE PARIS INTERNATIONAL GUILD

The Franco-English Guild, which has lately changed its
name to the International Guild, has grown out of all know-
ledge during the last few years. Yet its commencement
was on the most modest scale. In the autumn of 1891 its
foundress. Miss WiUiams, held a drawing-room meeting of
some dozen ladies with a view to founding an English Hbrary.
The idea was favourably received, and the society started
with ten members. Every month a hterary soiree was held.
New recniits were constantly joining, and Miss Williams's
drawing-room soon became too small to accommodate the
association. At this moment the Ministry of Public Instruc-
tion came to the rescue, and lent the society first one and
then two rooms at the Musee P6dagogique. The soirees
grew in importance, and in some cases blossomed out into
regular courses of lectures.

The English and American Embassies warmly supported
the movement. Lord Dufferin and the American Ambassador
each delivered several addresses, and since then the Guild
has been lectured to by a large number of distinguished
English educationists, such as the Bishop of Ripon, Miss
Hughes, Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. •?. A. Bamett, etc. The
number of adherents has been constantly increasing. From
ten in 1891 they rose to seventy-nine in 1894, and at the
time of writing are nearer four hundred than three hundred.
The Ubrary has grown in the same rapid fashion. During
the last two years the Guild has again shifted its quarters,
and is now housed in No. 6 Rue de la Sorbonne, alongside
the University itself.

With ample space at its disposal, it has been able to
add to its attractions a reading-room and rooms for tea and

THE PARIS INTERNATIONAL GUILD 251

lunch, as weU as an " exchange-room," in which English-
speaking students may exchange lessons and converse with
French members of the Guild. Those who are attempting
to learn, or have learnt, a foreign language will appreciate
this new departure. One of the chief obstacles in master-
ing a foreign language is to find sufficient opportunities for
practice in speaking. This system of exchange-lessons in
the two languages, further, gets over the financial difficulty
entailed by the cost of having to pay a retaining fee to
some unfortunate person for the right of inflicting one's
conversation on him, while the mere exercise of teaching
one's own language is by no means to be regarded as a pure
loss of time, affording as it does a valuable insight into the
language, thought-forms, and racial idiosyncrasies of the
learner. On the social value of such mutual arrangements
it is unnecessary to dilate here.

Another useful side of the Guild's work is the keeping of a
register of French homes and boarding houses, which, being
under the direct control of the GuUd, offer guarantees that
are lacking in the ordinary pension, in which far too often
the foreign boarder is fleeced or neglected. But all these
advantages are merely subsidiary to the main object of the
Guild, which is to provide a full course of instruction in the
French language, literature, and history, by professors of the
highest university standing. Composition, both free and
from the English, is taught by MUe. Clanet, an agregee
d' anglais. Other subjects in the course are modern and
historical French grammar, French hterature and history,
and contemporary life in France.

A special feature is made of pronunciation and phonetics,
instruction being given by Mile. Roussey, pupil of the
celebrated Abbe Rousselot, Director of the Phonetic Labora-
tory at the College de France, who himself examines the
students at the end of each term. The courses of the
Guild are specially directed towards obtaining the certificat
d'etudes frangaises. The examination is conducted by
M. Ernest Dupuy, Inspecteur-General, and two professors
of the Sorbonne. This diploma is granted to students
who are found capable of teaching French in EngHsh

252 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

speaking countries. The terms of membership are extremely
moderate. The yearly subscription for use of rooms
amounts to lo f . ; for library, monthly meetings, and general
lectures, 20 f . ; while the fpes for aU the classes amount
to about 225 f., or £9 a year for a session of thirty weeks.

Originally confined to women, the Guild was induced a
year ago to throw open its doors to men, with the happiest
results ; while the large number of German and Russian
students who have since been enrolled has made it change
its title to " International." Lately the Registration
Council has recognized the Guild as a ',' foreign college " at
which teachers who want to be registered may finish their
university course, and more recently stiU the University of
Chicago has declared the Guild " to be in co-operation with
the University of Chicago,"/Which means that the time spent
in attending the Guild's regular course of lectures may count
as a means of qualifying/for the University degrees.

Those who have realized the superiority of well-arranged
hoUday courses over ^e soUtary pension Uf e en famille will
readily recognize theJ'corresponding superiority of the advan-
tages offered by /the above institution over those of the
holiday courses?^ It provides by means of its system of
exchange-lesspns the one factor in which the hohday course,
owing to np fault of its organizers, is generally the least
satisfactOTy. Its lectures, being split up into classes for
easy or advanced work, should appeal to students of every
kind. /Not only the tyro in French, but even those who have
obtai^ied a modern language degree in England, may greatly
profit from them. The latter wiU find in the really modem
and literary teaching of the Guild a valuable supplement to
the somewhat excessively academic and philological tredning
they have received in England.^

1 Note. — (1913.) The Guild has recently opened a branch in
London (Gordon House, Gordon Square, W.C), which besides
catering for French students in England prepares English students
for the certificate in French lately estabhshed by the Universities
of London and Cambridge. It also maintains an information bureau.

A LOOK ROUND GERMAN SCHOOLS

The German secondary school is really one of the most
effective factories in the educational world. The raw
material is sent to it at nine years of age — or even earlier, if
there is a preparatory annexe. At sixteen over 60 per cent,
of the same raw material obtain the Government stamp of
efficiency, and at nineteen 20 per cent, receive the hall-mark
that admits the polished article to be finally worked up into a
university or professional product. Add the fact that the
waste products which fail to qualify for the Government
label are probably far more valuable than the residuals of
other systems, and it wiU have, I think, to be admitted
that, output for output, the German educational mill is
the most efficient that exists. Whether its products are
really the very finest on the market is, of course, another
question.

The results are all the more surprising as German schools
are not nearly so well staffed in respect to the proportion of
teachers to the number of pupils as one has been led to sup-
pose, especially in the middle and lower parts of schools in
the large towns. Here are some figures, with, roughly, the
average age of the class : 37 (thirteen), 37 (fifteen), 41 (six-
teen), 36 (seventeen), 33 (fifteen). Such classes appear to be
quite as much the rule as the exception. All the greater,
then, our admiration for those teachers who with such large
classes obtain such surprising results. One does not see, as
in some French schools, a certain number of front-bench
boys bearing the brunt of the debate between teacher and
taught.

Moreover, the front bench in German schools is very
often composed of the weakest or most backward members

254 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

of the class — the short-sighted, hard of hearing, and the
mentally deficient, who are thus placed in the very fore-
front of the battle in order to be well within the teacher's
range. The latter combines lecturing with a running com-
mentary of questions. These are so skilfully distributed
that every boy in the class comes under fire. You soon
realize that there are no idlers in the form, and that the
would-be shufHer has such short shrift meted out to him
that he speedily finds that the " ca' canny " policy is not a
paying one, and does a full day's work with the rest.

The discipline may be strict — ^probably is too strict.
Even youths of eighteen and nineteen in the highest class
are obliged to stand up whenever their master speaks to
them ; but, with this exception, the evidence of it is more
in the tone and gesture of the teacher and the attitude of
the taught. The Roman centurion — who gave his orders
without explanations — ^is the archetj^e of the Teutonic
dominie. The German boy is so well broken in that what
little whispering and by-play do go on go on with much
fear and trembling. The best discipline, however, is only
negative in its results. It keeps the ring clear from inter-
ruption. Something more than mere strictness is needed to
fill the vacuum. One finds no vacuum in German classes :
there is nearly always a steady pressure of attention ; some-
times somewhat stolid, not infrequently keen and living —
the " forty feeding hke one," with healthy appetites that
never seem to fail.

And how conscientious the teacher is ! There is no " go
easy " about his teaching. There is no uncertainty or
" fluffiness " about it either. He is thorough master of his
subject : he knows exactly what he is going to say. He
possesses the sure confidence that many years of successful
teaching have engendered. Everything is peptonized to
the level of the class ; with the healthy appetites the pupils
possess, assimilation cannot fail to follow. We begin to
understand how, in some schools, 78 per cent, of the pupils
get promoted from year to year ; how there is never a
large untaught residuum and sediment drifting about the
bottom of every form — as is too often the case with us —

A LOOK ROUND GERMAN SCHOOLS 255

which is gradually hoisted up the school by a series of
unjustifiable promotions due to seniority alone.

Even in the highest classes the teacher remains the chief
channel of grace, the main source of information. Of him
one can truly say, " a Jove principium." Whether it is
advisable to water exclusively the oldest of the flock at
what is, after all, only a conduit of knowledge, rather than
at the original source, is a debatable point. But the truth
is, the pupil rarely drinks at the Pierian spring by himself.
As for the manuals so largely in use, they have as much
relation to the original founts of knowledge as a bottle of
soda-water to a chalybeate well. Even when the teacher
discusses with the pupils the books which have been set for
home reading, he is not so anxious to find out how this or
that passage may have struck them as to be certain it has
struck them in the correct fashion ; much less is he desirous
of finding out whether they are able to throw any original
light on" it.

His purpose is to suggest to them the guiding thought, to
inspire them with the hne of ideas to be followed, the correct
version, to be sure that they have properly absorbed and
acquired the faith, the doctrine he has to deUver to them.
Are they masters of the authorized text, are they also
masters of the authorized commentary ? — that is the chief
question. If this has been accomphshed, the teacher's task
has been accomphshed. The final examination will prove
that the finished product is up to pattern and sample.

Such thoroughgoing teachers are not made in a day.
They ai* all highly educated men. Their excellence hes in
the fact mat they are only allowed to teach what they really
know. If their main subject be Greek and their subsidiary
subject Latin, they may only teach Latin in the lower forms.
Their pedagogical training is no less carefully looked after.
Those who do not go to training colleges become " student-
teachers " in the bigger schools. These student-teachers
receive every attention : they are placed under the direct
supervision of the director, or other picked teachers, accord-
ing to their subjects.

The training is aUke theoretical and practical. Once a

256 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

week each of the probationers in turn writes a long composi-
tion on some pedagogical subject, which is afterwards read
aloud in the presence of the director and the other proba-
tioners. I was present at one of these conferences. The
question set was, whether the study of French could give
the same logical training as Latin. After the reading of the
paper a discussion followed, the director working in the main
conclusions. At another conference a certain number of
practical hints were given to the probationers, and points of
everyday discipline and teaching were discussed. The whole
was eminently business-hke.

Wiser than the French, the Germans have always realized
the need of providing a place of assembly for the whole
school, and of maintaining in the hands of a single person
the dual functions of teaching and discipline. The Aula
serves as a sort of combined big school and chapel. From
time to time — ^generally on the occasion of national hoUday
— the whole school are gathered together in the Aula, and
a discourse, religious or patriotic, is read or deUvered by one
of the staff. The Aula also serves for school entertain-
ments. A visit to the Aula is practically obUgatory on all
visitors — a pleasing indication of its importance in the eyes
of the director.

