The Mason-bees 



and even the mysteries of Euclid. And to 

 keep this restless crowd in order, to give each 

 mind work in accordance with its strength, to 

 keep attention aroused and lastly to expel dul- 

 ness from the gloomy room, whose walls 

 dripped melancholy even more than damp- 

 ness, my one resource was my tongue, my one 

 weapon my stick of chalk. 



For that matter, there was the same con- 

 tempt in the other classes for all that was 

 not Latin or Greek. One instance will be 

 enough to show how things then stood with 

 the teaching of physics, the science which 

 occupies so large a place to-day. The prin- 

 cipal of the college was a first-rate man, the 

 worthy Abbe X., who, not caring to dispense 

 beans and bacon himself, had left the com- 

 missariat-department to one of his relatives 

 and had undertaken instead to teach the boys 

 physics. 



Let us attend one of his lessons. The sub- 

 ject is the barometer. The establishment 

 happens to possess one, an old apparatus, 

 covered with dust, hanging on the wall be- 

 yond the reach of profane hands and bearing 

 on its face, in large letters, the words stormy, 

 rain, fair. 



