forces reveal themselves in such questions asIs the school popular with the parents? and how does it shelve, solve, or sever the religious difficulty? As for the influences that the social milieu exerts, their name is legion, for their area of recruitment is world-wide. Everywhere the centripetal force of the towns is growing. Which way, we ask, is the rural school pulling? Then comes a whole plexus of problems. Is there a rural exodus, and, if so, are the causes higher wages in the towns, conscription, the laws of inheritance, or alcoholism? So that the last question we have to ask is this: In the midst of the general rural decay is the school a centre and a rallying point of all social reform, or is it merely content to interpret its duties in the narrow sense of instruction pure and simple ?

The problem is a big one, but it has got to be faced if it is to be properly stated. After all it is surely better to state factors imperfectly and superficially than conveniently to ignore them and set the school thereby in a false perspective. The aim of the present paper therefore will be twofold: after a rapid sketch of the general machinery as far as it has reference to the rural school, to present as complete a view as time permits of the rural school itself, and, secondly, to give a rough idea of the conditions prevailing in those parts of rural France with which the speaker is personally acquainted, in order to indicate the problems to which the rural school can even under the most favourable circumstances offer only a partial solution. En passant one hopes to bring out such points in French methods as seem worthy of imitation. But the two systems, French and English, are so different, there is nothing we can copy wholesale except it be the spirit of thoroughness which has animated French reformers.

To understand the present highly developed condition of French primary education, a rapid sketch of its past history seems necessary. The only name that needs be cited before the Revolution is that of Jean Baptiste de la Salle, the founder of the Christian Brothers-who in any history of the early beginnings of popular education must find a foremost place. Thanks to his teachings the monitorial system never took abiding root in France, being soon ousted by the so-called simultaneous methods of his followers. The Revolution did little else than express a pious resolution in favour of a complete system of free, popular, and compulsory education. The three great names after the Revolution are Guizot, Duruy, and

Jules Ferry. Guizot, who must be looked on as the founder of the system, began his reforms by a survey of the educational plant on the ground, a proceeding that might well be copied; especially as regards secondary education, by those who will have to carry out the provisions of the present Bill before Parliament. Compulsory education was not established by him, but each commune had to build a school and pay the teacher. He started also the building of girls' schools, and normal schools, and the creation of an inspectorate. The Loi Falloux, in 1850, divided primary schools into State and private schools, and recognised both. The régime of Duruy is remarkable for the great extension given to evening classes, and to the founding of girls' schools as well as the establishment of the caisses des écoles for helping the children of the poor who frequent the schools.

The Third Republic began setting its educational house in order by a vast building and furnishing scheme. Every commune was obliged to provide itself with, or share in a State school; every department was compelled to possess a couple of normal schools. State aid was freely given, and in all, £34,000,000 were spent by central and local authorities, 35,145 schools were built or acquired, the total of normal schools was brought up to 163, and two higher normal schools for providing these schools with teachers were founded. Having put the buildings on a sound footing, the teaching profession was next raised to the level of a skilled calling by compelling all teachers in religious or lay schools to hold a certificat de capacité (or attainments' certificate), while the State teachers were further obliged to possess a certificate of training (certificat d'aptitude pédagogique).

Then came the triple reform of free, compulsory, and secularised education, with which the name of Jules Ferry will ever be connected. The latter cut the painter once for all between the public and private school, between the State and the different cults. The teaching of la morale was substituted for denominational teaching, and in the State schools the religious teachers were either immediately or gradually replaced by laymen. The religious schools. were left entirely free, the State only exercising a certain supervision over the sanitation and text-books and professional status of the teachers. The result is that in 1897, the total number of children still under religious instruction was 1,603,451, of whom 405,825 were still in State schools not yet laicised,

against 3,823,760 in the lay schools. This does not include the maternal schools. If these are reckoned in the figures are 1,955,199, against 4,175,656. The great majority of the pupils over 6 in the religious schools are girls; there are in all only 436,726 boys in these schools. Of the Association laws it is impossible to speak here, as it is at present doubtful as to what their precise effect on primary education will be.

