The Pacific Monthly/Volume 1/Education in France, Second Paper
EDUCATION IN FRANCE.
By SAMUEL JACQUES BRUN.
Second Paper.
SCATTERED all over France, located mainly at the county-seats, are the lycees, or government schools, which include the primary and intermediate grades as well as college courses. They are public, though not free, institutions of learning, collectively constituting the French University, attended by the well-to-do and by the few who can obtain government scholarships.
The name is an old one, dating from the palmy days of Athens, when Aristotle taught his philosophy to eager disciples and followers in covered alleys to the east of the town near the river Ilissus, and called the place the Lyceum. As this was also a place for athletic culture, so it was that Napoleon First, who organized the French University on the lines since followed with little deviation, created these lycees, that they might give mental and physical training to the children of his marshals and generals, and those of the middle classes. Napoleon gave to these schools a strong military bent, and aimed as much at keeping alive the mar- tial spirit as imparting a liberal educa- tion to the young scholars.
Victor Hugo expresses the original spirit of the institutions in the following noble lines:
"Vous etes les enfants des belliqueuux lycees!
La vous applaudissez nos victolres passees."
The students to this day wear uniforms, live in huge barrack-like buildings, answer to a strict military discipline, and from early morn until bed-time they must come and go to the beating of a big drum. A martial spirit still pervades the lycees, and the ghost of monasticism, as well, hovers over them; for the buildings themselves, once monasteries of the Church of Rome, were a part of the vast holdings confiscated in 1793 by the French government, turned over to the French University and assigned to young collegians.
Lately, money has been spent on new buildings more in keeping with modern ideas of college architecture, but fifteen or twenty years ago the approach to these colleges was forbidding, the halls were anything but cheerful, the corridors long, dark and dismal, the rooms cheerless, cold and bare, the windows small and iron-barred, and the yards, where all phys- ical exercise took place and the recesses were spent, were sunless and treeless courts entombed by high walls. To escape from these prisons to the street and min- gle with the live, active world, a couple of doors had to be unlocked and the gaunt- let run past an ever-watchful doorkeeper, whom the boys appropriately named "Cerberus."
The Lycee Henri IV, for instance, is an ancient abblaye of Genovefains, and the main staircase, the cloister of the court, named after Victor Duruy, the great min- ister and historian, most of the dormito- ries, some of the study-rooms, the very college chapel, vividly recall former times and scenes enacted in the old convent.
The administration proper of the lycee is carried out by four men, all very dig- nified and distant. The president, to whom all respectfully bow, has a general supervision over everything about the col- lege premises, from the kitchen to the drawing-room, and is the inspector of classes. The censeur, or vice-president, confines himself more to the discipline of the school, and is aided by the head usher, a man more feared than loved by the boys, who goes by the title of "surveillant general." That individual never sleeps nor grows weary, is ubiquitous and always at your heels. Avoid him as you will, he runs across you; hide yourself as you will, he ferrets you out; seclude yourself as much as you please, he will scent you be- fore your cigarette is half consumed.
The fourth figure in the administration wears an official title that does not rec- ommend him to the students, 1'econome, or treasurer—literally the one who saves—and certainly that official has his art to perfection. The students of the lycee are kept on fixed rations— so many ounces of meat, so many pieces of bread per capita, a bottle of wine for six at dinner, etc. They never eat all they want, and the supposition is that "l'econome" is often responsible for short allowances.
The boys call him "M. Riz-pain-sel," for the cheap articles of diet everlastingly served upon the college tables. Once in a while the boys rebel against M. Riz- pain-sel's fare, break the plates and hoot his minions. The ringleaders are pun- ished, but the fare improves for a few days, until the episode is forgotten on both sides. Next to the administration stand the gown-professors, who reside out- side, and the ushers, who are always with the boys.
A witty Frenchman has said: "If life is short, the days are long." The say- ing proves true in a French lycee, with a day beginning at 5:30 A. M. in fall and spring, and at 6 o'clock in winter, there is ample time to study one's lessons and to get into mischief.
The untiring vigilance of the ushers grows irksome, their eyes always on one from rising till bedtime, never a moment of relaxation. Distrust and dislike naturally grow out of so much suppression, and once in a while this breaks out in open rebellion, but oftener it is manifest in small tricks which tease and worry the life out of an unpopular usher.
The great novelist Alphonse Daudet, who was in his youth usher in one of the lycees, has described most pathetically the agonies he underwent, in his book, "Le Petit Chose."
French boys are not worse than American boys. Both are inclined to mischief if too much restrained, and a life of repression develops their ingenuity for tricks and pranks, some of which are very laughable, though reprehensible.
On one occasion, an usher who was known to be very timid and easily scared, but fond of exercising his petty authority, was chosen by the boys of his room as the victim of a practical joke.
