the rector decides on the admissibility. The life inside the school is hard and monotonous: as in the lycée we get bare dormitories, long hours (seven hours' teaching a day), separate study rooms for each class, little liberty and initiative. The boys and girls themselves sweep out the rooms in turn, in squads. Games are rare and not popular. Failure at the end of each year to pass the examen de passage involves withdrawal from the school. Such a failure is very rare, but its possibility over-stimulates the pupils and leads to overwork. The curriculum is uniform for all France, whatever the type of school to which the pupil is destined. The official programme dictates the number of hours to be given to each subject, though the director distributes them as he wills, assigning the more difficult subjects to the morning periods. In literary subjects boys and girls have the same programme: in other subjects there is adaptation to sex. The general aim of the instruction is to give sound general information rather than advice on teaching. There is the usual tendency to excessive passivity of the pupil while the teacher lectures, to over-use of the note-book, and to inadequate use of text-books. Omitting the general subjects from comment, a word must be said about the more professional studies. Psychology, morals, and pedagogy are taught, for two hours a week each for one year, by the director himself. The morale instruction is on a high ethical plane and adapted to the sex of the student; the psychology is "static"; the pedagogy is relegated to the last two terms of the third year and is rather superficially treated.

Practical Training.-This is given either in the école annexe, an integral part of the normal school, reproducing according to its locality the typical conditions under which the student will one day teach, or in the école d'application, an ordinary school of the commune specially designated for the purpose. The former schools are in the great majority, though the latter are now viewed with more official favour. In the école d'annexe the student gets some practice in teaching without direct supervision: on the other hand, conditions are less artificial in the école d'application. By the new regulations of 1905, the brevet supérieur must be taken at the end of the second year (this leads inevitably to overwork) and the professional training is given in the third year only. There is an examination at the end called the examen de fin d'études normales. It is unlikely that this separation between theoretical and practical teaching will be productive of the good anticipated: teaching powers are now tested too late in a candidate's probation.

Criticism lessons are given in turn and, too infrequently, model lessons.

Examinations.-To sit for the brevet supérieur the candidate must be eighteen: he need not be a normal student. Possession of this higher diploma is a minimum requirement for the headship of a primary school with a cours complémentaire, for teaching this cours, and for teaching in the higher primary schools. It confers an advantage on all candidates for school work. Over sixty per cent. of the normal students and less than fifty per cent. of outside students succeed in passing the examination which is held twice yearly. The certificat d'aptitude pédagogique is, as we have seen, taken after at least two years' school teaching, with a reduction of time-qualification for normal students. It is passed by about forty-seven per cent. of the candidates, and is divided into written, oral, and practical tests. Possession of the certificat de fin d'études exempts from all but the last of these.

Higher Normal Schools.-For men the higher normal school, which furnishes the teaching force for the lower, is at St. Cloud, for women at Fontenay-aux-Roses. The course at the former lasts two, at the latter three, years. There are about forty-eight students at each, who are not only kept but paid, men getting 240 and women 200 fr. per annum. Fontenay receives most of its students from secondary schools, St. Cloud from primary. Fontenay prepares for the headships as well as the professorate of normal schools, St. Cloud for the professorate only, since directors are chosen from the primary inspectors. Here at last we find quite reasonable liberty for the women and men alike. To enter, candidates must be between eighteen and twenty-five, hold the baccalauréat or the girls' secondary diploma, and sign on for ten years' State service. The examination is competitive and aspirants to this work are many. At the end of the school course, which is very specialised in its training for science or letters as alternatives, the examination for the certificat d'aptitude au professorat des écoles normales is taken. Failure is rare, for the teaching is by experts and the professional training thorough. The entire cost of these higher normal schools, 315,500 fr. in 1905, is borne by the State.

VII. SECONDARY EDUCATION OF GIRLS

France has a noble tradition of great women writers, but State higher education for girls is a very recent growth. Before the Revolution almost entirely monastic and narrow, under

Napoleon confined in its provision to a small minority, almost monopolised by private enterprise during the greater part of the nineteenth century, only in 1867 under Duruy's ministry is girls' higher education recognised as an important and urgent State undertaking. A beginning was made by the formation of an "Association for Girls' Secondary Education " which organised secondary courses extending over three years for three afternoons a week and leading up to a diploma. Such courses, under a directress and taught by professeurs from the boys' schools, are still common to-day, though they now prepare for the brevets and cannot grant the diploma. Other courses have grown into collèges and even into lycées. In 1880 the success of this movement led to the establishment of State secondary schools, with boarding departments at the charge of the principal or town. The purely day schools are now only to be found in Paris: in 1907 there were forty-seven lycées with 16,760 pupils in all, sixty-one collèges with 10,184 pupils, and sixty-three secondary courses with 6899 pupils. The fees are lower than for boys, varying from 40 to 110 fr. a year for day girls (200t0 300 fr.in Paris) and generally increasing as the girl advances. In 1908 the State spent under two million francs on its forty-seven lycées, and in many towns a discarded boys' school has been used for the girls. But such buildings as the Lycée Racine in Paris and the Lycée Fénelon at Lille are among the best in France and have set a lead that will be followed.

