96 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
1.—The prominence given to the study ot French throughout. 
2.—That all élèves at the age of 10 or 11 commence the study of 
modern languages (English, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, or, in 
Algiers, Arabic), and continue it during six years at least, before matri- 
culating into schools of university grade. Not only do they get glimpses 
of the best things in the literature of the language, but also learn to speak 
the language with considerable freedom and remarkable correctness 
in pronunciation. How many university graduates with us get a 
training which leads to this result? The direct method is employed 
and no word of French is ever spoken in the advanced classes. The 
majority of the élèves choose German, as this is required of all candidates 
for entrance into such military schools as the École Polytechnique and 
École de St. Cyr. On the other hand there is an increasing number tak- 
ing up the study of English which is required for the École Navale. 
3.—The small number of hours devoted to mathematics in the 
Premier Cycle, in II, A, B, and in I, A, B,ofthe Second. Yet there can 
be little doubt that the situation might be summed up in even stronger 
terms than in the recent report of the trustees of the Carnegie Founda- 
tion, when comparing the methods of American and German schools: 
“... lack of efficient teaching is one of the most expensive national weak- 
nesses, and that the inefficiency of our school system is in great measure 
due to this lack is evident. For example, mathematics is a subject 
which has been a standard study in our schools from the beginning. 
Students who pass through our high schools and enter college spend 
in the nine years corresponding to the period covered by the German 
gymnasium, seventy-five per cent. more of time of instruction on 
mathematics and yet receive a training vastly inferior to that of the 
gymnasium.” Practically all the professeurs titulaires in the French 
lycées, even those in charge of the very elementary classes, are agrégés 
in the subjects which they instruct. Just what this means in mathe- 
matics we shall explain later, but suffice it to remark here that even the 
demands made upon those who wish to become gymnasien professors are 
nothing like as severe. 
Another feature of mathematical instruction which is particularly 
interesting to us is, that from the troisiéme on, that is, from the time 
the boy is 13 or 14 years old, instruction is given entirely by lecture. 
Indeed, even in classes before the troisième when a text book is generally 
in the hands of the élève, he is required to take notes “pour préciser”? 
the various topics. By such methods, searching questioning and fre- 
quent “tests,’’ on the part of the professor, and rigid inspection, kindly 
expressed praise or cutting public reprimand on the part of the proviseur 
(director of the lycée), there is no possibility of learning parrot-fashion, | 
as is so prevalent in our schools—no room for the shirker or the boy who 