These reforms necessitated certain financial readjustments, the most important of which was the transference of the payment of the teacher from the locality to the State. In thus abolishing the payment of salaries by localities the Republic seems to have solved a large number of grievances. Henceforth the teachers were grouped in classes in which promotion depends on merit and seniority. It is probable that our County Councils will, sooner or later, have to formulate a similar scheme. Now that the raison d'être of inequalities in salaries has gone, the inequalities will have to go. The Republic has also to its credit the re-establishment of the higher primary schools, which have been an immense benefit to town and country; and lastly, the most recent improvement is the revival and enormous extension of evening classes. This has been largely a teacher's movement, and is an admirable instance of the striking enthusiasm and devotion that pervades their ranks. One might almost call them the knights templar of republican defence and popular education. The beneficial effect of these drastic and thorough going reforms rural education is obvious, if we put on one side the vexed religious question. The country school buildings are not allowed to fall below a certain minimum of requirements. Salaries not being a matter of locality, the tiniest hamlet may, and often does, possess one of the best teachers of the department.

on

And now to come to the actual machinery. We find the Minister has cognizance of all schools as far as the sanitation and staffing are concerned. There is in fact no free trade in teaching, nor can a school label itself with any high sounding title it pleases; all schools, public or private, must have the Government hall-mark. The fraudulent private school is an impossibility in France. Yet this does not mean that the neutral private school is disliked. On the contrary, the most thoughtful of French reformers are highly anxious to encourage private initiative in this direction-a matter our new authorities may well lay to heart.

The Ministry itself is divided up into three sections-University, Secondary, and Primary. The latter has the joint supervision of a few quasi-technical schools, but technology proper and commercial education are under the Ministry of Commerce. Agricultural schools are under the Ministry of Agriculture. Attached to the Ministry is a consultative committee; six of its 57 members are elected by primary officials and teachers. The primary section of the Ministry keeps itself in touch with the actual state of education by means of eleven general inspectors. They act not only as the eyes and ears of the central authority, but also as its mouthpiece, Thus a year or two back it was decided to re-organise agricultural education, and one of the inspectors made a tour of all the training colleges in order to give the right trend and direction to the teaching of the subject.

In

Coming to the local authorities, the rector of the local university looks after the normal colleges in his district as well as the education side of the primary schools. In fact, one may look on him as a sert of lay bishop whose seminaries are the normal colleges, and who supervises the articles of faith and religion represented by the education taught in the primary schools. But his second in command, the academy inspector, being the man on the spot (there is one for each department) possesses really more effective power. administrative matters, and in the selection of the personnel he is independent. While directly appointing the probationers, he also nominates the full teachers, while the Prefect appoints them. Situated midway between the central authority and the schools, yet near enough to be in touch with both, he is evidently the pivot of the whole system; not only does the efficiency of the schools depend largely on him, but scarcely less important are his diplomatic duties in keeping the school in good odour with the local authorities, and getting them to help education over and above the legal minimum.

The Prefect, like the minister, has to assist him an advisory council of experts, called the conseil départemental. The educational element is in an immense majority on it. In fact, it is practically an education committee with no direct financial powers, the money being raised by the conseil du département (or county council) which has representatives on it. A comparison between the education committee under the Bill, and these bodies would be very instructive but would take us too far.

Under the academy inspector come the inspectors who have each a district to look after. We should regard them rather as sub-inspectors. Originally largely recruited from among the teachers, they are now, owing to the increased severity of the examination, practically taken from the ranks of the professors in normal schools, the heads of which are also recruited by the same examination. The examination itself is extremely stiff, especially the practical portion, and no one who is not a past-master in pedagogics and practical knowledge of school work has a chance of passing.

The mayor of the commune has various rights, including that of visiting all the schools in his commune. He is also supposed to summon the school attendance committees. The cantonal delegates are apparently meant to represent the popular and parental element. They may inspect the building, supervise the children's behaviour, but if present at the lessons given may not meddle with the teaching. The French have little belief in the educational judgment of the local butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker. These "lay figures" in more senses than one have even less authority than Mr. Balfour's managers. In fact, they have so little that one inspector described them to me as the fifth wheel in the coach.

The two principal things to note, as regards this apparently complicated machinery, are the smoothness with which it works - due to the clearness with which the function of each official is defined and the enormous preponderance given to expert as compared with popular management. What we have to learn from France, as far as one can judge, is not to destroy our capacity for self-government, but to strengthen it by fortifying it on the expert side.

Clearness in function has led to clearness in finance. At present the State is the largest contributor; the income and expenditure of certain taxes formerly handled by the department and commune are now part of the central budget. At present the State pays the teachers' salaries, the county council pays for the upkeep of the normal schools, and the parish pays for the cost and up keep of the school buildings. A few figures may prove of interest. In 1897 the State spent about 5 millions, and the communes over 2 millions. The normal schools have cost over 2 millions. The percentage of the cost of building and furnishing has been 40 per cent. for the State, 4 per cent.

for the department, and 56 per cent. for the commune. The English parish has, therefore, had more to pay than the French commune. The cost of a place in the State schools has been 12, against 14 12s. 84d. in English Board Schools. The total cost of education in France a year, including lay and religious schools, is put at 11 millions, or, reckoning in interest on loans, 14 millions.