The class teacher (Ordinanus) acts as a court of first
instance and settles any difficulties that may arise in school
matters between the home and the school. In this way only
the more serious questions are brought for consideration
before the director — an important consideration in schools
which number over eight hundred pupils. The demeanour
of the parents in the teacher's presence clearly shows which
is the more important person in the discussion. One
suddenly remembers from the deference paid to him that
the teacher is a State official. A very interesting book has
lately appeared in Germany, entitled How shall we bring
up our Son Benjamin? Not the least interesting feature
about the book is the ingenious fashion in which the author,
a high official in the Ministry, assumes throughout that the
school is never to blame for any shortcomings in the boy's
education.

A LOOK ROUND GERMAN SCHOOLS 257

The Germans are thorough believers in leaving nothing
to chance. The class-rooms bear ample testimony to the
thought expended on the health of the pupils. The floor is
often oiled to prevent dust ; the desks are placed astride of
a small sort of Suakim-Berber railway to allow them to be
shifted backward and forward for cleaning purposes ; a
thermometer is set in a hole in the wall adjoining the
window, so that a check may be kept on the temperature
by the school janitor or the director as well as by the master
inside ; the amount of cubic space per pupil, and even of
light, is strictly regulated. The waste-paper basket is no
idle ornament — a scrap of paper on the floor is a rare sight.
The supply of blackboards is rather " skimpy " ; but maps
and movable pictures abound. A coloured metrical measure,
carefully marked to scale, is often to be seen fixed against
the wall and running from floor to ceiUng.

Though the movement in favour of school decoration has
not made so much progress as in some of our schools, yet
pictures, prints and photos are by no means lacking, and
there are the inevitable portraits or prints of members of
the reigning house. Ever5rwhere, in fact, the view of the
Prussian boy is obsessed by these imagines. Naturally the
hours are regulated. Some of the upper classes have often
five lessons running, and a few of the teachers have also,
which is stiU worse. There are, however, an abundance of
breaks, which amount to no less than fifty minutes. These
occur after every lesson, and the two larger ones consist of
twenty and fifteen minutes respectively.

When the breaks are only five minutes in duration the
pupils do not descend to the playground, but parade in the
corridors, which thus subserve a twofold purpose, as they
also provide ample means of egress in case of fire — not that
the fire danger is much to be feared in buildings which are
almost entirely constructed of brick and stone. Such classes
as take place in the afternoon are generally devoted to
" gym " or singing, and, in some schools, to manual work,
which is optional. I came across the latter in one Gym-
nasium. The number of courses was four and the number
of pupils 117. In the upper courses the pupils paid for the

B.E, R

258 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

wood and were allowed to take their work home. Manual
work is apparently looking up. The partisans of the idea
held a meeting last year at Leipzig, at which the subject of
making it obligatory was discussed.

One of the most difficult subjects to teach is admittedly
what is known as reUgious instruction. The higher criti-
cism has not been without its effects on the German
teachers ; though the fact that the Bible is only read in
selections in school does not render the problem qviite so
difficult. A certain number of teachers, either from con-
viction or from less worthy reasons, stiU teach on the old
orthodox Hues, that the world was made in six days, etc.
" It is safer," as one teacher remarked, and, " besides, it
takes less trouble." He himself was a Liberal, or, as we
should say, a Broad Churchman, a type which appears to be
the most growing section in the Lutheran Church.

The lesson he gave was on the subject of David, as con-
solidator of the Jewish kingdom. He made the lesson very
real to the pupils by comparing the Jewish king with Otto I,
the Egbert of Germany ; while the difficulties in the way
of union were shown by an aUusion to the long struggle
which led up to the estabUshment of the German Empire
in 1871. Certain Psalms which had been learnt by heart
were utilized to illustrate the lesson. The teacher showed
the trend of his opinions by speaking of the Psalms as
attributed to David. His method, as he explained after-
wards, was prophylactic — to indicate to the upper classes
the current forms of attack on Christianity and suggest the
common lines of defence.

In modern languages there appear to be three main
streams. Many, especially in the Gymnasium, hold fast to
the ancient Ploetz ; others go in for more modem teaching,
using books of the type of Hausknecht's English Stttdent;
and, lastly, there are the direct Methodists of the extreme
type, who are by no means so numerous as one would
imagine. Much attention is paid to pronunciation even in
the classical schools. A reader is used right from the
beginning ; but, apparently, in many schools a regular
author is not read till after three years — at least, in French.

A LOOK ROUND GERMAN SCHOOLS 259

Grammar is not neglected. It is particularly studied in
those classes, in the so-called Reform schools, in which
French is used as a stepping-stone to Latin. Neglect of
French grammar has been found to be a serious hindrance
to the acquisition of Latin grammar. In those schools
where the direct method is combined with what is good in
the old, the pupils seem to make very rapid progress, and
their powers of conversation are often very remarkable. In
the higher classes the lesson is not infrequently conducted
almost exclusively in the foreign tongue : pupils are able to
give connected accounts in the foreign medium, and the
literatures of France and England are studied in a really
critical fashion.

In the lower classes a good deal of poetry is read and
analysed with a view to ensuring that the pupils have under-
stood the grammar and the sense. Pictures, of which the
schools often possess a large stock, are brought in to illus-
trate the persons and places. The poetry is often recited
with plenty of spirit. Books without notes are the rule.
The attention of the pupil is therefore not incessantly dis-
tracted from the poem as a whole by a succession of notes
— a very great gain. We in England are suffering from a
plethora, not to say plague, of annotated editions. There
is hardly a text, classical, French, or English, which is read
in school that has not been treated as a sort of grammatical
truffle-bed for scholastical swine to uproot.

Many of the texts used in the upper classes are also free
from these parasitical growths, though there is a good deal
more reason for annotated editions in such forms, in which
the critical faculty of the pupil is coming to life. The teach-
ing throughout is distinctly Hterary. Even when such
mediaeval authors as Walther von der Vogelweide are read
the greater part of the time of the class is not spent in root-
grubbing or philology, though the latter is not neglected,
but in turning the text into modern German and in com-
menting on its contents.

I was present at some excellent lessons on Julius CcBsar,
Wallensteins Tod, and Emilia Galotti. The pupils had only
the bare text, of which, in several instances, they had learnt

26o STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

a certain amount by heart with a view to illustrating the
principal characters or characteristics of the play. The
greater part of the lesson was occupied in giving a detailed
analysis of the play or of different scenes in it, in discussing
the why and wherefore of its construction, and in critically
examining the characters of the principal personages. When
any passages were read they were neither drawled nor
gabbled, but given with the proper emphasis and intona-
tion. The weak side of these lessons, as has already been
said, is that they are too much dominated by the personality
of the teacher.

The German method of teaching history by selecting only
the most striking of events of each epoch has certainly an
advantage over our wearisome method of teaching the early
history of England by reigns. It must be admitted that, to
begin with, the Prussian teacher's task is far easier : his
history proper only goes back some three hundred years,
and Prussia before Frederick the Great was of very minor
importance ; he has, therefore, a great deal more time for
working through a well-considered scheme of world history.
English history suffers from an embarras de richesse. We
shall have to make jettison of a good deal to bring it
really within tractable limits and give proper emphasis to
the more important facts. The German boy, thanks to the
systematic method adopted, leaves school with a pretty clear
conspectus of what he has learnt. The English boy's histori-
cal knowledge resembles a railway in which some sections are
excellently laid, others are left unfinished, or barely laid at all.

The teaching of history in the lower classes in German
schools is remarkably sound and thorough of its kind. The
pupil has certainly a knack of memorizing the teacher's
remarks. The history itself rather reminds one at times of
an orange that has too many pips — ^it is so fuU of dates. Yet
in no subject does the weak side of German education show
more clearly. The chief value of history is to form the judg-
ment ; yet here the judgment is rather formed by the
teacher. The subject is peptonized and prepared by the
latter right to the end. In some schools the pupils are never
introduced to the original authorities at all.

A LOOK ROUND GERMAN SCHOOLS 261

Even their private reading is controlled in such a fashion
that the teacher reads into it the desired meaning. The
teacher himself, unless he is a good story-teller, or possesses
the art of exposition, is apt to become openly objective and
even annalistic. The philosophical side of history suffers
accordingly. In the teaching of no other subject does one
see so clearly the advantage of the English system of giving
a boy a text-book, and letting him find his way about it.
No doubt we err on the side of giving too little aid, but,
when successful, we breed a certain independence of thought
and the pupil himself learns the difficult art of finding his
way about in a book. Apart from these criticisms, we may
unreservedly admire the results obtained, which are remark-
able of their kind, and we might weU copy on a large scale
the excellent use made of pictures in teaching history, and
the employment of historical atlases, which are often lacking
or unutiUzed in Enghsh schools.

The teaching in geography is frequently given by teachers
who have been specially trained on modern hues. Many of
the teachers have, in fact, studied under a professor of
geology. It is interesting to note that Berlin is a bad geo-
logical centre, owing to the overwhelmingly sandy nature
of the district. Students, therefore, often go for a term to
other universities which are better situated for geological
study. While the few lessons one saw were satisfactory,
they were no better and scarcely so good as some one had
seen in England. In one or two cases sufficient stress was
not laid on the intimate connection between physical and
political geography, or, rather, the latter was not logically
evolved out of the former. One realized, however, one
thing — what an extremely difficult country Germany is to
teach on a detailed scale.

All education in its final analysis must stand or fall by the
teacher. One cannot help feeling when one considers the
German teacher what a thorough professional he is (in the
good sense of the word), and how much of the amateur there
is about ourselves, due in part to our undue disbehef in
method, due also, no doubt, to an unexpressed desire to safe-
guard the personaUty of the teacher. The German teacher

262 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

is pre-eminently a teacher, keenly interested in the current
problems of his profession, and penetrated and imbued with
the spirit of his caUing and profoundly impressed with the
dignity of the cloth.

Like the German officer, one can hardly imagine what he
is Hke in mufti. He seems to have few or no doubts. All
the main articles of his pedagogical faith and religion have
been settled for him. He is like a minister fully convinced
of the gospel he has to deliver and bothered at most by
minor questions of ritual. The truth is, he feels that first
principles are largely outside his province. The State has
settled his first principles, and he has merely to sit down and
apply them. Such a position is, in many ways, a great
source of strength ; but it has also its weaknesses and its
dangers. The strength of the phalanx in the last resort
depends on the direction it receives from those who control
its movements.

THE NEW WAY OF TEACHING CLASSICS
IN GERMANY

The two burning questions of the day in secondary educa-
tion are the adequate supply of properly qualified and
properly paid assistant-teachers and the thinking out of
suitable courses of study. Local authorities all over the
country are being called on to decide on the particular type
or types of school most appropriate to the needs of their
district. Generally speaking, the wind is in favour of
modernizing the curricula. The advocates of little Latin
and less Greek are more unlikely than ever to obtain a
respectful hearing before the newly appointed representa-
tives of Demos. But does this imply that Greek and even
Latin are practically to be expelled from our smaller secon-
dary schools ?

