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not like the asyles or infant schools; these being usually the place for children whose parents want to get rid of them. It takes from six months to two years to learn to read. The teacher has a printed diary, in which she is to enter every day's exercises. The first hour is to be devoted to religious instruction in the catechism, the gospel, and sacred history. Under this head, the teacher had made these entries for to-day: "Recitation of the Prayers; Study of the Catechism and Questions; Daniel, his whole History." The next hour is given to reading. Writing comes next on the printed form, but to-day she has this in the afternoon, and in the morning a lesson on the French language. One hour of the afternoon is to be given to calculation and the metric system, that remarkable French method by which coins, weights, and measures are brought to decimals (and) multiples of ten), as is our Federal money. The next hour on the teacher's programme is marked history and geography, but the exercises are so arranged that to-day they are sewing from three to four; the older girls sew three hours in the week. I hear that of late it has been required to teach cutting also, but I see little or none. I tell the teacher that sewing is out of fashion in our public schools, and mention how different it is with us,-how the mothers stay at home and take care of their families; but she tells me (just as if the children could not understand her) that almost all these women (the mothers) work to help support their families. In this class, which begins at the age of six, religious instruction is given in the little catechism of the diocese of Paris, printed by order of his eminence, Cardinal Guibert, archbishop of Paris. Although this school is Catholic, Protestants may come, of course, if they choose; one little pupil is a Jewess, and stands in prayer, instead of kneeling. Every morning they have the Lord's

Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Creed; and at noon all the classes have another prayer of about fourteen lines.

One of the most striking peculiarities, although a small one, in this communal school, is the want of a little bell. While I am here the teachers "Sh!" the children or else make a little whistling with the mouth, which, I should think, would not have much effect, although the children do not behave badly. The hours of afternoon-school are from one to four.

The pay of teachers in the boys' grammar schools begins as low as two thousand francs a year, or about four hundred dollars; but of this the city retains the twentieth part (and sometimes more) towards their pension. Their pay is gradually raised every three years, until it reaches two thousand six hundred francs, or about five hundred and twenty dollars, always keeping back a portion. In addition, however, the principal receives his dwelling. The pension, obtained after many years' service, is, in amount, half of the highest salary, or here about two hundred and sixty dollars. Women, as well as men, receive a pension.

Victor last evening was speaking of the Coquerels, who were Unitarian ministers, or liberal Protestants.

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Why do you not join them ?" I ask.

"I see no need of my joining them; let those join them who do."

"But do you not believe that this world is so constructed that the man who practises truth and love to his fellows is the happy man, and he who does not is the unhappy one?" "No, I do not; quite the reverse."

"Then why do you practise virtue?"

"Because my conscience tells me to. Quakers say the Spirit, but I say my conscience."

He has heard one speaking lately of Quakers; I suppose he knew nothing of them before.

At Mr. Carpentier's, in the evening, similar subjects are up, and I understand Mr. C. to call Victor a fanatical atheist, and to add, "Because the priests use the name of God, he will not use it; because they speak of the Bible, he is opposed to it, without having read it." As I have heard that Mr. Carpentier himself was a Catholic until a considerable age, I inquire what turned him against Catholicism. He answers that it was the exercise of his reason, first, on the subject of indulgences; second, on the idea that sins can be forgiven by a man. But what he especially dislikes at this time is that the right of the individual, the right of private judgment, is given up in the church. In conversation I tell the company of the independence of church and state in our country, and of the freedom of the press, in which we excel them. They do not deny this, but when they find that the testimony of a person in a court of justice may be refused if he does not believe in God and in future rewards and punishments, they think that here they surpass us in freedom. They also ask whether we can work on Sunday, and when I say no, they again claim that they have greater freedom in this respect.

Another subject up is divorce. The law of France does not allow it (except, doubtless, on those few points in which the Catholic Church does). It does not allow divorce, even for adultery. A law passed in 1804, under Napoleon I., permitted divorce; but in 1816, after the restoration of the Bourbons, this was abolished, and for it was substituted the

separation of bodies, or of bodies and goods. Even the party who sues and obtains this separation cannot marry, and I am told that such half-divorced persons often form illegitimate connections. If I mistake not, the Code Napoléon allowed divorce on the continued, mutual request of the parties; perhaps it was this provision which caused the abrogation of the whole law. But while they have adopted the rule of the church upon divorce, it seems somewhat strange that a marriage in church is not a lawful one, the only legal marriage being the civil one, in the mayor's office.

This evening, at Mr. Carpentier's, I am rebuked by an elderly gentleman, a member of the municipal council. I make the rash suggestion that there was no marriage during the time of their first revolution. The municipal counsellor rejoins, "Yes there was, the civil marriage. What do you take us for, cats and dogs?"

There are persons in France who desire to establish a divorce law like ours. As regards the legal separation, I find it noteworthy that a woman can obtain it if her husband strikes her.

This evening there is present a very pretty lady from the provinces, besides several men. Something brings up the subject, and she inquires whether there is not a baby at the house of a certain friend. Some one replies, "Not yet; there is going to be." Whereupon I laugh and tell them that we do not talk about such things until———— “Till when ?" "Until they are born. We women talk on these subjects." I might have said we do not in mixed companies.

I tell them this evening of one of my friends at home

who greatly fears Catholicism, and who thinks that on account of it the French cannot succeed in establishing a republican government. Whereupon a gentleman says that this cannot prevent; adding that there are Catholic cantons in Switzerland that have been republican since the time of William Tell.

May 16th.-At the Exposition I observe the sugar in the Russian department. It will be remembered what a quantity of beautiful sugar the Russians exhibited at Philadelphia. Two men whom I see to-day give me a piece of the Russian, which is from beets, and from them I obtain information also. Between French and German we manage to communicate ideas, and by turning their puts into kilogrammes and thence into our pounds, and their roubles into francs and cents or dollars, I am able to eliminate the statement that they could afford to furnish the French with the best sugar of Russia at about eight cents the pound, if the French would let them. Victor is giving about fourteen.

I meet at the Exposition with a French acquaintance, who was in our own country several years on business. He is from a central part of France, and I have been planning to obtain through him board at a farm-house. He says that board would be very low, but he thinks that I shall not be satisfied with it, adding that I shall find no carpet upon the floor. But I tell him I shall not care about the

carpet.

Victor gives me the following figures. That he makes the comparison is of interest, even if the figures be not strictly correct. He says that the expenditure of the United States in 1876 was, for public instruction, $125,

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