The efficiency of the French State teacher may be judged by the following figures. Less than 1-5th per cent. of the male teachers do not possess the brevet, and only 4 per cent. of the female teachers are without it; 45 per cent. possess further the certificat d'aptitude. This can only be acquired after two years' work in the schools. The difficulty of winning it may be gauged by the fact that it generally takes teachers much longer to obtain it. I myself came across a teacher who had taken eight years.

Between 6 and 7-10ths of the present staff have passed through a training college. As regards the position of the State teacher in a village, it has, in some instances, been scarcely a bed of roses in places where a laicisation has taken place. Cases are not unknown where teachers have been stoned and boycotted, while jehads against the lay school have been preached by the local clergy. Happily this phase seems to be passing away, and any attack on the State school even in a catholic district would probably be mal vu. Otherwise the rural teacher's position is probably from a social standpoint more comfortable than with us. To begin with he possesses that indefinite prestige that attaches to all Government officials. Again the contour lines of the local society are less abrupt in France. They do not rise in the terrace-like fashion as they do in England with the labourers, farmers, parson, and squire, all more or less at different altitudes and elevations, with no definite ledge for the unfortunate schoolmaster to settle down on. At the present time there seems to be a growing shortage of teachers, as with us. This is being happily met in some departments by giving bonuses to those teachers who prepare pupils for the normal school examination. An idea has got abroad which rightly or wrongly asserts that the teachers are turning the children against the profession, though curiously enough they continue to send in their own.

The vast majority of normal students come from the primary schools. They are practically

recruited from the department in which the college is situate. When they leave the college they desire to settle in their own department, and look on being sent to a neighbouring department as a sort of exile. One often hears the departments spoken of as merely geographical expressions, yet it is evident that this homing instinct of the teacher is gradually giving each department its own educational physiognomy, and thus it is reserved for the primary teachers, whom an impartial philosopher might call the real children of the Revolution, to give life and personality to the administrative entities into which their spiritual forefathers re-divided France more than a century ago. Curiously enough, while the teachers remain stationary it is the inspectors who move from department to department in France. This is the exact contrary to us, where inspectors are more or less stationary and teachers more or less on the move. This no doubt is largely due to the inequalities in local salaries.

From a financial point of view the French teacher does not seem to be so well off as the English, though some of the English are worse paid than some of the French. The English certified master obtains on an average £127 2s. 7d. The best French male teacher only receives in the country £80 a year; in the town he receives various extra allowances. On the other hand he is always housed free of expense, which is not the case with his English confrère. Again, he can add to his income by being secretary to the parish council, or by running evening classes. Living is probably as dear in France as in England, but the style of living is distinctly more economical, as a comparison between the salaries of French and English civil servants of the same grade would show. After 25 years' service the French teacher receives a pension, provided he is 55 years of age.

The housing question does not appear to be a burning question in the country as far as the head teacher is concerned. The chief griev

ance seems to centre round a matter that has lately been agitating Parliament, the matter of whitewashing. Members of the parish council, who only whitewash their own premises once in ten years, cannot be got to understand the necessity of such proceedings every other year for the school buildings. Assistant teachers, according to the law, have adequate accommodation, but in reality the two or three rooms they ought to have often shrink to a single room, and that sometimes

without a fireplace. Ninety-five per cent. of the rural schools have gardens, not, as has been rashly asserted, for experimental purposes, but for the private use of the teachers. In the old days the teacher was the priest'sman, and was obliged to sing, himself and his little ones, in the choir. To-day he is nominally his own master, but owing to his secretarial duties and his evening classes, he is probably as hard-worked as any man in the world. Yet the amount of grumbling one heard was very small. One comes across everywhere signs of the missionary spirit which the desire to raise the country after 1870, and the militant reforms of Jules Ferry, have produced. A National Union of Teachers has just been started, and the late Minister of Public Instruction, who rightly recognised in the teachers a sort of republican army of occupation, gave it a hearty send-off. Other functionaries may change their political colours, but it will take many years to make the vast army of teachers untrue to their salt. They are to my mind the sheet-anchor of the Republic, and the chief visible definite concrete expression of the nobler side of the Revolution's aspirations. Their relations with the inspectors are generally excellent. Their relations with the other grades of education are singularly distant. Still this has not been a defect in the past. It has enabled them to cut themselves adrift from a vast amount of scholasticism which pervades French secondary education, while social education and culture have penetrated so far into lower strata of French life, that the primary teacher has not suffered as might be expected from his isolation from secondary education. Lately the need of closing up the republican ranks has been felt, and a teachers' guild, to include teachers of every grade, has been started.