No doubt the old duU gerund-grinding methods of teach-
ing classics to a majority of boys who would never reach the
higher work has much to answer for, but are we then blindly
to condemn the subject because the methods of teaching
it were unsuitable ? Certainly such a wholesale condemna-
tion of classics, or, at least, of Latin, finds little sympathy
among the mass of experts in France and Germany. They
have indeed recognized that a first-rate education can be
given on wholly modern lines. Thus, in Germany, the
Realschule and Oberrealschule, though still unpossessed of
some of the privileges attached to the older schools, have
definitely become part and parcel of the Prussian educa-
tional system.

The French, indeed, have gone still further, and have
accorded to the new course they have just framed in modern
languages and science absolutely the same privileges as are

264 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

attached to the other three courses. Yet in neither country
have the just claims of classics been sacrificed. In fact,
their position, at least so far as France is concerned, has been
placed on a more rational basis by giving parents a choice
between a purely classical course and courses composed of
Latin with science or of Latin with modem languages, in
addition to the purely modern course mentioned above, and,
what is still more important, the choice of a course, whether
purely classical or otherwise, is postponed to a later date
than has hitherto been the case, with the result that pupils
of every category receive identically the same education up
to the a,ge of eleven or twelve instead of being compelled to
specialize at the age of nine as heretofore.

The later age at which classics or Latin are begim is com-
pensated for by a preUminary grounding in modem lan-
guages and by an intensive study of Latin and Greek once
they are commenced. Unfortunately the experiment is as
yet too recent to furnish us with any definite results, but
it is highly significant that the French have such a belief
in its efficacy that they have not hesitated to apply it to
the whole country.

The authorities in Germany have been experimenting in
a somewhat similar direction for a number of years. The
first experiment was at Altona, where, as far back as 1878,
a Realgymnasium was established in connection with a Real-
schule. A Realgymnasium is practically a Latin modem
school which keeps boys tiU nineteen, and a Realschule is a
modern school with no Latin whose pupils leave at sixteen.
The three lower classes are common to the two schools. As
in France, the study of modem languages in these classes
serves as a stepping-stone to the study of Latin for those who
enter the Realgymnasium. The pupils are thus enabled to
postpone their choice between a Latin or entirely modern
education till the age of twelve, whereas in the case of the
old-fashioned Realgymnasium the decision has to be made
when the pupil is nine.

Again, as in France, leeway is made up by an intensive
study of Latin once it is taken up. Several towns copied
the example of Altona, and the celebrated conference on

TEACHING CLASSICS IN GERMANY 265

secondary education in 1890 in Berlin approved of a trial of
the system where local needs rendered it desirable. The
Altona experiment, however, dealt only with the postpone-
ment of Latin. A further experiment was made in 1892 in
Frankfort-on-Main, when the Gymnasium (or full classi-
cal school) had its curriculum so recast that its three lowest
classes (or years) serve as a common basis for a classical
course or for a modern one in the Realschule, which in this
case is not in the same building.

At the same time two Realgymnasien in the town had the
work in their three lower classes rearranged to bring them
into line with those of the local Gymnasium and the Real-
schule. In the case of the Gymnasium the experiment
affected not merely the teaching of Latin, but also of Greek.
In Gymndsien of the old style Greek is begun at the age of
twelve, in Frankfort it is begun at the age of fourteen. The
Frankfort scheme differs to some extent from that of Altona.
There is a smaller number of Latin hours in the Frankfort
Realgymmasium, and the time given to mathematics is less.

The chief complaint against the Frankfort plan is that the
bulk of the science is postponed till too late, whUe the
Altona system is reproached with beginning English too
early. The Frankfort scheme has been adopted by a still
larger number of schools. A great impetus was given to the
movement by the favourable notice taken of it in the royal
decree of 1900. The desire was expressed that the experi-
ment might be tried on a still larger scale, owing to its
success in meeting the needs of the locaUty in which it had
been tried.

Schools with sides had hitherto been unknown in
Germany, so that till recently a poor district had to choose
between two types of school when it really required both.
The economy of combining two schools in one has, no doubt,
appealed powerfully to some localities. On October i6th,
1901 (the latest date for which statistics are available), the
number of schools either existing or in process of construc-
tion were 44 in Prussia and 18 in the rest of Germany, or a
grand total of 62 1 Of these 51 are more or less on the
Frankfort plan, and 11 (formerly 14) on the Altona system.

266 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The Prussian Ministry have been very chary of allowing
variations of the two curricula, holding, as they do, that
while the experiment has proved of value, it is as yet too
early to experiment with the experiment.

An examination of the total number of hours for the
whole course shows that the chief difference between the
old and new methods is that in the old-fashioned Gym-
nasien 68 hours are devoted to Latin, 36 to Greek, and 20
to French ; whereas, in the new, the hours are 51, 32, and
31-34 respectively. In the old-fashioned Realgymnasien
43 hours are given to Latin and 31 to French, against 37-39
and 36-40 respectively.

During a recent visit to Germany to study the teaching
of history for the Board of Education, the writer came across
a couple of Gymnasien in which the new experiment is
being conducted, and through the kindness of the head-
master was able to be present at several lessons. He then
visited one or two Gymnasien of the older type, in order to
institute, as far as possible, a comparison between the
standards attained, and also to try to obtain some idea of
the scope and aim of classical teaching in Germany, which,
it is hardly necessary to say, is not quite the same as that in
England.

Accurate scholarship and hnguistic taste may probably
be regarded as the chief aim of classical teaching in EngUsh
schools. We therefore find much attention pdd to niceties
of scholarship, and a good deal of time devoted to the prac-
tice of composition. In Germany the chief aim seems to be
mastery of the language with a view to make the langUcige
itself an element of general culture. Hence, while the pupils
are thoroughly well grounded in the grammar and syntax
of the language, the amount of composition appears to be
considerably less.

Thus, in one of the Gymnasien of the old tjrpe, the state-
ment was made that the pupils in the highest class only do
two Greek compositions a term. Again, the greater part of
the composition work consists of re-translation, more or
less direct, into the Latin or Greek. Very seldom does the
teacher set passages out of German authors for re-transla-

TEACHING CLASSICS IN GERMANY 267

tion. In fact, in Greek this was only again allowed in the
new programme of 1902. Verse composition is extinct,
though in one or two universities the professor makes the
students turn Juvenal into Greek verse, or Greek poetry
into Latin verse, and in others the study of metric, such as
that of Plautus, is carried to a high pitch.

The absence of verse composition probably leads to less
stress being laid on the correct learning of quantities, which
are mainly taught to the pupils incidentally. The writer
was told by one of the professors that Williamovitz-MoUen-
dorf , the celebrated Greek scholar, would ignore the teach-
ing of Greek accents. Whether true or not, it is an indication
of the smaller importance attached to such things than one
finds in England. The stress laid on the mastery of a certain
number of authors naturally gives prominence to the trans-
lation side. All language teaching apparently begins with
a reader or text-book. These are generally without those
stumbUng-stones to knowledge, footnotes, and often with-
out vocabularies, except in the beginners' classes. While
cribs are forbidden, standard translations of poetic and
dramatic authors are sometimes recommended in the highest
classes.

The following is a brief account of one or two classes
visited in the Reform schools :

Oberterlia (average age about 13^), 28 pupils, 10 hours a
week (5 devoted to Lektiire, 3 to grammar, i to written
exercises). The class had been doing Latin for a year and
two terms, and had already read the first three books of
Caesar. They began by construing a difficult passage in
oratio obliqua out of the first book, which they had not seen
for a considerable time. The translation was accurate and
fluent. Then, at my request, they took the first chapter
of Book IV unseen. Five pupils in all were put on from
different parts of the class.

The modus operandi was as follows : The pupil read a few
lines in a clear and distinct voice, and then started trans-
lating literally with little or no hesitation. There was no
guessing at the general meaning, but the translation through-
out showed that the pupil had a sure grasp of the structure

268 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

of the language. Only once did the teacher suggest what
word should be taken. One has little doubt that the in-
volutions and inversions of the German language rob the
synthetic style of Latin of some of its difficulties for German
boys. Yet the performance was certainly remarkable. The
pupils' range of vocabulary, both in Latin and German, was
equally striking.

One boy translated straight off the reel the phrase " ratio
et usus belli " as " Theorie und Praxis des Krieges." There
was, in fact, only one word (invicem) which they did not
seem to have encountered before. Words Uke " venationi-
bus " they at once derived from simpler forms they had
already met with. The few grammar questions asked by
the teacher were correctly answered. The class readily
picked out and named a concessive ablative absolute, and
after building up verbs hke " ventito " out of " venio,"
described their function. Grammar, even in the grammar
lessons, is taught as far as possible inductively. • But the
teacher is no slave to the system, and makes no bones of
giving an explanation straight away when he sees there is
any danger of wasting too much time beating about the
bush, or that the class cannot hit off the scent. A map of
Gallia was hanging up in the class-room, and the geographical
references in the lesson were located on it.

When the passage had been construed over, the pupils
closed their books and the teacher proceeded to discuss the
subject-matter of the passage, making a running analysis of
the contents, and asking for Latin quotations, which were
readily given, such as " privati ac separati agri apud eos
nihil est," together with such questions as to why there
was no fixed land tenure among the Suebi. One boy evoked
much amusement by giving as a reason that the people
wanted to know the neighbourhood, and therefore did not
wish to stay in one place. An allusion to hunting led to a
question on the fauna of Europe at the time. Finally the
piece was done over by a pupU into good German. The
liveliness, keenness, and attentiveness of the class were
beyond all praise.

Obertertia (second year in Latin). Thirty- three pupils.

TEACHING CLASSICS IN GERMANY 269

The class were doing a lesson in Ovid. In this case the
teacher first translated, and the class did it over again. The
Caesar, however, is prepared at home. The special text-
books in this and classics of the same standing elsewhere
are furnished with vocabularies. There is also a special
grammar. In order to help the pupils over the ground the
grammars are made as short and concise as possible. Here
again the translation was first literal and then idiomatic.
Toward the end of the lesson the class recited and trans-
lated from memory the story of Cadmus.

The following rough notes of the top class in Latin in two
Gymnasien (old style) will show the aim is much the same.

Oherprima (eleven pupils). The lesson for the day was an
analysis of a certain number of Horace's odes, with dis-
cussions on the personages mentioned, illustrated by quota-
tions from other parts of Horace's works. The teacher's
method the first time over is to go through the ode with the
class, explaining the main difficulties. The pupils then
prepare the ode at home. The same practice is adopted
with the Germania, which the teacher considered very
difficult, apparently owing to its allusions. A chapter of
the Germania thus gone over in school takes the pupils
about a quarter of an hour to prepare at home. The analy-
sis was very clear, and the pupils showed a good knowledge
of Horace. They had got a large number of the odes by
heart. They not only analysed the ode, but also recited it
with becoming effect. Gabbling is not tolerated.