Public schools for girls are exactly like those for boys in organisation, administration, inspection, and the appointment of teachers. The only outward difference is in the course and diploma. The secondary course proper extends over five years, from the twelfth to the seventeenth, though a few lycées add a sixth year to prepare for the Normal School at Sèvres. The five-years' course is divided into periods of two and three years. In the first cycle all the subjects are compulsory and the course leads up to the lower diploma, the "certificate of secondary study." The second cycle leads to the diplôme de fin d'études secondaires, the examination for which is based upon both compulsory and optional subjects, the choice in the latter lying between a second modern language and mathematics. There is no comparison between the standards of the diploma and of the baccalauréat: the former is much easier and is likely to remain so, although baccalauréat courses will probably be established in certain schools for candidates for liberal professions other than teaching. As in boys' schools

we find everywhere preparatory departments, the curriculum of which the directress draws up herself, subject to the approval of the rector. The weekly hours of classroom work vary between fourteen and seventeen in the elementary classes, average about twenty in the premier cycle, and reach twenty-five in the second cycle. The programme is entirely modern, no Latin being taught, though an hour a week in the fourth year is compulsorily devoted to the study of ancient literature through translations. One modern language begins with the infants (aged eight) and continues throughout the course, a second being added optionally for the last two years. Except for specialists mathematics are limited to arithmetic and plane geometry. The sewing, which becomes optional in the second cycle, is a great feature, special care being given to repairing.

The girls are drawn almost entirely from the middle and professional classes since the haute bourgeoisie patronises the private schools. Commerce and industry are fed by the primary and professional schools: in the secondary schools rather more than half the girls leave after the first cycle. Those who earn their own living in after-life (a thing still regarded as unwomanly by bourgeois convention) proceed to the university or higher professional schools, others who aspire to teaching prepare for Sèvres. The whole tone and atmosphere of a girls' school is different from that of a boys' lycée. Cheerfulness and human relations between teacher and taught are the rule: there is more playtime and more liberty. Most schools have cubicles for their boarders, and have bright and decorated classrooms. There is, moreover, not the same strain and overwork, since the certificates are less important for the future career of the pupil.

Teaching Force.-Since the normal school at Sèvres was started in 1883, women teachers have gradually and almost entirely replaced the men, who were at first a necessity. The academic qualifications have been raised considerably as well, the agrégation being now demanded for appointment as a full professor in a lycée, though, as in boys' schools, lower credentials are often accepted. There are now four agrégations for women, letters, history, mathematics, and physical-natural sciences: this examination, since 1884, has been taken at Sèvres at the end of the third year, the certificate for teaching in girls' secondary schools being sat for a year earlier. Candidates for this beautiful normal school must be between eighteen and twenty-four and have the secondary diploma, the bachelor's diploma, or the

brevet supérieur. The written examination is held in the departmental towns, the oral in Paris. In 1907, sixteen vacancies in letters and fourteen in science were filled by election to Sèvres. At the school the first year's work is relatively easy and the life throughout is happy, each student having her own room and much liberty. Nearly all Sèvres women succeed in the certificate at the end of the second year: the few who fail have to leave the school and teach in provincial colleges till they succeed, when they return for their third year. The students are now, like the men, made to spend some little time in gaining experience in the lycées. The competition for the agrégation is very severe, for the number of appointments is very limited: candidates must possess the secondary certificate or the licence.

To sum up, girls' public secondary schools are one of the brightest and most promising features of French education. In their whole spirit and atmosphere they set an example which the boys' schools may well follow: they endeavour to avoid overwork and the attitude of the teacher is that of a friend rather than a task-mistress. As M. Gréard says, "Girls' secondary education lent itself much more easily than boys' to novelties, being itself a novelty."

VIII. TECHNICAL AND COMMERCIAL SCHOOLS

Perhaps in no direction has France more leeway to make up than in her technical instruction for the rank and file. Industrial students in Germany are reckoned at 400,000 and commercial at 48,000. Now if we add together all the public and private schools for technical education in France we hardly reach a total of 70,000 pupils, or less than ten per cent. of the total number of adolescents under the age of eighteen employed in trade or commerce. It is especially in the lower grades of "professional " training that the disparity is felt. When we add the "crisis of apprenticeship," due to the specialisation of modern industry and the decay of the old personal training, we find the country faced with a pressing problem. Happily recent legislative proposals show that France is determined to find an adequate solution.

Higher Technical Schools.-Before 1892 the Ministry of Commerce had charge only of the higher and middle grades of technical education. Since then, as we have seen, the lower grade has been handed over also to this Ministry, and in 1900 it received the control of the four national professional schools which were founded