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    EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 375

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

    _culeaticr . i of tlie articles of her faith , as absolutely necessary to the well-being of the pupils ; " for what I call a child * s natural religious

    feeling and conscience , instead of being enlightened and fortified by the reasonable and judicious presentation of religious subjects which

    forms a stated part of the system of our Public Schools , is generally so worn-out and deadened by the constant mechanical repetition of

    prayers and ceremonies among the ' Sisters , ' and by the _incLilcation of the merely dogmatic views of Right and Wrong which are all

    that the children in those schools are taught to acknowledge as a standard , that a girl coming from such a school is almost sure , with

    her air of meekness and submission , to be devoid both of principle and of the sense of honor , given to greediness , idleness , and

    falsehood : in short , a thorough little hypocrite . I dread the entrance of girls from ' the Sisters' into my school , for I have found -by

    experience that there is more danger of their doing mischief to the other ils btheir examplethan hope of their own reformation , after

    pupy , being subjected to the system of training adopted in those schools . " The same condemnation of the system adopted in the Clerical Schools ,

    based on the same appreciation of its demoralising action , has been expressed to me by every lay- teacher , of either sex , with whom I

    have conversed upon the subject . The preference so widely accorded to the Clerical Schools among

    the mass of the people _^ seems to be attributable , in part , to the hold which the Confessional still maintains on the minds of the

    women of this country , especially in the lower ranks , from which these establishments are recruited ; in part , to the frequent

    distribution of articles of clothing and small sums of money , made to the children who attend them , by the teachers . The government ,

    moreover , by causing the periodic distributions of firewood and winter garments among the _" indigents " inscribed on the lists of

    the Bureaux des Secours _, to be made at the establishments of " the Sisters" probably contributes indirectly to foster this preference , by

    . associating , - with these institutions the idea of eleemosynary benefaction . If it be true , as has been stated on good authority , that no less

    than three hundred thousand persons are now receiving out-door relief in Paris alone , the influence of this arrangement will be

    readil From y appreciated the census . of the French schools , completed in 1850 , we

    learn that there existed at that date , in the 86 , 786 communes of France 39390 Primary Schools for Boysand 21189 for Girls ,

    making and Superior , a total , , containing of 60 , 5 79 schools 8 , 635 , , 639 Public pupils and , , of Privat whom , e , Elementary 1 , 803 , 363

    were Boys , and 1 , 532 , 276 were Girls . At that period , these schools not being equally distributed through the country , the necessities

    of the great centres of population requiring several schools in each of their arrondissementsthere still remained two hundred and

    seventy-, eight rural communes without a school . M . E . Kendu , in his

    "Memoir on tjie Ediwatio ? i of the Masses" computes at one million the

    Education In France. 375

    EDUCATION IN FRANCE . 375

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1860, page 375, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081860/page/15/