The department of secondary instruction (enseignement secondaire) includes the classical schools, which are of two orders: lycées or state schools whose courses lead to the bachelor's degree, and collèges communaux, a class of local colleges whose curricula are modeled, so far as practicable, upon those of the lycées.

Private classical schools (called lycées or seminaires) are maintained with the consent of the minister. In 1891 the enrollment in the public classical schools for boys was 83,764 students, and in the private 90,063, or a total of 173,827. There were also 11,645 students in public lycées and collèges for girls.

The department of superior instruction comprises the state facultés, i. e., groups of professors (at present 59 in number1) who maintain courses of instruction and lectures in letters, sciences, law, medicine, pharmacy, and Protestant theology, and are also the only authorities empowered to examine for and confer degrees; that is, they perform the same functions as the universities of other countries. They generally have their seat in the principal town of their respective académies the academic rector being their official chief and the intermediary between them and the minister. Private facultés also maintain courses of instruction but can not confer degrees.

The number of students on the registers of state facultés the 15th of January, 1891, was 20,785, which with 931 in private facultés gave a total of 21,716 students in university courses.

To the foregoing statistics of attendance should be added 7,491 in the primary normals, about 75 in the superior normal schools for women, and 130 in the Ecole Normale Supérieure, making a sum total of 6,518,346 pupils and students, private schools for girls not included. Of this total 70 per cent were in public institutions. For purposes of comparison with other countries it is best to eliminate the 709,576 children in infant schools. This done, there remain 5,808,770 youth under formal instruction. This number is equivalent to 15.19 per cent of the population. The primary school enrollment alone, infant schools not included, was equivalent to 14.63 per cent of the population.

There are also three superior schools of pharmacy and three of medicine and pharmacy of equal rank with the facultés, and fourteen schools of medicine and pharmacy, and three of science and letters, classed as preparatory. These are borne on the same budget as the facultés. To the department of superior instruction belong also the great special schools under the exclusive control of the minister of public instruction, i. e., Collège de France, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Muséum Histoire Naturelle, Ecole Française de Rome, École Française d'Athênes, École Nationale des Chartes, École Spéciale des Langues Orientales Vivantes, École Nationale et Spéciale des Beaux Arts à Paris, Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et de Declamation. The Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, at Paris, is a private institution of high rank.

Census of 1886, legal population 38,218,903. The school attendance of Algiers, 82,457, is included, but not the population (3,910,399). For obvious reasons the use of the latter would produce a greater error in the calculation than that of the former alone.

Relation of the state to the teaching profession.-The professors of the State facultés and of the public secondary schools (lycées and local colleges) constitute a state professional corps. The former are appointed by the President of the Republic upon the recommendation of the superior council and the minister, the latter by the minister. The service is guarded by examinations and by the requirement of a university degree which for professors of secondary schools must be at least the bachelor's degree, and for the facultés the degree of doctor. The conditions of the service, duties, penalties, etc., are carefully reg ulated by ministerial decree. Salaries range from $900 to $2,200 per annum in the facultés and from $420 to $1,500 in the lycées. The École Normale Supérieure, maintained by the state, is the alma mater of the most distinguished professors. The teaching service of lycées for girls is under special regulations, and a state normal school (École Normale Supérieure, Sèvres) is maintained in the interest thereof.

The teachers of primary schools must obtain a state diploma (brevet élémentaire, supérieur) awarded upon examination. This requirement had been met in 1890 by 98.6 per cent of the teachers in public primaries and by 82 per cent of those in private. Only lay persons can be employed in the public schools, a requirement now enforced in all public schools for boys. Salaries, which are paid by the state, are graded in five classes, ranging, in the elementary primaries, for men from $200 to $400, and for women from $200 to $320 per annum, in the higher primaries from $360 to $560, and in the primary normals, for men from $700 to $1,000, and for women from $600 to $1,000. Communes must provide residences and may supplement the salaries. Through the academic inspectors the state maintains a supervision over the teachers engaged in the schools, but their appointment, tenure, and discipline are in the power of the prefects, subject, however, to the advice of the departmental councils and the approval of the inspectors. Every department is legally bound to maintain two primary normal schools, one for men, another for women, or a consolidated normal school. This obligation has been fully met as regards schools for men, and in 86 out of 90 departments as regards schools for women. The state also maintains two superior normal schools to prepare professors for the departmental or primary normals.