in

After the teacher, the school. Allusion has already been made to the law, that every commune must have, or share in a school of its own. So strong is local feeling that the united district comparatively common England is rare in France. Only 2 per cent. of the communes have a school in common. One pig-headed commune with a school population of 5, insisted on building itself a school. that cost £800. Such cases of obstinacy would be unheard of in England. The country is now covered with a complete network of State public schools. Out of 36,174 communes only 47 have no school at all. Communes over 500 are legally obliged to have a separate school for girls, and even this provision has been very thoroughly carried out. The

buildings generally are in a good state of repair. Of course, those built 70 or 80 years ago are less suitable than those erected 20 years ago. The school furniture is less satisfactory, but here improvements are being gradually made. An excellent idea is the distribution of large coloured illustrations by the Ministry, which are really views of French scenery procured from the railway companies, with, of course, the time-table part suppressed. These sheets add a certain amount of attractiveness to walls that are otherwise bare, for pictures to the country lad are as fascinating as flowers to the town child. We might almost look on them as the flowers of the town, fit subjects of barter for our rustic primroses and daffodils. The only piece of school furniture which need detain us is the musée scolaire, or school museum.

One finds it everywhere. Its use has been admirably defined as the indispensable auxiliary of the real object lesson. It must not, however, resemble a curiosity shop, for collections formed at hazard, and with no definite plan, are of no utility. The museum must be appropriate to the teaching, not the teaching to the museum. The use of the museum will be well seen when we come to the agricultural teaching. Unfortunately, in a good many cases, it evidently was not utilised as it ought to be. Not a few that one saw resembled too much the collection at a marine store dealer's.

And now for the children. They were, for the most part, neat and tidy in their dress. Their hands especially were clean. The copybooks, which are usually a fair test in these matters, were singularly free from " tell-tale" finger-marks. Their behaviour, on the whole, was excellent. In the classes of one or two younger teachers one saw a certain amount of by-play going on, but that is the teachers' fault. This good conduct is the more surprising, as corporal punishment has been abolished in French schools, much to the dislike, it must be admitted, of the older teachers. But the younger generation seem to get on very well without it—in theory. In practice I should be inclined to take the word of a teacher, who said, "There is not a good master going who has not given a sound smack' to some child in his life."

How do the children attend? Well, that is a problem which would take up too much room to discuss fully. One can only give conclusions. To begin with, the attempt to make the duty of compelling attendance a local matter has been a failure. According to

the law, the mayor of the commune was to summon the attendance committee and, if necessary, set the law in motion. A good many mayors did, with the result that they and sundry other zealous parish councillors lost their seats at the next election. Their fate has made the law practically a dead letter in the country. One of the chief sources of irregular attendance in the north-western departments is the departure of the children in the spring for the grazing districts, where they guard the cattle. These little pátours, as they are called, often take six months' French leave at a time. Haysel and harvest, applepicking and grape-gathering also produce irregular attendance. Several remedies have been proposed. Some have suggested that the teacher should be armed with the power of putting the law in motion-an evident mistake, as it would bring him in direct collision with the parents. A better idea is that of vesting these powers in the inspector, who is sufficiently highly placed to be beyond the reach of local vengeance. But while those in authority with whom one conversed, agreed that the law should be made more effective, they most of them deprecated any wholesate setting in motion of the legal machinery as likely to do more harm than good in the country districts, where the peasantry are by nature highly conservative, and local customs and prejudices are strong. One inspector, in particular, told me he had made a thorough trial of the legal remedies. It had been a complete failure. Then he had turned round and experimented with the system of allowing the teachers to inform the parents that the inspector would always favourably entertain a request for leave of absence if the work was specified. Eighteen years' experience had proved the system worked extremely well.

Another way of keeping on the children was to discourage them from presenting themselves. for the leaving certificate before they were twelve. Much good is also done by those teachers who make personal inquiries of the parents whenever a pupil is absent. To render the system official, as some propose, would just destroy the whole value of it. It is appreciated, just because the teacher's act is voluntary. In some departments, the method is being tried of giving bonuses to those teachers who improve their attendance average, and also of taking the fact into account in regard to promotion. The practice has been followed by excellent results, and is one we might well copy. It is