In Peace 



districts. All great cities are de- 

 stroyers of life. Scarcely one would 

 hold its own in population or power, 

 were it not for the young men of the 

 farms. In such destruction, Paris has 

 ever taken the lead. The education of 

 the middle classes in France is almost 

 exclusively a preparation for public lif e. 

 To be an official in a great city is an 

 almost universal ideal. This ideal but 

 few attain, and the lives of the rest are 

 largely wasted. Not only the would-be 

 official, but artist, poet, musician, physi- 

 cian, or journalist, seeks his career in 

 Paris. A few may find it. The others, 

 discouraged by hopeless effort or viti- 

 ated by corrosion, faint and fall. Every 

 night some few of these cast them- 

 selves into the Seine. Every morning 

 they are brought to the morgue behind 

 the old Church of Notre Dame. It is 

 a long procession and a sad one from 

 the provincial village to the strife and 



41 