Course of study in primary schools.-It may be added that the course of study which primary teachers must be prepared to conduct is extensive, including, besides the three elements, moral and civic instruction, the metric system, history and geography, object lessons, first notions of science, elements of drawing, singing, manual work (needlework for girls), gymnastic exercises, and, for boys, military drill. In the higher primaries the course is much like that of our nonclassical high schools, with large development on the scientific and technical sides.

Finances.-The funds for the support of this comprehensive system of public instion are derived from state and departmental appro

Har M

priations and from a communal tax for primary schools. Tuition fees are required in facultés1 and secondary schools, but the amount so received is turned over to the public treasury, the state appropriating each year a sufficient sum for current expenditures. In all primary schools tuition is free.

The proposed state appropriation for public education (1892) is 172,924,627 francs ($34,584,925), of which 73 per cent is for primary education, 11 per cent for secondary, 8.8 for superior, 2.2 for administration, and 5 per cent miscellaneous.2 The total expenditure for public primary schools (infant included) in 1890 was 162,681,805 francs (832,536,361). Of this, 64.7 per cent was contributed by the state and the balance by the communes.3 The marked increase in the relative proportion derived from the state (it was 50.6 per cent in 1889, as against 64.7 in 1890) is due to the fact that the state has assumed the responsibility of paying the salaries of teachers. The expenditure was equivalent to $6.68 per capita of enrollment for the year specified (i. e., 1890). Although every part of the educational system of France has been developed by the Republic, the primary schools have been its especial care. The progress of these schools is therefore properly regarded as an index of the strength and spirit of the Government. The universal interest which the history of this department excites gives importance to the following exposition of its development from a recent work by M. E. Levasseur:

PART II.

THE PROGRESS OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS SINCE GUIZOT'S LAW, 1833.

The government of Louis Philippe, outcome of a revolution, ought from the outset to have shown itself favorable to popular education. It was not, however, until after the failure of several projects that M. Guizot secured the passage of a law, June 28, 1833, which was, in a certain sense, the fundamental charter of primary instruction in France. This law imposed upon every commune the obligation to maintain an elementary primary school and provided for the support of the school by an extra tax of 3 centimes in addition to the three direct taxes. It fixed a minimum of 300 francs ($60) for the salary of the teacher, who had, moreover, the right to school fees paid by the parents who were not indigent. The law provided for the free instruction of the indigent

By a decree of July 25, 1885, the facultés were empowered to receive, hold, and administer property, a right conferred upon them at the time of their constitution (1801), but suspended in 1875. The work of organizing the facultés of each acadé mie into organic bodies is in progress. The bill for converting them into distinct universities is before the chambers.

2 Rapport sur le budget général de l'exercice, 1892, par M. Charles Dupuy, pp. 122

125.

3 Résumé des états de situation de l'enseignement primaire, 1890-91, p. 123, and Table 23.

classes, the expenses of the same being equitably distributed among a series of authorities extending from the family to the state. Wherever communal resources were inadequate for this purpose, they were to be supplemented by subventions from the departments not exceeding a levy of two additional centimes, and if need be, by subventions from the public treasury. The law also created higher primary instruction (enseignement primaire supérieur) and primary normal schools. Under the influence of this law 2,275 schools were opened in a year, 450,000 new pupils were there enrolled, and 15 normal schools were founded.

