The Pupil Teacher: Avignon 



subject to discuss the weather with the farmer and 

 the ploughman. 



Of natural history, absolutely nothing. No one 

 thought of telling us anything about flowers and 

 trees, which give such zest to one's aimless ram- 

 bles, nor about insects, with their curious habits, 

 nor about stones, so instructive with their fossil 

 records. That entrancing glance through the win- 

 dows of the world was refused us. Grammar was 

 allowed to strangle life. 



Chemistry was never mentioned either: that goes 

 without saying. I knew the word, however. My 

 casual reading, only half-understood for want of 

 practical demonstration, had taught me that chem- 

 istry is concerned with the shuffle of matter, unit- 

 ing or separating the various elements. But what 

 a strange idea I formed of this branch of study! 

 To me it smacked of sorcery, of alchemy and its 

 search for the philosopher's stone. To my mind, 

 every chemist, when at work, should have had a 

 magic wand in his hand and the wizard's pointed, 

 star-spangled cap on his head. 



An important personage who sometimes visited 

 the school, in his capacity as an honorary lecturer, 

 was not the man to rid me of those foolish notions. 

 He taught physics and chemistry at the grammar- 

 school. Twice a week, from eight to nine o'clock 

 in the evening, he held a free public class in an 

 enormous building adjacent to our schoolhouse. 

 This was the former Church of Saint-Martial, 

 which has to-day become a Protestant meeting- 

 house. 



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