Oberprima. Several odes of Horace were read and trans-
lated. The ode was either analysed by the pupil or the
teacher talked it over with the class. The method of trans-
lation adopted was that of giving several strophes to a
pupil to read over and translate. An improved translation
would then be given by another pupil. Much time was spent
on commenting on the contents. The teacher stated his
chief purpose was to treat the odes as an illustration of the
life and times of the ancients.

Here are the notes of two classes in Greek, the first in
a Reform school and the second in an old-fashioned
Gymnasium.

270 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

Unter-secunda (seventeen boys). The lesson for the day
was a translation lesson in Xenophon which had been pre-
pared at home. One pupil read the passage through, some
twenty lines of the Anabasis, not in a perfunctory fashion,
but with due emphasis, as if he understood it. Then short
portions were fluently translated by various boys. The
teacher next asked certain questions in accidence and
grammar arising out of the text. The answers were good,
extraordinarily good when one reflects that the class had
only been doing Greek for two-thirds of a year.

It seemed all the more wonderful when one learnt that
the grammar is mainly studied incidentally at first, only
those portions being learnt which bear on some point
which occurs in the text. In some schools the class begins
with a reader, but in this class the pupils had started straight
away with Xenophon. The teacher began by reading and
translating to them the opening sentences, and they had a
vocabulary to help them to make out the sense. The chief
aim, as the teacher explained, is to lead the pupils, as soon
as possible, to an intelligent reading of an author. He
held, with the editor of the text in use, that the bo3rs who
begin Greek at an older age than the boy in the ordinary
Gymnasium heeded a different treatment from the latter,
and, above all, required a more substantial fare than is pro-
vided by detached sentences, or even detached pieces. As
for grammar, that can be largely learnt out of the Xeno-
phon as one goes along. The editor of the text-book in
question gives an excellent scheme of how such an idea may
be carried out in practice. The composition in the class
partly consists in the writing out of accidence and very
simple re-translation, which is gradually varied. .The ex-
treme Uveliness of the class, and the obvious interest they
took in the work, were not the least striking features in a
remarkable lesson.

Oberprima (eleven pupils). The author under study was
Homer. The lesson began with an analysis by one of the
pupils of the passage translated at the preceding lesson.
Portions of the passage for the day were then read with
becoming feeling and translated by other members of the

TEACHING CLASSICS IN GERMANY 271

class. The translation was fluent and good. There was a
certain amount of literary comment, which was mainly con-
cerned with the subject-matter of the passage and the
characters introduced. Grammar appeared to be mainly
studied with a view to a just understanding of the
language.

With such comparatively limited experiences one would
hesitate, in spite of the very large schools in which they
occurred, to put them forward as samples of what is gene-
rally the case, were it not for the fact that the standard of
average attainment in the larger German schools is far higher
than with us, and were they not, what is much more impor-
tant, largely borne out by statements made at a meeting of
the partisans of the Reform schools held at Cassel in
October, 1901, which was attended not only by the heads
of schools, but by inspectors and representatives of the
Ministry. Many of the questions which must naturally
have occurred to those who have read thus far through the
present article were raised at the meeting, and in nearly all
cases a favourable answer was given. The obvious advan-
tages attached to starting Latin at twelve and Greek still
later were but little alluded to. Much more was made of the
fact that the later age at which they were begun was far more
in keeping with the pupils' maturity of spirit. What were
difficulties to a boy of nine did not exist for a boy of twelve,
thanks no doubt also in part to the preliminary three years'
grounding in French. Teachers who had taught in both
styles were unanimous in testif3dng to the rapid progress
made by the pupils, which they attributed partly to the
intensive method (several declared that eight hours a week
for a year were better than four hours a week for a period of
two years), and partly to the far greater interest shown by
the pupils. This keenness on the subject and anxiety to get
on were stated to be due to the fact that the pupils " have
clearly the feeling that they are constantly growing and are
being carried along quickly in contrast to the slow progress
which they formerly made." The majority declared that
over-pressure was no worse under the new system than under
the old, though most admitted that in most cases it was a

272 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

serious problem. The least contented seemed to be the
teachers in modern languages and the professors of science
and mathematics. The former appeared to consider they
laboured in order that the classical teachers might enter into
their labours, and, together with the science and mathe-
matical professors, complained of the short time allotted to
them in the upper classes. All were convinced of the need
of grammar drill. The influence of the direct method in
modern languages showed itself in the advocacy of some in
favour of the spoken word in Latin. The questions of the
inadequate time devoted to ancient history in the Gym-
nasium and of an insufficiency of proper text-books for the
new method were also raised. Most interesting was the
verdict of the inspector who had examined the first batch
of Frankfort boys for the leaving certificates. The Greek
results were quite satisfactory. The Latin, while satisfac-
tory, showed that the grammar required a Uttle more
attention.

There are still, no doubt, other questions which have not
been touched on in this short analysis. Two may be
mentioned here. What do the older schools think of the
reform, and what do the universities think of it ? The
Ministry, as we have seen, is extremely favourable ; so far
as one could learn, in the other schools there seems to be
an opinion that the reforms may lead to over-pressure and
that the weaker boys are drafted at times in a somewhat
compulsory fashion into the Latinless department. Both
these contentions are hotly denied by the partisans of the
reforms. Even if the latter allegation be true, it would
seem to be a step in the right direction. The Universities
have had several years' experience of students coming from
the Reform Realgymnasium. For the last three years
, students have been coming in from the Reform Gymnasium
too. Lack of time, unfortunately, prevented an inquiry
into the opinion of the Universities on its new recruits. The
subject is such an important one it seems worth the Board
of Education's while to send to Germany some distinguished
scholar weU acquainted with the teaching of classics in
England to make a thorough investigation into the whole

TEACHING CLASSICS IN GERMANY 273

matter.^ Doubtless we should not care to copy in all
respects the German methods of teaching classics, yet it is
quite possible we might with advantage enlarge our own
methods of teaching. But the important question is, can
we venture to defer, as the Germans have done, the teaching
of classics to a later date ? If so, judging by the German
example, not only education, but classics also, wiU be the
gainers. The classical side is less likely to be overweighted
with an unnecessary ballast of non-linguistic pupils, while
those who start the subject at the later date should bring to
it an eagerness to learn and an interest in their own progress
which are the very vivida vis of all true education, and are,
unhappily, aU too uncommon among the bulk of English
classical pupils.

* This suggestion has since been adopted. See vol. 20 of Board
of Education Special Reports on Educational Subjects [The Teaching
of Classics in Secondary Schools in Germany), 1909.

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? ENGLISH
EDUCATION AT THE CROSSWAYS

Several very sweeping reforms have recently taken place
in English education. One of the most important is the
delegation by the Ministry to the counties and county-
boroughs of a large portion of the administration of finances
and especially of secondary education. The new local
authorities have in many places already begun to tackle
the gigantic task of rearranging the work of the existing
schools and of creating new institutions to meet the more
urgent needs of their several areas. Incidentally they are
now setthng, for a generation at least, our educational
methods and ideals, which, in plain English, means they are
deciding not only what the rank and file but also what the
leaders of the nation will be in the next twenty years. It
is in every way imperative that they should realize their
enormous responsibihties and carefully weigh every change
and innovation. There is so much that is excellent in
EngUsh education that we cannot but trust they wiU not
only conserve but widely extend all that is worthy of reten-
tion. Again, it is to be hoped that the great principle
inaugurated by the late Act, which entrusts to, and, indeed,
enjoins on, the new authorities the duty of making the schools
conform to local needs, will not be lost sight of. A bhnd
imitation of Continental systems, with their excessive
centralization and uniformity, would be httle short of
disastrous ; yet, in the sphere of the proper treatment of
subjects and of their due ordering and arrangement in com-
plete courses of study, we are bound to look for information
and guidance to our more highly organized neighbours
abroad. Until recently our educational leaders have rather

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 275

turned their eyes towards Germany, and certainly the
German system is, at first sight, most impressive. One can-
not but admire the care and intelligence that have been
lavished on the framing of curricula, and the way in which
the teaching in each subject has been thought out in every
detail. Above all, one wonders at the aU-round equipment
of the teacher, at his professional keenness, at the thorough-
ness of his methods, and the high standard of attainment
he reaches within the sphere in which he works. One's
admiration grows as one examines the component parts of
the system and sees how carefuUy everything is made to
dovetail and interlock.

It is only when we carry our investigations still further
and attempt to gauge the underlying spirit which keeps the
whole machinery in motion that we begin to doubt whether
we can copy so many of the features we formerly admired,
or would wish to copy them if we could. At bottom educa-
tion has a dual aim : the training of character and the
development of the intelligence. In the training of character
we have Httle to learn from the Germans. Indeed, there
seems to be a certain danger that in our desire to emulate
the success they obtain in the way of developing the intelli-
gence we may unconsciously be tempted to copy the military
modes of discipline to which the success itself is partially
due. To guard against such a danger we must attempt to
get to the bottom of the problem, and not only scrutinize
the quantity but the quality of the intellectual output. Its
very evenness furnishes a clue to its nature. To put it in
a nutshell, the teacher appears to aim at turning out intelli-
gences of a certain specific pattern and tjrpe rather than
self-sufficing, independent-minded individuals. But the
dangers of such an aim, especially in the hands of an
ignorant imitator, are very, great, because there must always
be an inevitable tendency for such a training to become not
so much a development as a dressage of the intelligence.

The contributory causes to such a dressage are manifold.
One, which is frequently met with in the big towns, is the
abnormally large size of the lower and middle classes.
Classes of over forty are not unknown, and those over

276 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

thirty are comparatively common. In fact, the German
schools in the big towns are probably considerably more
understaffed than the corresponding Enghsh schools. In
such cases it is obvious that the teaching must be, to some
extent, mechanical ; there is but Uttle scope for individual
attention. But the dressage is also due to far deeper reasons,
deeper even than the laudable desire to drag, by hook or by
crook, every pupil through the mill. The whole teaching is
essentially a gymnastic, a mental Turnen, at its worst an
acrohatie. It bears to the proper development of the indi-
vidual the same relation as an elaborate system of carefully
thought-out army gymnastics bears to a really scientific,
hygienic system of physical exercises. In the one case an
effort, more or less skilful, is made to develop certain parts,
because they have been so developed from time immemorial,
but the development of these to the instructor is an end in
itself. In the other case an effort is made to develop the
whole individual, and the development is only regarded as
a means. In the first instance, the theory rests on premises
that are never caUed in question ; in the second, the theory
is based on reason, and a conscious effort is made to adapt
the means to nature. In a word, the first system inevitably
tends to produce specific rather than original forms of mind,
types rather than individuals.

