in comparison with Protestants. As to the subject of the condition of the workingmen, I afterwards receive information from another source.

Thursday, June 6th.-Seeing me one day dressed in my new silk, Victor is pleased, and says that he will take me to A some Sunday to see a gentleman who has invented a new religion (which much amuses me). Madame tells me that Mr. F. made this new religion, which is called the laic. Although under an impression that, like the poet, a religion is not made, yet I should like to go; but Victor is so much occupied that we never take the little journey. On a recent occasion, when he was declaiming against religion, and saying that there is no proof to the reason of the existence of God, I took the liberty of ridiculing him a little. I told him of the expression on the card at the infant school, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another as I have loved you;" and when he found that there was no reference to any text in the Bible, or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, when he found that the precept stood upon its own merits, without any reference to authority, he was silent. At one of the stands near the Exposition I got a French Testament for Victor. The passage that seemed most appropriate to read to him and to Mr. Carpentier was Paul's eulogy of charity, which word, in the German version, is love:-Love suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.— Love never faileth.

I have before spoken of the many decorations that are

worn in France. Such, I suppose, are considered contrary to the spirit of our republican institutions. Even our school-children appear long ago to have ceased to wear the medal. On one occasion, at the Exposition at Paris, I observed one of my countrymen with a ribbon in his buttonhole, connected with a decoration given to him by the Austrian emperor at Vienna, but I believe the gentleman soon gave up the little ribbon. In the commissioner's room in our department at the Exposition hung pictures of Sherman and Sheridan with decorations, but these, I am told, are army-badges. A friend in Paris says that Mr. Birney, our minister to Belgium, when invited to dine wears a rose; this, of course, breaks the contrast between his plain black coat and the decorated ones. Nevertheless, as I hear while writing this volume how the love of titles is rampant in Nebraska, so that even a plain lawyer is addressed as the Honorable Mr. Holmes, who knows but we may come to decorations yet?

Friday, June 7th.-The normal school on the Boulevard des Batignolles, of which I have before made mention, is the only school of the kind for girls in this populous department of the Seine. Yet as it is organized it is sufficiently large, as will hereafter be observed. I have before visited a private normal school for girls, where I was told that in France no one can teach without a diploma. (We must, however, except the clergy, as a letter from a superior sometimes, if not always, answers in the place of the certificate.) Twice a year the state has examinations, even of those who intend to teach private schools. Almost all young women who receive a solid education now pass through this examination, as the daughter of one of the

Rothschilds, and a quantity of others. It is quite the fashion to receive a diploma. The last examination continued two or three months, and there were twelve hundred female applicants. She who tells me this is a teacher; doubtless a fashionable young lady would not be equally enthusiastic. But to return to the public normal school for girls, which is entirely gratuitous: I am received by an agreeable young lady, Miss S., who is general superintendent, for I do not meet the principal upon any of my visits. At present there are sixty-four scholars, who are obliged, in return for their board and education during three years, to hold themselves in readiness to teach at any time during ten years in this department of the Seine, and not to enter into any other business during that time.

I have just mentioned the department of the Seine. France is divided into about eighty departments. This of the Seine is a very small one in size, but, as it contains Paris, it is very populous and very important. When this normal school is full it has seventy-five pupils; now, as I have said, there are but sixty-four. At present there are no Protestant scholars, although all religious sects are admitted. All are not obliged to receive Catholic instruction, but all must pass an examination in religion before receiving the diploma, the Protestants being instructed by a Protestant minister, the Jews by a rabbi. (One of my acquaintances in Paris, a young man, failed to receive the certificate or diploma because he did not answer a question concerning the voyages of Paul.)

Miss S., the young and agreeable superintendent, shows me a book which proves to be of much interest to me. It is compositions of American scholars, sent to our Centennial Exposition, brought thence to France, translated and

published by Mr. Buisson, who was, I believe, at the head of their educational commission at Philadelphia. Miss S. thought it remarkable to find in this book of exercises, so much expression upon religious subjects. She also finds in one little essay, ideas which she would not have expected from the age of the writer,-such as, "The times that tried men's souls;" but I reply that such are some of our bywords, and that, instead of being a proof of elevation of ideas, they are rather a proof of poverty. This volume is presented to me by Miss S., and I take it to the North of France and into Belgium, lending or showing it to different persons, and at last send it to a young man in the centre of France.

Miss S. accompanies me into the room where Miss Masson is giving a lesson in geography, partly upon IndoChina; and one of the pupils is drawing a map of the country, apparently from memory, upon the blackboard. Miss Masson accompanies the lesson with remarks on the manner of teaching. In this room are four charts of France, magnificent ones, of different sizes. There are also one of Paris and its environs, one of the department of the Seine, and one of Europe; but no map of the world is to be seen. Were it not for Palestine and the French colonies, might they not say, "Europe is world enough for me"? As regards history, the pupils are instructed in that of France, of Greece and Rome, and of the East. They are not instructed in the history of any country of modern times, except as such history is connected with that of their own country. This seems like an example of how not to do it; but perhaps it belongs to the same class of ideas as teaching our young men Greek and Latin, instead of the modern languages. The instruction in French history is very minute; one of the pupils is called upon, and, taking

the teacher's place, gives a little recitation or lecture on the subject. But the most remarkable statement concerning this visit of mine is yet to come. I learn that these young women, who are to be teachers in Paris and its vicinity, cease to study the history of their own country at the year 1815.

With one of the persons in authority in this school I have an agreeable, though not a long, conversation upon the co-education of the sexes, so common in many of our States in schools of this grade; but she remarks that Frenchmen are too warm,-trop chauds; they are not like the English; and she thinks that there might be difficulties in practising it here. But if such is the disposition of Frenchmen, how does it happen that there are in France, as reported, eighteen thousand men who have taken the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience? Eighteen thousand men belonging to the religious orders, besides the great mass of secular clergy, also unmarried!

Before I leave the normal school Miss S. shows me a dormitory, one great room with many beds, and a fine. wash-room attached. Towards the centre of the sleepingroom is an oblong, encurtained space for the teacher. I find a disadvantage in a public wash-room for so many young women. In the great normal school at Millersville, in my own State, only two pupils sleep in a room, and here can have water and other requisites for the toilet. But this latter school is not gratuitous.

I see a handbill posted which offers the following inducements for Sunday, June 9, Pentecost-day, or, as we say, Whitsunday: "Communal festival of Nanterre. At two o'clock very precisely the ceremony of crowning a