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    372 EDUCATION IN FRANCE,

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    4§Kb- ' No. Iii. The A Variety Present O...

    only count , by the terms of the new law , four years of c service on my twenty-six years of labor : and it is certain that I shall not

    this be able law . to Our comp salary lete the is insufficient twenty-six to additional enable _xis years to make _required anything by

    like a provision for our old . age , and we are formally interdicted from adopting any subsidiary pursuit by which to add to our

    _earnings : and I confess that I cannot help looking forward "with a heavy heart to the day when I shall be obliged by age and infirmity

    to resign my post without any _jorovision for the future . There are in this city about ten other teachers of my standing , and in my

    case ; and God only knows what will become of us . Yet we should account ourselves rich "with a pension of say forty pounds a year ;

    just enough to enable us to pay for the humblest lodging and a mouthful of "bread , so as to end our days without dishonor .

    The salaries of the assistant-teachers employed in the largest of the Boys' Schools are fixed hj the Municipal authorities of each

    _comjDOunds mune , and per - appear annum to . vary The from c supp sixteen lementary to twent teachers y or / 7 twent male y-five and

    female , who take the place of ' the master or mistress during the illness or occasional holidays of the latter , are paid about three

    shillings and sixpence a day , or five shillings when they also teach in the Evening Classes .

    In the rural districts of France , the Primary Schools appear to be still insufficient in point of number , and too often unsatisfactory

    with regard to the quality of the teaching- provided . The French peasant is generally very poor , and excessively parsimonious ;

    _despising the instruction he has managed all his days to do without , and regarding himself as doubly aggrieved by a project which not

    only threatens to deprive him of the profit of his children ' s labor , but makes him pay for this deprivation . So he sets himself

    systematically to oppose , by every means in his power , the opening of a school in his village . The Communal officers being for tlie

    most part peasants , as cunning as-they are ignorant , and all alike anxious to evade the lawthey not unfrequently succeedby pleading '

    the general poverty , and , raising a succession of local , obstacles , in preventingfor a time at leastthe formation of a school . And even

    , , in hamlets in which a school is at length _oj : > ened , through the persevering * efforts of some more enlightened inhabitant , or tlie

    interference of the superior authorities of the Department , the salary of the teacher is often limited to the legal minimum of eight pounds

    per annum , sometimes to much less ; and only inferior teachers will accept the post . The fact appears to be that the population of

    many rural districts is really too poor to pay for tlie schooling of the children ; and that , in the interest of the latter , the Primary

    _Schools" should be made gratuitous in the country districts , as is virtually the case in tlie towns .

    " This modification , and many others , would be of great heneRt , "

    remarked to mo a University Inspector , " for although much has

    372 Education In France,

    372 EDUCATION IN FRANCE ,

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1860, page 372, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081860/page/12/