Hence even in the highest forms one has always the
sensation that the class are like a flock of sheep in a pen.
An English class is often less together. They do not give
one the same sensation of forty feeding like one, but there
is more browsing. The flock may be a trifle scattered,
partly, maybe, because the shepherd is not always master of
his craft, partly because they are each seeking to a certain
extent his own pasture. There is no unfenced grazing-
ground in German schools. From the bottom to the top the
pupils in each form are folded off and penned into compart-
ments much in the same way as a flock of sheep is folded
over a field of turnips. When they have consumed all the
rich crop within the four corners of their pen, another pen
is opened to which they are admitted. One cannot help
admiring the skill of the shepherd and the clever way in

Ml

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 277

which he mixes the food and tends the flock, but the sheep
strike one as somewhat too domesticated. One cannot help 1 « ,,
feeUng that hke all domestic animals they are being reared Jo
not so much for their own sake as for the sake of certain '
superior beings. The school is, in fact, one of the principal
raising and breeding branches in that large State farm
known in ordinary parlance as Germany, or, in other words,
its principal function is to produce submissive supporters of
the throne and altar.

Hence one of the lacunm in the higher classes of German
schools is the absence of philosophic training which more
than anything else tends to develop the individual into a
conscious and coherent being. Coming at a period of storm
and stress during which the youth is putting away childish
things and becoming a man, it serves, if properly utilized,
not merely as the very crown of school studies but also as
an initiation into the problems of life and conduct. The
authorities themselves have lately become alarmed at the
absence of such a training, and the subject was the principal
one selected for discussion at the Headmasters' Conference
for 1902, which in that year was held in the province of
Saxony. The thoroughness of the proceedings may be
gathered from the fact that the whole question is first
thrashed out by the teachers in the several schools, their
conclusions are then embodied in a report, and from these
reports a general report is put together which is submitted
to the whole assembly for debate. It is significant that the
conference not only reported in favour of definite philo-
sophical training but also of giving the whole of the teach-
ing in the higher classes a more philosophical cast. In no
subject is the lack of such a colouring more noticeable than
in the teaching of history, which is taught in the upper
classes on lines which are admirably adapted to the lower
forms, but out of place with pupils of eighteen and nineteen.
The teacher gives his own particular version, which hence-
forth becomes the " Evangelium " of the class, to be supple-
mented by one of several carefully authorized text-books
which are purely objective, or, at their worst, baldly annalis-
tic. What httle home reading is done is bolted through the

278 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

^ieacher's sieve by means of a careful catechism on the saUent
points to be brought out. But Uttle effort is made to eUcit
the pupil's own personal impressions as such, much less to
encourage originaUty. The aim of the teacher begins and
ends with the assurance that the pupil has made the right
deductions. The study of original authorities appears to be
almost unknown. Hence the twofold value of history as
one of the best instruments for forming the judgment and
for initiating the pupil into the art of original research is
ignored. The ideal pupil wotdd appear to be the beloved
disciple who says most frequently amen to his master or is
the greatest adept at reproducing his formularies.

The same lack of any encouragement of originality is also
observable in the teaching of hterature, though it must, to
some extent, be freely admitted that within certain limits
the teaching is often excellent and presents points of interest
that we may well imitate. Granted that the instruction
specially aims at imbuing the pupils with certain definite
ideas, the methods adopted are often preferable to our own.
Those stumbhng-blocks to the study of hterature, anno-
tated editions, are comparatively rare. The German pupil's
attention is not incessantly distracted by the marginalia of
schoUasts, often more anxious to air their own knowledge
than to contribute to his enlightenment. Poems are not
studied piecemeal but as continuous wholes. The text is
not dug over for the grammatical roots it may contain, but
rather treated as a flower-bed whose artistic arrangement is
admired, and whose fragrance and beauty are judged as a
whole. The Germans do not beheve that an elaborate know-
ledge of verbal botany is a necessary introduction to an
appreciation of hterature. They recognize that culture, hke
gardening, deals far more with the living thing than with
the dead anatomy. A knowledge of mathematics or science
certainly adds to an appreciation of art, but it is not the
one thing necessary by any manner of means. Yet even
while one admires German methods of teaching hterature,
one feels their limitations. One cannot help thinking that
the teacher's enthusiasm for hterature, sincere as most of
it is, bears the same relation to the real, native, spontaneous

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 279

love of literature as the somewhat loud and noisy talk about
German patriotism bears to our deep, inborn conception of
patriotism. To say it is the difference between the acquired
and the indigenous is too strong a contrast. Yet if one com-
pares the German love of the higher forms of literature with
the true, unforced, genuine love of the French, one instinc-
tively thinks of the parallel between the man who at a great
price obtained his freedom and the other who was born to it.
Perhaps a still closer comparison would be that between
official and natural Christianity. The love of German htera-
ture, as inculcated in the schools, is part of the official cult
of the State rehgion by law established — an excellent thing,
no doubt, but with a slight smack of compulsion about it.
In fact, as we hope to show when we come to discuss
French education, while we can learn something from the
teaching of the mother tongue and of Uterature in Germany,
we may learn the same and still more from France. From
Germany we can in fact pick up a certain amount, mainly
in the mechanics of teaching. But here the matter ends.
For inspiration and for the strengthening of certain national
weaknesses we must rather look to France.

Of course, here again we must choose and discriminate.
In the training of character we have very httle to learn from
our friends across the Channel, although the modern theories
of freedom and individuality are undoubtedly having an
effect on the hitherto somewhat mihtary regime of the
schools, which is clearly shown by the most recent proj
grammes in history-teaching. In fact, it is fair to state ~^
that, while Germany is undoubtedly more and more approxi-
mating her schools to military ideas, the French are steadily
moving in the opposite direction, towards the encourage-
ment of freedom, responsibihty, and personal initiative
Again, while we may well copy the high pitch of efficiency
to which the French have brought the teaching profession
and the honourable status to which they have raised it, we
must steadily avoid any movement that tends to make our
teachers mere purveyors of knowledge and divorce them
from active participation in the larger life of the school.
But when we come to the development of the inteUi-

28o STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

gence we may find much that we can freely admire and
imitate.

French education may be roughly divided into two parts,
one of which ends with the first part of the baccalaureat,
formerly called la rhetorique, the other ending with the part
still known as la philosophie. Both these parts explain
pretty well the aims of either course of study. The former
is a training in taste and in the art of expression. As in
Germany, the mother tongue and the native Uterature are
put in the forefront of the programme, but, £is has been
already hinted, the manner in which they are taught in
France is distinctly superior. Thanks to his prodigious
appetite for knowledge, the German, who in this as in other
matters is a veritable gourmand, is acquainted with what is
considered to be the best that has been said on a subject,
and has more or less formed for himself a palate. The
Frenchman, on the other hand, is a born gourmet. Instinc-
tively he picks out, selects and arranges what is de hon goM.
Even when he deals with platitudes, he manages to " ear-
mark " them with a touch of his own individuality. In
fact, he is past-master in the difficult art, according to
Horace, of " communia propria dicere." This artistic indi-
vidualism pervades the whole nation ; one sees it even in
so common a matter as dress, in which the women, while
careful to foUow the fashion, each modify it to suit their
own particular style of beauty. Teachers and taught thus
bring to the study of hterature and the mother tongue an
aptitude not to be met with elsewhere. In no branch of the
i I I subject does the superiority of the French come out more
plainly than in the teaching and practice of essay-writing,
which is stiU regarded as one of the most important items
\in the school time-table. Free composition begins in fact
in the lowest classes with oral narration in its simplest form
— the mere re-telling of some story which has been already
related by the teacher. The bien dire and hien Scrire are
thus taught from the very outset. The practice prevails to
a certain extent in German schools, but where the French
excel is in the far greater attention given to the composi-
tion itself of the essay. Their language serves as an admir-

li

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 281

able medium. It is the true heir of the best traditions of
the ancient rhetors, handed down through an uninterrupted
apostoUc succession through the schools of Lyons, Bordeaux
and Paris. It is the finished product which has been worked
up by generations of native Longinuses and Quintilians. It
is the only modern language that has evolved a distinctively
national prose st^le. Thanks to its ancient traditions, the
French have never lost sight, as we in England, of the true
meaning of the word composition. With us it too often
means reproduction in a foreign medium of some passage
in Enghsh, a matter of clever phrasing, or matching nuances
of thought in the two languages concerned, of reproducing
in (say) a Latin mosaic a design already given in EngUsh.
It retains in French its fuller, truer and really classical
meaning of composing, of putting together, of construction.
It imphes the employment not merely of the talents of the
mosaic-layer, but of the original designer, the master-
builder, the architect. In a word, the French writer is not
merely the framer of happy phrases. His chief glory con-
sists in his skill to build up phrases into paragraphs, and
paragraphs into one single, harmonious, architectural whole.
And herein Ues for us one of the great benefits to be derived
from a study of French methods. Just as our artists go to
Paris to learn technique, so our teachers might well go to
France to study the teaching of composition on French Unes,
in place of the happy-go-lucky, laissez-faire methods of
letting pupils " muddle through " what they wish to say.
We do not want to create in our schools a pseudo-French
style. There is, indeed, but little danger of such an even-
tuality. We have too much of what may be called nation-
ality, of racial mother-stuff, ever to capitulate to that
danger, whereas our greater af&nity to Germany renders
us all the more likely to exaggerate the defects of what we
learn from that country.

But the art of clear and artistic expression demands more
than a purely hterary education if it is not to suffer from
the dangers of superficiaUty. This corrective is supplied by
the training the French pupil receives in the last year of his
school career under the rubric of Philosophy. While the

282 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

German pupil is laboriously filling in or widening the circle
of his hard-acquired knowledge, the French pupil is under-
pinning the whole structure of his previous education.
Curiously enough the word that each would apply to his
education at tMs stage has ostensibly the same meaning.
The German would say that he was studjdng his subjects
grundlich, and the French that he was pushing his education
aufond. Yet the first only means he is fiUing in the blanks
in the cyclus of his knowledge, the other that he is going
down to the root of what he has learnt. No year is more
important from the pupil's point of view. A purely rhetori-
cal education has great dangers. It leaves one more or less
at the mercy of words. It is true that a philosophical educa-
tion puts us at times at the mercy of ideas, but such a
predicament is the less perilous of the two. A rhetorical
education gives us, as it were, the colour of things, the
philosophical adds the sense of form ; the one trains the
emotions, the other moulds the logical shape that they take.
Such a philosophical education as is given in the French
lyc6es is not merely a resume of the past, a co-ordination and
explanation of all previous studies, it also furnishes a base
and a groundwork for the future life of the pupil, providing,
as it were, the cadres round which he may classify his subse-
quent experiences, and by which he may direct his conduct.
The practice of teaching the pupil to examine and catalogue
his ideas is of the highest educational value. Individuality
and the unification of ideas are very closely connected. If
we English could have a httle more appreciation and respect
for general ideas, which are often after all but the intellectual
names of great moral principles, we should certainly be able
to reason out many of our social and political difficulties
more readily, and be less slaves to the gross sophisms which
obtain currency from the neglect of the ordinary cultivated
man to examine the exact meaning of the terms he uses.
Again, French philosophy enjoys the advantage of wearing
the least forbidding aspect of all the philosophies. It may
not attain the depth of German philosophy — ^in some ways
it may only be a sort of glorified common sense — but in its
lucidity and its close attachment to the problems of daily

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 283

life it finds at once its strength and its weakness. Nor is it
by any means as shallow as foreigners often think. The
depth is there, but it is so easily seen, because the medium,
the language in which it is conveyed, is so transparent. In
France, the French do not forget that philosophy is a branch
of literature, and the whole attitude of the best French
writer is not to pose as an unfolder of mysteries, explaining
the obscurum per obscurius, but rather to show, with the
greatest suppression of self, how after all the thing is not so
difficult.

