[ARCHIBALD] MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE 103 
Canadian university. The same may be remarked of the bachelier of 
Latin-Sciences in modern languages and Latin. When it is further 
remembered that it is possible for the average Canadian boy to get 
his B.A. with small effort one inclines to place the baccalauréat, with its 
rigorous and impartial tests, even higher. No guessing of possible 
questions and “cramming” for the same, so common in America, can 
qualify a youth to pass an examination in France. 
Another thought which the examinations for the baccalauréat 
suggest, is the superiority in one respect of Canadian education over 
that in the United States where a great source of weakness would be 
removed by the adoption of our plan, under which the examinations for 
promotion from.one grade to the next are conducted by the supervisor 
of education, not by the teacher. The pressure brought to bear upon 
teachers to promote ill-prepared pupils is thereby eliminated and this 
pressure is a fruitful source of demoralization in American public schools. 
Finally, does not the French system, as worked out by a great body 
of educationists, suggest both the kind and method of a much needed 
reform in our university requirements for the B.A. degree? A large 
number of bacheliers, as we have seen, have studied no dead language. 
They may proceed to the Universities and after a time be made doctors 
in mathematics or natural science without being required to study 
any dead language. Why may not the same obtain with us? What 
advantages can be claimed for the study of dead languages, as taught 
by us, which may not be equally claimed for modern languages? The 
Harvard authorities apparently see none, as they have not required any 
dead language after matriculation, for many years past. 
The Classes de Mathématiques Spéciales. 
IV.—If the bachelier who is proficient in mathematics be not 
turned aside by circumstances or inclination, to immediately seek a 
career in civil or government employment, he most probably proceeds 
to prepare himself for the highly special and exacting examination 
necessary for entrance into one of the great schools of the government. 
The method of this preparation exhibits a very peculiar feature of the 
French system. Whereas with us, or with the German, the boy who 
has finished his regular course in the secondary school goes directly 
to some department of a university for his next instruction, the bachelier, 
who has a perfect right to follow the same course, returns to his old 
lycée (or enrolls himself at one of the great Paris lycées, such as Saint 
Louis, Louis le Grand or Henri IV), to enter the Classe de Mathématiques 
Spéciales préparatoire which leads up to the Classe de Mathématiques 
Spéciales. The latter is exactly adapted to prepare students for the 
École Normale Supérieure, the École Polytechnique and the bourses de 
