SKETCH OF if. ARAGO. 259 



the principles involved in them ; or of beginning with the rules of 

 education that have been empirically collected and handed down, and 

 then testing and evaluating these by scientific analysis. One great 

 difficulty of education is how to deal with the various classes into which 

 pupils fall as to their powers and groups of powers. The same treat- 

 ment can not be good for all alike ; but how to adapt it to each ? We 

 want an ethology of the school-room, somewhat more discriminative 

 than that ethology of the assembly that Aristotle gives in his " Rheto- 

 ric." After that would come the question, What studies and combina- 

 tions were suited to each type ? But the field of suggestion is wide 

 and the labor therein light. — Mind. 



SKETCH OF M. ARAGO. 



ON the 2Gth of February last the one-hundredth anniversary of 

 the birth of Francois Arago was celebrated at Perpignan, France, 

 his native city. A grand celebration of the day had also been planned 

 at Paris, to be held under the direction of the scientific men and pub- 

 licists of the capital, but tbe municipal subvention, on which its pro- 

 moters depended for its expenses, was not granted, and it failed. 

 Nearly seven years previous to this time, on the 21st of September, 

 1879, a statue of the philosopher and patriot, the work of M. Mercier, 

 was inaugurated at Perpignan ; and one year previous to it an eloquent 

 eulogy on M. Arago was delivered in the Academy of Sciences by M. 

 Jules Jamin. 



Dominique Francois Arago was born at Estagel, near Perpignan, 

 February 26, 1T86. His father, who was a sub-treasurer at Perpignan, 

 put him to school quite early in the college of that city. At seven- 

 teen years of age he was admitted to the Polytechnic School after a 

 brilliant examination, in which he exhibited a peculiar spirit of inde- 

 pendence, rising to the point of chiding his examiner for unwilling- 

 ness to question him on account of his delicate appearance. Some 

 months afterward, when the proclamation of the empire was contem- 

 plated, circulars inviting the act were distributed and introduced into 

 the school to be signed by the pupils. Arago refused to sign the 

 paper, and was the leader among the pupils who took that position. 

 General Lacuee, reporting the transaction to the first consul, demanded 

 that the recusants be dismissed from the school. Bonaparte took the 

 list, read it, and remarked : " We will only not send the first name up 

 for promotion. We shall have to give these boys a little time to be 

 converted. You others have turned too quickly." 



Before the end of his course at the Polytechnic, Arago, whose 

 abilities had impressed all of his teachers, was appointed a secretary 

 in the Bureau des Longitudes, where he became associated with Biot, 



