February 18, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



171 



the pupil enters at an earlj^ age, that the sessions 

 are long, and that he moves forward without 

 break or interruption through a programme care- 

 fully weighed, measured, and detailed before- 

 hand. The class hours are now twenty a week, 

 as compared with twenty-four previous to 1884, a 

 reduction owing to the fact that evidence of over- 

 work had become apparent. 



The whole work is divided into eight classes, 

 numbering from eighth, as the lowest, up to sec- 

 ond, which is followed by the classe de rhetorique 

 and the classe de philosophie, not numbered. 

 There is below the eighth a preparatory class, 

 which is, in its turn, preceded by an elementary 

 division of three classes. Thus the boy may enter 

 very young, and may be promoted to the eighth 

 class when he is nine years old. The w^ork in the 

 preparatory class consists of French together 

 with German or English ; to these alone four 

 hours out of the twenty are devoted : also history, 

 geography, and two hours a week for arithmetic, 

 together with an hour each of object lesson and 

 drawing. At nine years of age, then, the collegian 

 is fairly launched upon his career. The number 

 of hours devoted to his mother-tongue is still the 

 same, nine ; he has still four hours a week in Eng- 

 lish or German ; history takes an hour and a half, 

 and geography the same ; arithmetic and object 

 lessons take three hours, while drawing, as in the 

 preparatory class, occupies an hour. The next 

 year, if he has not failed at examinations, the 

 pupil proceeds to the seventh class, and must be at 

 least ten years old. In it, the division of time to 

 the various subjects is precisely the same. 



When the i^upil is at least eleven years old, and 

 in the sixth class, i.e., at least six years from the 

 completion of his course, a marked change takes 

 place in the subjects of study, and in the dispo- 

 sition of time. His native language drops at once 

 to three hours a week ; he has been exercised in it 

 for years nearly half of the whole class-time, and 

 his style has been largely formed. Perhaps this 

 early and thorough practical exercise in his 

 mother-tongue is a reason why almost every edu- 

 cated Frenchman can express himself in language 

 always elegant, smooth, and concise. What is 

 lost by French and modern languages in the pro- 

 gramme is gained by Latin, which rises at once to 

 ten hours a week. History also gains an hour, 

 arithmetic and science losing an hour, while draw- 

 ing gains the time which they lose. Thus, when 

 the Latin grammar and ' De viris illustribus 

 Romae ' is begun, the boy is reading in English 

 Miss Edgeworth's ' Tales,' ' Evenings at home,' and 

 Miss Corner's 'History of England,' or Benedix's 

 ' Der Process,' ' Griechische Heroengeschichte,' 

 etc., in German, with exercises in reading and 



conversation. In arithmetic, he is doing vulgar 

 and decimal fractions, while in drawing, he is at- 

 tempting architectural design and the human 

 tigui'e. 



In the fifth class the hours are precisely the 

 same until January, when Greek is begun, and to 

 it two hours a week are devoted. The Latin has 

 now got as far as the ' Fables of Phaedrus,' ' Cor- 

 nelius Nepos,' and the ' Metamorphoses of Ovid.' 

 The Greek is elementary, but in Enghsh, Sir Wal- 

 ter Scott's 'Tales of a grandfather.' and other 

 works of similar difficulty, stand side by side with 

 Grimm's ' Fairy tales,' Andersen's ' Tales,' and 

 ' Der Eigensinn ' of Benedix. The history corre- 

 sponds to the language studied, so that in this 

 class Greek history is almost exclusively read. 

 Arithmetic has got as far as the rule of three, and 

 geometry is continued, in elementary course of 

 botany balances a similar course of zodlogy in the 

 preceding year. 



In the fourth class, only two hours are devoted 

 to the mother-tongue ; Latin has six and Greek six 

 hours ; modern languages, history, science (in- 

 cluding mathematics), drawing, two each, and 

 geography one. French classical authors are read , 

 Caesar, Ovid, and Virgil, in Latin, conjoined with 

 Latin composition. In Greek, Xenophon, Lucian, 

 and composition are done. Lessing, Musaeus, 

 Kotzebue, and Hoffman, with De Foe, Irving, 

 etc., are read in German and English. Roman 

 history is continued, while a course of geology 

 replaces the botany of the preceding year. 



At not less than fourteen years the third class 

 is entered, and the work becomes heavy. In this 

 class, mathematical work increases, and has three 

 hours assigned to it. Latin and Greek have each 

 five hours, with modern languages about as be- 

 fore. It would be tedious to go into detail in all 

 the classes ; the principal difference to be noted in 

 the development of the scheme in the next three 

 years is the increasing attention given to mathe- 

 matics, physics, and history. 



At fifteen years, if the boy be clever, he is in 

 the second class. After the completion of this 

 year's work, the programme divides into classe 

 de rhetorique and classe de philosophie. The 

 French classics are continued in the second class, 

 and the older French literature and philology are 

 studied, together vs-ith the history of literature. 

 Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus are read 

 in Latin ; and Homer, Euripides, Plato, Xenophon, 

 and Plutarch in Greek. In the living languages, 

 pieces from Goethe, Schiller, Hauff, Shakspeare, 

 Goldsmith, Walter Scott, and Dickens are read, 

 and the mathematics go about as far as the end 

 of quadratics. 



As stated above, the course now divides into 



