and benevolent individuals, or the uncontrolled and unassisted arrangements of local authorities.

When I heard that M. Gauthey had been the personal friend of Pestalozzi and De Fellenberg, and at the present time of Schmidt, Pestalozzi's coadjutor, who is now resident in Paris, I was anxious to inquire of him how he taught arithmetic, that beautiful science, which, in the hands of an able instructor, becomes the geometry of the poor. He informed me that it was not taught in his institution according to the ideas which commended themselves to his own understanding, but according to the methods established by the public authorities, who virtually prescribed the course of instruction, by giving the diploma to the pupil. It is taught, said he, by rules, not principles. While the name of Pestalozzi is venerated, and prizes and honorary distinctions are lavished upon Girard, the examiner nowhere pursues their ideas. Instead of beginning with a child's first notions of counting, according to the demonstrative methods expounded in our Pestalozzian arithmetics, the French teacher begins by asking what is arithmetic, and what is number.* The public examination in arithmetic for the teacher's certificate is ordinarily confined to problems in the first four rules, fractions, and the new systems of weights and measures; but these problems are involved and intricate, so as to require the greatest readiness and accuracy on the part of the candidate. Hard arithmetical calculations are never solved by algebra, which appears to be rarely studied in the Primary Normal Schools. Mental arithmetic is engrafted on slate arithmetic, but is not pursued to any extent, or on any definite principles. Since the Revolution of February it has been proposed to add the elements of mechanics, as a branch of natural philosophy, to the authorized course in the common schools; but who knows how long the arrangements of the present régime will last? A few simple notions only on these points are taught in the Primary Normal Schools. Demonstrative geometry is taught according to Legendre, and Euclid's Elements are little known. The students never reach the differential and integral calculus. Professor Gaubert's "Causes Primordiales" are recommended, as containing the most philosophical resumé of physical geography. In mathematics, the subjects are generally explained to the class simultaneously, and afterwards individual instruction is given according to the necessities of the case.

It would appear that the friends of primary and secondary in

A child is asked, what is a metre? He must answer, It is the 10,000,000 part of the fourth part of the circumference of the earth, measured by a line passing through both the poles:-an assertion which he makes without the least apprehension of its meaning.

Traité des Causes Primordiales Géographiques et Historiques, par E. R. Gaubert.

struction in France are by no means satisfied with the method according to which the elements of scientific subjects are taught in that country. A commission has been recently appointed, containing, among other eminent names, those of Dumas, the celebrated chemist; of Le Verrier, the astronomer; and of Pouillet, the author of a great work on Natural Philosophy. The report of this commission states, that after a careful examination of the subject, the members are of opinion, that the sciences are generally taught, in the elementary steps, just as they ought not to be taught, i. e. deductively, instead of inductively; synthetically, instead of analytically; from the abstract to the concrete, instead of from the concrete to the abstract. However the evil may be rectified when the advanced student enters upon the higher branches of science, the practical result is vague and half-notions in the minds of too many of the learners. "Well explained, and well understood principles," says the celebrated La Croix, "take firm root in the mind, and throw out stems whose numerous branches are laden with fruit: incomplete and superficial ideas pass lightly over the mind, and quickly disappear, after offering a mere barren tribute to our vanity." The teaching of elementary science would seem to be obnoxious to the grave rebuke contained in these remarks.

The greatest number of pupils in the Courbevoie Normal School, during the last year, was twenty-seven. At present there are only fifteen, so sadly have the funds been reduced. The buildings in which it is held are neat and respectable, and far in advance of the institution I visited at Amiens. I confess that I thought there was a want of books and apparatus.

Dec. 29, 1848.-We visited the noble school of the Christian Brothers, situate near the church and seminary of St. Sulpice. It has rarely been my lot to examine an elementary school in which the instruction was carried to so great an extent.

The buildings form three sides of a small quadrangle, with a handsome façade, in the Doric style, towards the street.

Three large rooms on the ground floor are devoted to the education of the children; the stories up-stairs form the sittingrooms and the dormitories of the teachers; these are five in number, and all MEN.

The chamber into which we were first shown on our arrival was neatly and unostentatiously furnished. It contained, however, two splendid full-length portraits of the superior of the order, of which one was by Horace Vernet; and another, a copy of the former, by an artist whose name I did not hear. was also pleased to observe an excellent organ and a pianoforte.

I

The walls of the corridor leading to this chamber are decorated with large architectural drawings, done by the children

of the school. Some of these are so well finished that they would pass for lithographs, at a short distance.

The children were all decently attired; bright-eyed, intelligent lads, with their wooden shoes and blue blouses; respectful towards their teachers, yet evidently not afraid of them. The discipline of that school could not have been attained by terrorism-it was parental: its chief element was obviously love. No instrument of corporal punishment was to be seen.

They were divided into three large classes, answering to the three rooms. I could not but attribute their general intelligence and admirable state of discipline to the constant presence and activity of their grown-up teachers. I have visited schools at Munich and at Edinburgh, at Bristol and Berlin, at Lille, Vienna, and the Hague; but I never saw any children, of the like age and class of society, that seemed so lively, well-behaved, and happy at their books.

The number present was about two hundred and sixty.