Nothing gives a clearer notion of the French aim in \
education than their conception of examinations. Our
literary examinations are, above all, an audit of knowledge,
and at their worst a mere audit of fact. The whole competi-
tion is a match against time ; the pupil who can disgorge
the greatest amount of knowledge in a given time comes out :
top. A certain level of spelling, punctuation, and grammar
is demanded, but style in the French sense of the word /
rarely counterbalances quantity in the examiner's eyes. /
The entire examination is very largely a matter of memory, /
either in the actual reproduction of what has been learnt, or |
the reproduction of something similar to what one has been j
taught ; the whole thing is too exclusively a matter of en-/
lightened imitation. Originahty is too rarely sought for on
desired. The arts of exposition, of development, of com/
position proper are comparatively neglected. When a
French university professor is shown an EngUsh paper wit 1
ten or twelve questions (say in history) he is lost in astonisl -
ment at the number of questions ; but when he is told the y
are all to be answered in three hours he is dumbfounderec ..
The number of questions to be attempted in the lycie fc r
a three hours' composition, or in the university for a six
hours' paper, would be one or two. One can only explain
to him that the English method treats intelligences much
as sponges. It attempts to discover those which can returii\
the greatest quantity of the facts or theories they have
absorbed. To which our Frenchman rejoins : But where
does the composition come in, the act of presenting one's
subject in the clearest form, and in the most suitable

284 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

language ? One can only point out the fact tha,t it doesn't
come in except in a subordinate way, for the simple reason
that the EngUsh examinee writes from the point of view of
one who writes for a critic who knows already what he
ought to say and only wants to verify his remarks, whereas
the French candidate writes from the point of view of one
who wants to explain to the ordinary person what he has
to say, and so naturally puts his case with the utmost care.
The Frenchman will probably remark that, as far as prac-
tical value goes, in fact as a preparation for everyday Ufe,
his method of examination is more useful, as it allows the
pupil to explain his views to any one of a certain calibre.
Reply on this point seems difficult, for have we not here the
main reason of the chronic inability of the Enghsh boy to
explain himself and his ideas in a coherent fashion ? No
doubt this cult of form when pushed to extremes may lead
to undue disregard for the subject-matter. Every virtue
when pushed to extremes becomes a vice. But inasmuch as
we and the French have got hold of opposite ends of the
truth, this is certainly a point where we have much to learn
from them if we wish to encourage the productive rather
than the mere reproductive faculties of our pupils.

It would be interesting to enlarge on the superiority of
French over Enghsh examinations in their invariable in-
clusion in every examination of a viva-voce which tests some
of the most valuable quahties of everyday Ufe which are
practically untouched by the written work. Let it suffice to
say that there is very urgent need for us in England to
revive at once this type of intellectual assaying, or largely
to extend its range wherever it already exists. It is only
fair to German educationists to say that their examinations,
both written and oral, are conducted on somewhat similar
Unes. But for reasons already given above, the French
would appear, in this respect also, more likely to repay
judicious study and imitation on our part. Again, while
English, and especially English literary, examinations are
in the main an audit of knowledge, yet it is true that in some
schools and in the later stages of education at the uni-
versities, and more particularly at Oxford, stress is laid on

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 285

the value of those qualities by which the French set such
store. What we want is a much wider diffusion of these
ideals. Perhaps the best way to promote them would be
to encpurage a far closer intercourse between Oxford and
Paris, which, in their conception of culture, have so many
points of resemblance. Could the authorities of the two
universities only come to know one another better, they
would be astonished and cheered to find how many ideals
they shelter in common.

The danger of turning to Germany rather than to France
does not end here. There are a certain number of persons
to-day in England who are demanding we should begin the
study of languages with German rather than French, which
has hitherto always had the pre-eminence. They urge with
much plausibility that the accent is easier, and that the
problem of learning a new vocabulary is lessened by the
fact that the commoner words in English and German are
more like one another than the commoner words in French
and English. German, no doubt, is easier of pronunciation
than French, though the question of accent for young
children, with their very flexible organs of speech and great
power of imitation, is of much less importance than with
older pupils. The argument from vocabulary seems less
serious. Even the pupil of nine or ten, if he has not learnt
Latin, has already become acquainted with a large number
of Enghsh words of Latin origin. Again, as the Anglo-
Saxon words in his own language present to the small boy
no difficulty, the fact that many words in English and
German are aUke is only helpful in learning the German
vocabulary, whereas when French is learnt, the acquisition
of French and the acquisition of English words derived
from the Romance languages are mutually helpful. The
English is perpetually throwing light on the French word,
and the French on the English. Finally, the difficulties of
German grammar and German construction with the un-
usual order of words is certainly greater for pupils of this
age than French grammar and construction in the opening
stages. The same advocates urge that German at a later
stage is very necessary for all who wish to do research work

286 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

in history, economics, or science, and also insist on its com-
mercial value. The bulk of original investigations published
in Germany is in the majority of subjects the greatest in
the world ; but the amount in France is by no means
insignificant, is often indispensable, and where it does exist,
is generally served up in a much more available form. At
the same time, too much stress must not be laid on the argu-
ment itself. The mere grammatical knowledge requisite
to read a work of research is easy of acquirement. The
main difficulty lies in the technical vocabulary, which has
to be mastered after the pupil has left school. This advan-
tage, such as it is, is discounted by the greater commercial
value that is attached to a knowledge of French. Nearly
all Germans engaged in trade or commerce are sufficiently
masters of English to be able to do business in our language,
but, while our trade with France and French colonies is
practically as big as our trade with Germany and her
dependencies, the same facility of intercourse by no means
exists between French merchants and shippers and ourselves.
The utilitarian value of French for trade purposes is therefore
considerably greater than the utiUtarian value of German,
although there is a strong current of pubhc opinion to the
contrary. But, granting once more for the sake of argument
that the Teutophiles have so far made out the better case,
there are still two very potent reasons for beginning with
French, the last of which seems well-nigh unanswerable.
A large percentage of small boys who are going to receive
a secondary education are destined to take up Latin. As a
preparation for the study of Latin, there can be no compari-
son between German and French. The Germans have
recognized this in all their so-caUed Reform schools, in which
the study of a modern language is made the stepping-stone
to the study of Latin, though had they adopted the argu-
ment of the Philoteutons over here, they would not have
hesitated to select EngUsh, as the connection between Ger-
man and French is far more remote than between EngUsh
and French. French is also the one modern language that
is obligatory in their " unreformed " classical schools.
Again, in their non-classical schools they begin with French

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 287

and not with English. The truth is they reaJize that
French is really an indispensable factor in general culture.
That is really the chief argument of all. The question of
Which language shall we begin with ? is not a mere academic
one. It really goes to the heart of national education.
Everything hinges on it. Analyse it out, and we see it is
only another way of asking. On which language shall we
lay the greater stress ; which language shall we, in fact,
place first ? In the case of many boys only one modern
language will be taken up. The question, therefore, is all
the more important as to which they shall take. Expressed
in other words it means. Which culture do we desire to copy
on a large scale — that of Germany or that of France ? Put
in that fashion, can there be any doubt ? Do we not want
rather to reinforce the Norman than the Anglo-Saxon side
of our character ?

If the position of classics is going to be weakened in
England, are- we not likely to find more or less compensation
for the change in a more extensive study of French, which is
in so many ways the universal legatee of Greek and Roman
traditions ? Can Germany offer us anything similar ?

To sum up. Is not the balance largely in favour of
generally, though not exclusively, following French models
rather than German in school matters ? One must lay stress
on the word " school," for all are wilhng to testify to the
extraordinary love of learning to be found in German uni-
versities, to their untiring energy in research, and to their
freedom of opinion, although the latter quality has been
sadly curtailed of recent years. In their schools we can
again gladly bear witness to the high quahfications of the
teaching profession, to their strenuous, if somewhat narrow,
conception of duty, and to the various strong points in the
teaching of certain subjects. But, as we have seen, these
strong points are as well and often better represented in
French schools ; while certain weaknesses we have noted in
German education — the increasing mihtary spirit, the re-
actionary tendencies and the lack of the philosophic training
— are less pronounced or entirely absent from French educa-
tion. We have further seen how, in the teaching of the

288 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

mother tongue, in the proper conception of examinations
and in the addition of a philosophical crown to its education,
France has for us, if we are wiUing to learn, things which
are in every way worthy of our consideration. We stand at
the very parting of the ways. Are we to copy from a
national system which every year seems to grow more out
of sympathy with the majority of the nation, deUberately
constituted to serve as a buttress to the pohtical status quo,
or another which under a more modern regime is striving to
adapt itself to the conditions of the times ? What is frankly
the main ideal of German education ? Erudition. What is
the main ideal of French ? Culture. Which ideal is more
wanted in England at the present time ? Which language
is likely to afford the better linguistic, logical, aesthetic, and
literary training ? Is it German, with its glorious l3nical
poetry, its almost boundless vocabulary, its Gothic-Uke
architecture, with cathedral-hke sentences branching into
a mass of clauses, a veritable cluster of side-chapels, recaUing
at once the might, majesty and awe of its archetype the
primeval Hercynian forest, forest that, alas, the ordinary
student does not see because of the trees, as he struggles
with its sesquipedahan compounds and its apparently inter-
minable sentences, its involved and complicated style, that
happily shows signs of a movement towards a greater
simphfication of expression, yet stiU involved in the toils
of its own verbosity ? Or is it not rather French with its
poetry, in which the overwhelming sense of form almost
cramps and stunts the emotions, with its far less copious
vocabulary which is yet one of the most effective arsenals of
expression because of the admirable way in which its
contents have been catalogued and cross-referenced, with
a prose style that combines the classical architecture of pure
line with the warm colouring of modern sentiment, recalling
in its directness and solidity the road- and bridge-building
talents of the Romans, while its good taste, moderation and
refinement represent a genuine infiltration from the best
epochs of Greek culture. Lucid and logical, appealing alike
to the aesthetic and literary sense, what finer instrument
of mental discipline is there outside the classical world ?