The law of 1833 provided only for schools for boys. An ordinance of 1836 extended the same advantages to girls, without, however, imposing upon the communes, as the law had done, the necessary expenses. In 1848 the number of pupils enrolled had reached a total of 3,500,000. This was an increase of 31 per cent over the enrollment in 1837, date of the first general statistics of primary schools. It was equivalent very nearly to 10 pupils for every 100 inhabitants. The revolution of February, 1848, gave rise to new projects. The Republicans demanded gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The legislative assembly, however, prompted by the conservative and religious party, passed the law of March 15, 1850, which proclaimed "liberty of instruction," made the maintenance of schools for girls obligatory, suppressed several useful creations of the law of 1833, and opened wider the gates to clerical instruction (enseignement congréganiste).

The second Empire, which at first showed some suspicion of the teachers, finally improved their salaries somewhat, and afterward, under the ministry of M. Duruy, passed the law of April 10, 1867, which provided for an extension of free instruction and imposed upon every commune having at least 500 inhabitants the obligation to maintain a separate school for girls.

In 1872, after the tempest which overwhelmed the Empire, the primary schools of France, reduced in number by the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, enrolled 4,722,000 pupils. The increase since 1837 had been 75 per cent. The third republic has not displayed less zeal than the first in behalf of primary instruction, but, more concerned with practical applications than the first republic, has manifested her zeal by acts. Recog nizing that public instruction, useful under all governments, is indispensable under a democracy, and that it is not only a benefit to the people who receive it, but a powerful instrument of political discipline for the government which gives it, the Republic has desired that the state should become the master of schools in order to develop in this double interest a system of education more widely distributed and conceived in the spirit of republicanism.

Diverse projects have been successively discussed in the parliaments since 1871. They have resulted in a series of laws, nearly all passed during the presidency of M. Grévy, and the most important under the ministry of M. Ferry.

By means of subventions or advances to the communes, which in ten years (1878-188S) reached a total of 527,000,000 francs ($105,400,000), these laws have caused the construction or the repair of more than 20,000 schoolhouses (laws of June 1, 1878, August 2, 1881, and of June 20, 1885). They have provided in every department for normal schools for women (law of August 9, 1874), regulated the schools of manual apprenticeship (law of December 11, 1880, and decree of March 17, 1888), decreed the absolute gratuity of primary instruction (law of June 16, 1881), rendered primary instruction obligatory (law of March 28, 1882), regulated (law of October 30, 1886) in a general manner the organization of primary instruction, and decided that the public schools in the future should be exclusively under lay teachers; determined (law of July 15, 1889) the salaries of teachers should be paid henceforth by the state, with additions in certain cases specified of communal subsidies (for indemnity for residence); increased tenfold the subventions of the public treasury, and thus transferred from the families and the communes to the state the greater part of the responsibilities and expenses, which in 1887 reached a total of 173,000,000 francs ($34,000,000) expenditure by the state, the departments, and the communes, not including the cost of the construction and repair of schoolhouses.

1

The republic has ameliorated the condition of teachers, a policy in accord with the interests of a democracy. While recognizing that it is in general more advantageous for the teachers that they should depend upon the state rather than upon the communes, and that the greater part of the changes accomplished during the past fifteen years have been to the advantage of instruction, I have not seen without regret the abolition of school fees, which did not prevent the free admission of indigent pupils and which brought into the school funds from 16,000,000 to 18,000,000 francs ($3,200,000 to $3,600,000), and the systematic elimination of the religious orders from public instruction, whose coöperation regulated and superintended by the administrative authority was useful, and whose relegation to the private schools has divided interests and excited religious passions. The republic shows itself also to be inspired with the sentiment of democracy in constructing schoolhouses everywhere, as, after the year 1000, the middle age, inspired by religious faith, created new churches or rebuilt after a new type the ancient edifices.

While approving the policy of constructing suitable schoolhouses (and despite the critics it appears certain that the great majority of the buildings have not exceeded the requirements), it seems to us that it

2

Within five years of the passage of the law in schools for boys.

2 According to the general report upon school constructions (relevé général des constructions d'écoles, 1er Juin 1878, 20eme Juin 1885) published by the minister of public instruction, and containing the details of the expenses incurred for each structure, the mean price of the new buildings (containing each one or two schools) has been about 30,000 francs ($6,000), not including the department of the Seine. The