They are the children of the common workmen of the neighbourhood; they come from the district which was a stronghold of the insurgents against life and property in June last.

Each room was fitted up with parallel desks; placed, however, not as in Holland and at the Battersea Model School, on a gallery, or, what is the same thing, on legs, increasing in height as the desks are further from the master, but side by side, thus :

after the manner of our old grammar schools. This plan does not appear so advantageous as that to which allusion has been made.

Two huge black boards are fastened against the wall in each room, the one opposite to the other. These were evidently in frequent use. The prepared chalk and the wet sponge were close at hand. They were not apparatus reserved for the official visits of government inspectors, distinguished strangers, and days of show; they were part of every morning's preparation. One board, on my entrance, contained several geometrical figures, sketched with singular boldness and vigour.

The worthy brethren showed me a number of exercises written by the children from dictation. The writing was really beautiful,

in the highest class; in the second and third, it was blotless and creditable. Very few words in the former were ill-spelt; and very few, all things considered, in the exercises of the lower pupils. I was asked to propose a question in arithmetic. I did so, and it was immediately solved by a little urchin, who demonstrated each step of the calculation on the black board, in a manner which sufficiently proved that he was no novice at the work.

The children then, with great readiness and precision, answered a number of questions which I gave them on geography. The boys of King's Somborne and Battersea could not have done better.

The teachers use the religious reading-books common to all the Brethren's schools. They appeared jealous of the Phonic System. The children learn first their letters, and then spell easy words. The old motherly plan, this; into which, I dare say, a fair proportion of the Phonic system unsystematically finds its way: at least, so it seemed to me, from the specimen of reading and teaching to read, which, at my request, one of the Brethren kindly undertook.

Some of their linear drawings were pleasingly executed. These consisted of elevations of houses and parts of houses, of accurate designs for furniture, gratings, stoves, machinery, &c.; in short, just the things which the pupils would probably be required to produce in after-life.

Why, it may be asked, amidst schools in which such intellectual efficiency and religious zeal are manifested, should there be in Paris so much vice, infidelity, and democracy? I am informed that the answer to this question is partly to be found in the fact, that, in spite of all the recent efforts in favour of elementary education, much coarse ignorance prevails in the city; that, again, the boys when they leave school, are thrown, into workshops and manufactories, where there is a systematic propagandism of infidelity-the bitter fruits of the debauched and corrupted state of society during the last century, which ended in the first Revolution; and that, lastly, it is not the youths who have been at the Christian Brethren's Schools who are generally found among the abettors of sedition and blasphemy. These statements, I regret to say, I cannot at present verify by statistics. They must depend for their credibility upon the testimony of disinterested and competent persons.

With a view to maintain a righteous influence over the boys who have left their seminaries, and to gain the affections of youths who have not had the advantage of attending them, these excellent and self-denying men have instituted evening schools in the lowest and most demoralized districts of the city. When other people are finishing their daily tasks, the Christian Brothers commence theirs anew. A noble example this to the

teachers of England, to which I am glad again and again to refer. Surely our Schoolmasters ought to vindicate the superiority of their creed by the greater devotion of their lives.

Dec. 30, 1848.-To-day we went, like ordinary travellers, to the abattoir of Grenelle, and the celebrated Artesian well, which supplies the Hotel des Invalides, the Military School, and private houses of the neighbourhood in which it is situated, with pure, soft water. This wonderful fountain was obtained by boring, with incredible labour, through the various strata of the great geological basin in which the city of Paris is situated. The operations of Mons. Mulot, the contractor for the works, lasted seven years and two months, and the depth to which his boring instruments pierced was about 1800 feet-being rather more than the depth of the celebrated coal-mine of Monkwearmouth (the Pemberton Mine), to the far end of which I once descended, that I might learn by personal investigation what the life of a miner is.

The abattoir, or slaughter-house, is not equal to that at Popincourt, which contains twenty-three vast piles of building, enclosed within walls 645 feet by 570. At a time when the public attention in England is anew directed to the enormities of Smithfield; and medical men are attributing the prevalence of many fatal disorders to the diseased and corrupt animal matter which is consumed by the poor of London, it may be well to state that the five slaughter-houses of Paris, erected under the patronage of the local and central authorities, receive all the cattle and sheep entering that capital. These are kept at the expense of the butcher. The best public security is afforded that no "measly," or otherwise diseased animal, will be turned into sausages and bouilli for the nutriment of the Parisians. I shall not now particularly describe the flagged courts containing the slaughter-houses; the exact economy which recognizes every ounce of the animal; the department which melts and cools his fat; which collects his hair; prepares his skin for tanning; in short, takes care that not an atom of the poor beast shall be lost. I could not help contrasting this exact and minute economy with the accounts which we hear from South and other parts of Australia, where the oxen and sheep are so numerous, that they are scarcely worth the expense of boiling down en masse. How long will the successful copper-mines of that country be worked, before there is an outery of the people, ending in the construction of an abattoir?

Some of the surgeons of Paris are of opinion that the slaughterers are not skilful anatomists. We are told that they do not strike an ox in the right place to kill him at one blow, nor do they use an instrument of the best shape. At the same time, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will