TOWARD FRANCE OR GERMANY? 289

English we must at any price remain, but certainly neither
insular nor ultra-protectionist. The most valuable free
imports we can make are such methods and ideals as we
can copy from our neighbours. We want, in fact, to send
abroad a sort of second Mosely Commission composed of
educationists, but taken from those engaged not on the
administrative, but on the pedagogical side — ^inspectors,
headmasters, and the Uke, with a sprinkUng of county
education secretaries — persons of wide experience and ac-
quainted not merely with the strength but the weaknesses
of English education. They would not only have to consider
the points raised above, but many others. To mention only
a few, the position of science and of mathematics in the
different courses of study, the age at which Latin should
be begun, the systematic teaching of history and geography.
When the educational scouts had reported we should be in
a position to know how far we might venture on the German,
and how far on the French road, without losing touch with
the English highway.

I am happy to say that recently there has been a con-
siderable change in English opinion as regards the com-
parative merits of French and German education. While
fully recognizing the undoubted strong points in German
schools our leaders of pubUc opinion are gradually becoming
better acquainted with French educational ideas and
realizing that while Germans can teach us many useful
wrinkles and tricks of the trade we must in matters of art
and culture rather seek insgiration from France. No doubt
the factors which have con tributedTo this welcome change
are many in number. There are two which appear to me
sufficiently important to mention here. One has been the
visits of M. Hovelaque, the Inspector-General of Modern
Languages, to England. He at least has done much to
convince University authorities of the need of organizii^
the teaching of French on a really adequate scale with
reaUy adequate professors.

French culture can never obtain the appreciation it merits
in England till its exponents are reaUy and truly repre-
sentative.

290 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

The other factor in the change has been the work of the
International Guild. It is already making itself a name in
England through the large number of students it is sending
us, and by its latest achievement, the bringing together of
the modern language associations in the two countries, it
has given a decided impetus to the all too hmited interest
in France that our teachers have hitherto taken, the results
of which cannot fail to have an excellent effect on the
younger generation who are at present passing through our
schools.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF AMERICAN
EDUCATION

Any survey of American education, however summary,
must recognize the fact that in education as in other matters
the United States must be considered to consist territorially -^
of at least three different divisions, each possessing certain "x
salient characteristics which mark it off from the other two. •
There is the section of the Eastern States, in which educa-
tion has long been established, with the result that a certain
fixity and finality has been reached in organization and
teaching methods. Against this must be set the West with
its exuberant energy, its feverish hankering after novelty,
its passion for experiment which at times amounts to rash-
ness, yet has in the main a most stimulating effect on
education. Every new idea has a, chance of actual trial,
even if it is not sufficiently experimented upon before it is
cast aside in favour of some fresh novelty. And lastly
comes the South, the stagnant South one might almost say,
in comparison with the two other divisions, though even
here things are in progress. But the actual rate of advance
is slower. A rough indication of the difference is afforded
by the amount of voluntary contributions last year for
educational purposes. Of some 28,000,000 dollars thus
given according to one authority, only 1,000,000 was sub-
scribed south of the Mason and Dixie line that forms the
boundary between North and South.

Within these rough divisions of East, West, and South
there further exists the most amazing variety in the systems-\
of local control, and the methods of teaching and organiza--^
tion. It must be always remembered that in education each-'^
state is a law unto itself ; there is no such thing as federal

292 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

oversight or jurisdiction, the Bureau of Education being
J inerely a clearing-house for the collection of statistics and
>the dissemination of information. This variety is specially
■observable in the spirit in which school reform is under-
taken by the different states. In Massachusetts the legis-
lative power is only invoked to confer the sanction of the
law on any scheme of school reform, when the reform itself
has already been virtually carried out by private initiative,
and merely awaits rounding off and ratification. One of
the most typical instances of this is the recent substitution
of the larger area of the township for the small district
authority, which was only legally adopted when all the
numerous districts save four had voluntarily surrendered
their autonomy. In New York and Pennsylvania the beUef
in the virtues of parhamentary enactment is stronger, and
educational laws have been passed in the hope of giving a
lead to popular opinion by attaching the prestige of public
sanction to reforms which have not always sufficiently
entered into the manners and customs of the people, with
the result that the laws in question have not always been
a complete success. It is probable that the difference in
this case is due to the native genius of the different peoples.
C r Massachusetts is Independent in origin and traditions;
New York is largely German and Celtic. The one naturally
lays more stress on the efficacy of private initiative, and
■ prefers the looser forms of authority, the other beheves in
~the puissance of the state and the blessings of a more
centralized form of government.
V~ Yet in spite of the extensive diversity in the form and
^Spirit of educational effort m the different states, there is,
Tione the less, one common trait which makes the whole
Vschool-world in America kin. It is the fervent belief of
American democracy in its schools, which is only ,to be
'matched by that of the schools in American democracy.
This action and reaction of the school and the community
on one another is one of the greatest levers towards progress
imaginable. The bodily shape that this belief takes is that
of having a common form of graduated schools which, while
they naturally vary in standard according to the locality.

(._

A VIEW OF AMERICAN EDUCATION 293

lead up regularly one into another from the kindergarten
(where it exists) to the primary school, from the primary
school to the high school, from the high school to the college,
and thence to the University. Elementary and secondary
instruction alike are free in accordance with the democratic^
creed that, given equality of opportunity, the man who is-s
worth his salt is certain to come to the front. This policy of
the open door in education, through which the able children^
of the poorer classes have risen and can rise to positions of <
wealth, has, no doubt, greatly contributed to the expansion-*
of the United States. But most thoughtful persons will also
admit it has been largely conditioned by it. In Europeaii n^
countries where the rate of expansion is far slower, notably -
in France, and even in such a quick-developing country as -:
Germany, we see the State obUged to organize the selection ■v
of careers in order to prevent or diminish overcrowding in ')
the hberal professions. Democratic France has dehberately .
technicaUzed her higher primary schools, while the State in '
Germany, in estabhshing a scholastic monopoly, has adopted!
the most drastic measures for the elimination of the unfit. \
Now, even if the United States continues to expand materi- \
ally as quickly as heretofore, there are not wanting many \
competent judges who beheve that the opportunity for ;
getting on is not nearly so great as it was thirty years ago. '
Of what avail is it to keep the school door wide open, if the j
door out into the world is closing ? However efficient the i
school may be, it cannot make chances, it can only prepare
its alumni to take them when offered. One cannot bring
off a catch unless the ball comes one's way. Should America, '
therefore, persist in her splendid endeavour to give each
child that stays on in her schools a general education, the
question naturally arises, is she not in the long run likely
to raise up that undesirable hybrid that other nations have
produced — a literary proletariat.

For the present, it must be admitted, there do not appear
to bet'giny very disquieting signs. The introduction of~^
manual training into the schools looks hke safeguarding the -^
pupils against any excessive appreciation of the merely
literary studies. One important factor that profoundly

294 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

/'modifies the American problem is that commerce is not

V generally looked down on socially as it is in most European

countries. There is little of the cant of soiling one's hands

with trade, which, on the contrary, is rather regarded as

one of the chief avenues to success. Again, the American

C pupil, thanks either to the school or society, is highly adapt-
able. One is constantly meeting men in America who have
'^-studied for one career, and taken up another. The highest
University honours wiU not prevent the most briUiant
American scholar from entering commerce, perhaps because
the biggest prizes are to be found in it. The classic instance
is that of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, whose attainments in mathe-
matics were such as to induce the authorities at Gottingen
to offer him a University lectureship. As long, then, as
/the clever American is wilUng to turn his hand to what
Vpays best, the natural selection will be made separately by
>each individual, and there will be no need for the State to
intervene.

One of the most remarkable proofs of the beHef of the
whole nation in its schools is, that the fact of their being
^operi to the lower orders does not prevent their being patron-
y ized by the better classes, who freely send their children to
these schools. Private schools naturally exist in America,
and have undoubtedly increased during the last decade.
Yet, according to the latest figures pubhshed by the Bureau
of Education, the high schools have increased in far greater
proportion, which shows that the Separatist tendency is not
growing at anything Uke the same rate as the general desire
for higher education.

This interest of the wealthier classes in education does not
rend here. Nothing is more noteworthy than the way in
(which there has been a positive stampede among million-
f aires to devote a Uberal share of their immense fortunes to
Hhe cause of education. It seems as if, as an American has
remarked, it will soon be considered a crime for a man to die
rich. Certainly one must go back to the benefactors of the
Middle Ages to find such a constant flow of munificent en-
dowments. Mr. Carnegie's princely Hberality is known in
the two hemispheres. Only this year the President at Har-

A VIEW OF AMERICAN EDUCATION 295

vard read out at Commencement a list of donations to the
University of over a million and a half dollars, and the same
day at Yale the President of the college announced the com-
pletion of their two-million-dollar fund. How small in -\
comparison with this is the 60,000 odd pounds collected for
Cambridge University ! Some unkind persons have sug-
gested that this outburst of generosity on the part of Ameri-
can millionaires is due to the desire to obtain a lien on the
teaching of the Universities. It is impossible to read the
hearts of men, but it may, at least, be stated that in many
cases the money has been given for objects into which the
teaching of such debatable subjects as pohtical economy or
social science do not enter at aU. On the other hand, this
close connection between the schools and the leaders of^
commerce is an object-lesson to many other countries, in-<
which the teachers and merchants, instead of lajdng their <;*
heads together and finding the necessary compromise be- j
tween the apparently conflicting claims of a liberal and J
business education, spend most of their time in mutual J
recrimination.

The belief of the schools in American Democracy is best
illustrated by the thorough fashion with which the American x
school takes the child of the stranger within her gatesv
whether German or Hungarian, Norwegian or Itahan, and <
transforms him heart and soul into a real American citizen. -^
While nearly all European states are troubled by racial
difficulties and dissensions, the common school has saved
and is saving the United States from one of the thorniest of
problems in the Old World.