It was a rainy day, and the boys were kept in the study-room during play hours. A boy had in his desk a large alarm clock which was capable of waking a sleeping regiment when wound up to its full capacity. All the boys of the room were secretly informed of the expected event, and warned to keep as still as possible during study hour that evening. Accordingly, just before 7, the silence of thirty or forty boys was as deep and solemn as a church on week-days. Not a pin-fall nor a turning leaf could be heard, and yet nothing on the boys' faces could warn the usher of the storm to come. The silence was, however, ominous, and the usher stroked his beard, looked up from the book he was reading and was wondering what it all meant, when — B-r-r-r! b-r-r-r! off went the alarm, with a clatter loud and long. The usher bounded from his seat as if impelled by a secret spring. The students sprang from their desks uttering exclamations of surprise. In the twink- ling of an eye the scene changed from the most orderly solemnity to the wildest con- fusion. Usher and students were gestic- ulating and speaking at the same time. While the former, pale and frightened, pounced upon a tall, long-haired lad of eighteen and openly accused him of being the prime mover in the mischief, the boy protested his innocence and was sus- tained by his comrades, while the con- fusion continued.
"Silence!" roared the usher. "Silence! You are the guilty party. I know it and I will report you to the censeur."
"I guilty? I guilty, sir?" roared the youth, shaking his wild mane. Then, lowering his voice with mock solemnity, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, his hand upon his heart: "I guilty, I guilty, sir? The sky is no purer than the depth of my heart!"
Applause and laughter greeted this tragic utterance, but the noise had brought to the doorsill both censeur and surveillant general, and the poet was drawn from his ecstacy, handed over to the drummer and locked in the college prison.
There for two days on a bread-and- water diet he copied hundreds of lines from the Latin poets, and for the rest of the semester he lost the privilege of the monthly outing in town with parents or friends. On the other hand, he became a hero among his fellows, and, upon emerg- ing from his third-story prison, was treated to such ovations as might have honored a victorious general.
It would be a mistake to suppose that all ushers are liable to receive such treatment, or to imagine that French boys lack sentiments of courtesy and kindness. The fault is with the system and not with the boys, for often they delight to honor a respected teacher. Costly presents in the way of books are sometimes given to a favorite instructor at Christmas or New Year's, and presented with very pretty ceremony, offered by a spokesman in the presence of the roomful of students.
The professors are feared for the ex- aminations which they give once a week, the result of which is announced every Monday morning in the presence of the president and vice-president; they are also respected for their great learning and for their impartiality towards the students. Most of the men who have taught in the French lycees belong to the learned aristocracy of the country, and some of them have been leaders of French thought in their day. The great Guizot, historian; Taine, author of "The History of English Literature;" Bdmond About, novelist; Jules Simon, scholar and statesman; Gaston Boissier, the Latinist; Victor Duruy, historian; Lavisse, of the French Academy; Francisque Sarcey, great journalist and critic, of Paris; M. Hanotaux, late minister of foreign affairs — these have all been lycee professors. Such eminent edu- cators have turned out eminent pupils in all the walks and avocations of life. Poets such as Cassimir Delavinne and Alfred de Musset; playwrights, such as Augier and Sardou; great engineers, like Ferdinand de Lesseps; academicians and journalists, physicists and scientists, and scores of eminent men, in art, science and literature.
French college boys lack neither patriotism nor honor. They were as ready to quit the halls of learning and fly to their country's aid in 1870 as were the American college students in 1861 and 1898, and those who were too young for the field nobly did their duty in a way not less acceptable. For, after the great and bloody struggle with Prussia, France was left in a dilemma — two provinces gone and five billions of francs to be paid before the German troops would withdraw from her territory. At this juncture Thiers ap- pealed to France for a loan, and Franc* responded nobly. The youth were not asked— they volunteered their aid.
We college boys refused to accept the prizes which are annually distributed before vacation-time, and begged that the amount to be given be turned over to the government. We did more; out of our little monthly allowances we pledged a certain amount until the war indem- nity should be fully satisfied. About hall the pocket-money we secured from home for self-gratification we turned over monthly to our appointed treasurer — we pledged to him our honor to be prompt in remitting; and I do not recall a single instance where the pledge-money was not promptly paid in. It was an impressive sight when the treasurer went his monthly round in the classroom, collecting the dues of professors and students. The si- lence was deep — all were intently think- ing of our misfortunes and how we might retrieve what was lost. Self-abnegation rose to a high pitch. We were being schooled in self-mastery. May I not say- it has borne its fruits and that they are visible to the eye of any student of con temporary France? A joyous day it was when we read in the papers that the last penny had been paid and the last German soldier had gone home. The share of the debt that the college boys assumed was voluntary — no forced collection of it could have been made — it was a debt of honor.
French college boys have their failings, but whatever their faults may be, they are not lacking in sense of honor.
(To be continued.)
DEMOCRACY.
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race thy sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
—Walt Whitman.