waves over the entrance. Everything is beautifully neat and well kept; the life in common which economy compels these great establishments, in France, severely to practice, has,-when its details are precisely and perfectly attended to, and when, as at the école normale, the resources allow a certain finish and comfort much beyond the strict needs of the barrack or hospital,-a more imposing effect for the eye than the arrangement of college rooms.

Last year 344 candidates presented themselves for 35 vacancies, and these candidates were all picked men. To compete, a youth must in the first place be over 18 years of age and under 24; must produce a medical certificate that he has no bodily infirmity unfitting him for the function of teacher, and a goodconduct certificate from his school. He must enter into an engagement to devote himself, if admitted, for ten years to the service of public instruction, and he must hold the degree of bachelor of arts if he is a candidate in the literary section of the school, of bachelor of sciences if in the scientific. He then undergoes a preliminary examination, which is held at the same time in the centre of each academy throughout France. This examination weeds the candidates; those who pass through it come up to Paris for a final examination at the école normale, and those who do best in this final examination are admitted to the vacant scholarships. A bare list of subjects of examination is never very instructive; the reader will better understand what the final examination is, if I say that the candidates are the very élite of the lycées, who in the highest classes of these lycées have gone through the course of instruction, literary or scientific, there prescribed. In the scientific section of the normal school, the first year's course comprehends the differential and integral calculus, and it will be seen what advanced progress in the pupil such a course implies.

I found 110 pupils in the normal school, all bursars; commoners, to use our expression, are not received. For these 110 students, there are, besides the director-general, and a director of scientific studies, and another of literary studies, 23 professors, or maîtres de conferences, as in this institution they are called.

The cost of the school in 1865, was about $60,000. The library, laboratory, and collections seemed to me excellent.

The pupils have half-yearly examinations, and they are practiced to some ex tent, and under the present minister, M. Duruy, more than ever before, in the lycées of Paris. The teaching of the professors keeps always in view the scho lastic destination of their hearers. At the end of the third year's course, the student who has passed through it with distinction, is authorized to present himself at once for aggregation. Five years' school practice, it will be remembered, is required of other candidates. The less distinguished student is at once nominated to a lycée, but to the post of assistant professor only, not of full professor; after one year's service in the capacity of assistant professor, he may present himself for aggregation.

I have been somewhat minute in describing how the body of professors in the French public schools is formed, because the best feature of these schools seems to me to be their thoroughly trained and tested staff of professors. They are far better paid than the corresponding body of teachers in Italy; they have a far more recognised and satisfactory position than the corresponding body of teachers in England. The latter are, no doubt, better paid; but, with the exception of the head-masters of the great schools, who hold a position apart, who need eminent aptitudes for other things besides teaching, and also are very few in number, they form no hierarchy, have no position, are saddled, to balance their being better paid, with boarding-house cares, have literally no time for study, and no carecr before them. A French professor has his three, four, or five hours' work a day in lessons and conferences, and then he is free; he has nothing to do with the discipline or religious teaching of the lycée; he has not to live in its precincts; he finishes his teaching, and then he leaves the lycée and his cares behind him altogether. The provisor, the censor, the chaplains, the superintendents, have the business of government and direction, and they are chosen on the ground of their aptitude for it. A young man wishing to follow a profession which keeps him in contact with intellectual studies, and enables him to continue them, but who has no call and no talent for the trying post of teacher, governor, pastor, and man of business, all in one, will hesitate before he becomes a master in an English public school, but he may very well become a professor in a French one. Accordingly, the service of public instruction in France attracts a far greater proportion of the intellectual force of the country, than in England.