The principal characteristic which marks off American ")
from European schools is the presence of the female sex in"N
their midst, both as pupils and teachers. Co-education is
the rule, except in the New England States, where it is not
universal. The great mass of independent witness seems to
be in its favour, though there is not wanting a certain type
of critic, who urges that after all if the school is a prepara-
tion for life, the hfe that the majority of girl pupils will have
to lead is that of the wife and the mother, and that the
training for this state of hfe should not be completely sacri-

296 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

ficed in the higher classes by giving the girls identical
courses of study with those of the boys. Be that as it may,
/"it is probably certain that co-education renders women more
V self-possessed and self-rehant, while the higher instruction
ythey receive makes them the equal, if not, as some assert,
Hhe superior of the male sex. Certainly, owing to their
greater freedom from work, they are far more able to con-
tinue their artistic and literary education in after-hfe than
the American man. To take a single instance, it is estimated
that 88 per cent, of the patrons of American theatres are
women. There seems, in fact, some show of danger, that if
the American woman continues to enjoy this preferential
treatment, she may, by virtue of her intellectual and artistic
superiority, end by substituting for the existing ideals in
American life, which are naturally preponderatingly mascu-
hne, those to which her own sex attach the greater import-
ance, with the result that the American nation may one day
see itself converted into one of what Bismarck used to call
the feminine nations. In this transvaluation of values the
American woman is likely to be unconsciously aided and
. abetted by the female teachers who, apparently for econo-
mic reasons, have largely ousted the male element from the
teaching profession. It must be clear to everyone that a
woman's method of managing a class, even in so simple a
matter as keeping order, must from the mere force of things
be radically different from that of a man, especially in the
older classes. The power behind the female teacher's desk
/lies in an appeal to the boys to respect her sex, if she does
> not still further rely on her natural attractions as a woman ;
whereas the male teacher in the government of his class
rather sets before them the necessity of obedience for the
sake of obedience, of loyalty to an ideal and not to a sex,
I of reverence for the strong rather than a respect for the
weak, and in his manners and conduct, his obiter dicta, his
I general criticisms, his passing judgments on men and
, matters, he insensibly moulds his class to look at things in a
^ certain masculine fashion, which a woman does not possess.
It is just perhaps in this question of judgment that the
difference goes as deep as anywhere. The mind of the male

A VIEW OF AMERICAN EDUCATION 297

teacher is essentially arranged on a logical plan ; women, ^
on the other hand, however gifted, are rather intuitive J
than severely rational. Hence the boy pupil, who comes too
exclusively under female teaching, will probably in some
things be more sensitive to influence and suggestion than ^
his harder-headed brother, but, on the other hand, he will ^
be more deficient in mental balance and logical power.
There appear to be already signs of this deficiency showing
in the American schools in those classes where the pupil is
passing from the receptive age to the age of reason. The
American teaching, admirable as it is, in rendering the child .
sensitive to externals, and aiding his senses to store up \
abimdantly a mass of mental impressions, seems halting and -
inconclusive just at the point where the transition has to be
made in the pupil from the state of sensuous to that of
logical knowledge, which means the setting in order and
arranging the previously gathered stores of facts and deduc-
ing from them the truths contained in their newly framed
formulae.

One of the most difficult problems in the States is the
negro question. In the North the problem is not so acute.
The whites are everywhere in a majority, and the coloured
people, if not admitted to the best hotels, are allowed to
enter the public conveyances and the public schools without
being segregated into separate compartments and class-
rooms. But south of the old slave line the whole racial
question, according to many competent judges, is as strong
as ever. Its sundering effects are seen in every domain of
life, not excepting education. Not only the negroes, but
all who possess the faintest suspicion of black blood in their
veins, are obliged to go to separate schools, if there are
separate schools to go to, and any attempt at co-educating
the two races is looked on as impossible. The idea of ulti-
mate fusion between the two races would be scouted even
by the most ardent abolitionists, many of whom would
never give their own children in marriage to a person of
colour, and indeed in some states marriages between white
and black are punishable by law. Nor does the idea of
equality between the two races seem aught but a distant

298 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

dream. The very political equality that the negroes possess
according to the constitution is one of the most formid-
able bars to finding a satisfactory modus vivendi with the
Southern whites, who will never recognize this equaUty in
fact, and are at present actively engaged in trying to discover
some way of legalizing the disfranchisement of the black
voter which has hitherto been largely effected by intimida-
tion. So hopeless does the outlook seem to many that they
fall back on saying, the problem being a Southern one, the
South as being best acquainted with all its bearings must
work out the solution for itself. The only chance of im-
provement appears to lie in raising the moral and mental
condition of the negro. The chief obstacle to this is the
high percentage of iUiteracy among them, and their com-
parative lack of energy and enterprise. It is only fair to
add that they are debarred from the exercise of many
callings through the refusal of the majority of trade unions
to admit men of colour as members, which naturally pre-
vents them working on any job on which union men are
engaged. One of the most promising movements for the
regeneration of the negro is the great educational work with
which the name of Booker T. Washington, who is himself
a negro, is identified. He frankly admits that for the
present, at any rate, the negro had better resign his claims
to exercise the franchise, or at least leave them in abeyance.
Let the negro show he can be a useful member of society,
and society will find a place for him. With this idea in view
he advocates the estabhshment throughout the South of
industrial schools for coloured children, while to raise the
moral status of the negro a great effort is being made to
improve the standard of the Afro- American preachers, who,
as Mr. Booker T. Washington says, exercise a tremendous
influence over the masses of their race.
(" It is curious to note that while we in England are attempt-
(ing to-day to bring the local authorities into closer touch
/With the schools, the tendency in the States seems to be in
The direction of placing the school outside poUtics. Not the
least interesting chapter in American education is that
which deals with the long and victorious struggle by which

A VIEW OF AMERICAN EDUCATION 299

American democracy, in order to safeguard itself against
itself, has been driven to call in the aid of the expert. In a
recent official publication a writer on educational organiza-
tion wrote as follows : "In the City of Buffalo, New York
State, the school affairs are managed by a committee
appointed by the city council, but happily the case stands
by itself, and the evil consequences possible under such a
scheme have been much ameliorated ... by a most ex-
cellent superintendent." Probably both America and
England have adopted the right course in each case. The
Americans having harnessed the Niagara of popular enthu-
siasm to these schools, have less need of these local stimuU ;
while, owing to the lack of any strong national movement
in favour of education, we are now attempting to hitch the
schools on to the forces that he at the back of local patriot-
ism. This should not, however, confirm us in our disbelief
in the expert, who both locally and centrally is indispensable.
If we compare the attitude to-day of the parent in every
country towards the school with what it was fifty years ago,».
we shall be at once struck with the great and increasing \
claims made on the school. On the one hand we have the -^
ever-growing demand to bring the school into touch with
the future livehhood of the child, and on the other, with the
loosening of home discipHne and the weakening of dogmatic
belief, the rdle of the school as the chief factor in education n^
is being augmented at an alarming rate. To take the latter-'
side of the school's work first. It is probable in the near
future that the undenominational school in every country
will be compelled willy-nilly to give a more distinct and
definite ethical cast to its instruction. Under the stress of
modern competition the American father is often unable to
exercise effective oversight over his child's bringing up.
Early away in the morning, late home at night, he frequently
passes the whole day without seeing his child except for a
few moments. The women again are often absorbed in
other pursuits. In this case the school becomes more and\
more the sponsor for the child's upbringing and education:fey
In the long run the teaching of civics and moraUty will\
probably form as large a part of the American school's^

300 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

curriculum as it does in France. Already there is a strong
forward movement towards the definite teaching of patriot-
ism and the introduction of military drill, in order that, as
Mr. Rogers has picturesquely said, the future citizen may
know how to fight, either with ballot-boxes or bullets.
^Whether American education, with its passion for text-
ybooks, wiU ultimately evolve a regular series of lay cate-
'-ehisms on morality as France has done is yet to be seen, but
unless Roman CathoUcism, like a troisi&me larron, steps in
to profit by the decay of the Protestant sects in the States,
Athe American teacher of the future seems hkely to be
/entrusted, whether he will or no, with the spiritual ministra-
*^tion of the souls committed to his charge. One thing is
certainly true. The murder of President McKinley has
immensely strengthened the hands of those who desire to
increase the moral influence and authority of the school.

As regards the growing demand for bringing the school

into closer touch with the after-career of the pupil, the

American schools so far have sturdily maintained the para-

)mount necessity of laying a firm basis of general education,

Sand refused to sacrifice the education of the citizen to the

training of the worker. This has not prevented them, in

/technical education, from introducing speciahzation and

rthat of a very high order, but they have carefuUy kept it

T;iU the end of the pupil's career ; there is none of the

smattering of technical instruction in immature pupils

which has had such an unhappy vogue in England. In

commercial education they have strangely enough done less

than what has been effected in some European states.

The reason for this is, that hitherto they have been content

to secure for themselves the home market. With the present

growth of their foreign trade they will soon feel the need of

raising a special army of well-trained commercial travellers,

thoroughly versed in modern languages, while their futm-e

captains of industry will also require to be more highly

educated not in the practice but in the theory of business,

or economics as it is called. Most of the so-called business

colleges are rather devoted to the teaching of actual practice

and the lower arts of commerce, but once the Americans

A VIEW OF AMERICAN EDUCATION 301

realize the need for a greater number of higher institutions
they are sure to speedily supply the missing article. In no
country is the distance between cup and lip shorter than in
America. The difference between the average EngUshman
of to-day and the tjqjical American seems to be that the
EngUshman has to grumble over a deficiency till he has
talked himself over into supplying it. With the American
a want has often only to be noticed to be at once met and
remedied.

American education, as we have already seen, varies -
greatly. It possesses, no doubt, a " certain tail." A school ,
in the backwoods cannot obviously compare with one of the -'
latest scholastic palaces erected by the city of New York.
Like every other nation America has its educational prob-
lems, of which a few have here been noticed, yet the com-
parative youth of the country has not allowed any of them,
with the exception of the negro question, to become either
acute or chronic as is the case with those in older lands.
There are three things which are essential not only to the
military but also to the educational forces of a country :
money, men who are ready to go anywhere and do anything,
and an experienced leader. The educational forces of
America are fuUy equipped in this respect. They can count
on being fully supplied with the sinews of war, their per-
sonnel is singularly enterprising and enthusiastic, and in
the present head of their Education Bureau they possess
one who may well be described as the Nestor of education-
ists. The reverse of a roi faineant, who rules but does not
govern. Dr. Harris governs because he does not rule. His
writ " runs in no state," yet is read in all. His direct
jurisdiction over American education is nil, yet, unoffi-
cially, he exercises over the minds and souls of the teachers
all the spiritual suzerainty of an educational pontiff. Year
by year he has been inculcating the deepest philosophical
principles into the thousands who have sat at his feet at
the great annual conventions, or have eagerly devoured the
educational encyclicals which have issued in such profusion
from the Bureau at Washington. No one can estimate, yet
the most superficial observer can discern, the enormous

302 STUDIES IN FOREIGN EDUCATION

effect such a course of informal philosophy has had on the
present generation of American teachers. It has acted as
a sort of gigantic conservation of spiritual forces, giving to
l^the American teacher a kind of philosophic balance which,
/while it does not shut his mind against new experiments,
/prevents him from being too easily led away by the craving
^or novelty.^

1 Note. — (1913.) The suggestion that the Americans in the

changing conditions at hqme and abroa,d might find it necessary to

modify their theories as to the sufficiency of a general education has

been and is being verified in a remarkable fashion. When the writer,

after an absence of seven years, again visited the country, he found

nearly all the leading authorities won over to the general principles

of the vocational education he had come over to advocate. There

.'seemed to be a strong consensus of opinion that education must

^henceforth prepare for livelihood as well as for life, or, in other words,

we must train the average man to be a producer as well as a citizen.

'Two other important impressions of the author's visit were the

t training of the American boy in the art of self-expression, with special

'-reference to the mother-tongue, and the kindred fact that the

'..American school seeks to develop an individual, while we are too

' often concerned with turning out examination products whose

learning, alas ! speedily evaporates after leaving school.

GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.

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