The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



In love than ever with insects and flowers, 

 and thoroughly determined to fill what he 

 considered to be one of the most serious de- 

 ficiencies of official instruction. 



Alas! there were many deficiencies in the 

 education received by his masters which would 

 have to be made good in order to complete 

 the literary education which the professors of 

 the Rodez lycee had begun to give him, and 

 the scientific training which he had hardly 

 commenced at the Normal College. 



We must listen to his reminiscences of his 

 career as pupil teacher, to the inventory of 

 the scientific equipment of a schoolboy of 

 1840, to the story of his first and last les- 

 son in chemistry, to see how poor he was in 

 acquired knowledge and how rich in the de- 

 sire for knowledge, before we can estimate 

 the length of the road which he had to travel 

 when he had passed through the classes of 

 the College. 



In my normal school, the scientific teaching was 

 on an exceedingly modest scale, consisting mainly 

 of arithmetic and odds and ends of geometry. 

 Physics was hardly touched. We were taught a 

 little meteorology, in a summary fashion: a word 

 or two about a red moon, a white frost, dew, snow 

 and wind ; and, with this smattering of rustic 

 physics, we were considered to know enough of the 



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