obtained for this purpose, from the government, represented by the minister of public instruction, an express authority, which is always revocable. There has, however, always been in France, outside of the official instruction, a certain number of public lectures on different branches of science and literature. The most ancient, the most numerous, and without doubt the best organized, were the lectures given at Paris to the students in medicine, and which completed in the happiest manner the instruction of that faculty. Directed in general by masters still young, but skillful and full of ardor, these latter courses shared the great renown which the medical school of Paris has acquired throughout the entire world.

(4.) Under the auspices of the minister of public instruction (M. Duruy), and by the exertions of an association of professors, scholars, and mer of letters, scientific and literary conferences (familiar lectures) were organized at the Sorbonne, at the close of the year 1863. Twice a week, for several months, there was gathered a compact audience of old and young, fathers and mothers, simple workmen and people of the highest rank, pressing into the venerable edifice consecrated from all time to the severe studies, to listen to an address, witty or learned, and always instructive.

Encouraged by the success of these courses at Paris, the minister, in a circular dated October 1, 1864, invited the members of the university faculties to prepare for the large centres of population throughout the Empire, the most noble and the most useful recreation, by giving, in imitation of the discourses at the Sorbonne, a few public instructions on subjects of science or literature, capable of being intelligently treated in a single hour; at the same time the cooperation of the learned societies, the magistracy, the administrative bodies, all those, in fact, who, in different positions, could unite usefully in this crusade of devotion and knowledge, against ignorance and dangerous leisure, was invoked.

At the commencement of the legislative session of 1865, the government announced in the Exposé de la situation de l'Empire, that 300 free courses of lectures were in progress; which number continued to increase during the following months. During the scholastic year 1865-1866, there were no less than 1,003 assemblies, of which 304 were at Paris, and 699 in the departments. Among these, 124 were given under the auspices of learned academies, 25 of industrial societies, 152 of municipalities, and one of a chamber of commerce. All the enlightened classes furnished their contingent to the personnel that bore the burden of this instruction, so novel in France, but so quickly and so universally popular. It counted in its ranks 355 professors, members of the university, 144 men of letters, 2 councilors of state, 12 members of the institute, magistrates, engineers, lawyers, druggists, architects, members of the clergy. The subjects treated present a happy variety. Literature furnished 394 subjects; the sciences and their application, 223; history, 103; political economy and jurisprudence, 87; the fine arts, 48; hygiene, 40; geography, 36; philosophy, 33; agriculture, 24 archeology, 15.

PROPOSED REORGANIZATION OF SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION.

ART. 1. Superior public instruction is given:-(1.) In the faculties maintained by the State; and (2) in the public schools of superior education maintained by communes or departments.

2. There are four orders of faculties, namely-Letters; mathematical, physical, and natural sciences; law, and the economic and administrative sciences; medicine and pharmacy.

3. The faculties confer, after public examination, the degrees of "bachelor," "licentiate," and "doctor." Juries appointed by the minister, and composed of professors of all the faculties, grant, as at present, what are called "special" degrees of "bachelor" and "licentiate."

4. These degrees are granted alike to all students, whether inscribed in the faculties or not.

5. The degree of "bachelor" is required of all who desire to be employed in classical education, or in the special teaching of the lycées and colleges; the ́degree of "licentiate" is necessary for the humanity classes and the superior courses of special education in the lycées; and that of "doctor" for appointment in the faculties and public schools of superior education. The grade of "licentiate in law" is required for admission to the magistracy; and that of medicine or pharmacy for medical employment under the State.

8. The faculties are composed of titular professors, and agrégés or substitutes. 9. Professors must be natives of France, full thirty years of age, and of the degree of "doctors," and are nominated by the Emperor from a list of three candidates elected, by ballot, by the professors.

10. No professor can be removed from his chair except by the decision of a commission of five members of the Imperial Council, and on the advice of the Committee of General Inspectors of the faculty.

12. The agrégés, or fellows, are elected, after competitive examination; and the judges, two-thirds of whom must belong to the faculty in which the vacancy. occurs, are elected by their colleagues; the remaining third to be elected by the Academies of Inscription and of Sciences, the Court of Cassation, and the Council of State, according to the faculty.

13. The candidates for the title of agrégé must be natives of France, not less than twenty-five years of age, and doctors.

15. Every professor, or agrégé, is at liberty to open a course of lectures within the faculty, and to receive the fees.

16. The Minister of Public Instruction may authorize other doctors also to establish such courses.

18. Inscription of students on the list of the faculties is maintained, but the State abandons all fees, which are divided into two parts, by a vote of the Imperial Council; one of these parts goes to the professors, in proportion to the number of pupils inscribed for their course, and the other to the funds of the university, for the creation of scholarships, &c.

19. The dean of each faculty is elected from amongst the professors, by the votes of themselves and the fellows, and for the term of three years only.

20. A general council, elected for three years, consists of the deans and one professor from each faculty; it has the administration of the funds and all matters relating to the superior academic establishments in general.

Chapter II deals with the faculties of economic and administrative sciences: 22. Faculties of economic and administrative science are founded within the faculties of law of Paris and Toulouse.

23. The instruction comprises the Code Napoleon, criminal law, and civil procedure, studied with regard to the economic interests of society and individuals; public law, the law of nations, commercial, industrial, and rural law, administrative law and judicial organization, political economy, and the history of economic facts and doctrines.

24. Candidates for admission must have obtained the diploma of bachelor of letters or sciences; and students in law are also free to this faculty.

Chapter III deals particularly with the faculties of medicine and pharmacy. 25. The medical education is theoretical and practical.

It comprises, for the preparation for the grade of licentiate or doctor, normal and pathological anatomy, physiology, internal pathology and therapeutics, external pathology and operations, obstetrics, clinical medicine and surgery, pharmacology, medical applications of chemistry, physics, and natural history.

26. For the degree of doctor of medical sciences is added-Special pathologies, the public hygiene, forensic medicine, and medical history.

The students study dissection, manipulations, and analyses, under the professors or agrégés.

27. The pharmaceutical education comprehends physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, pharmacy, toxicology, the natural history of drugs; with manipulations, practical lessons, and herborizations, under the direction of the professors. 28. The degrees are of two grades:—

(1.) Licentiate in medicine and in pharmacy, or doctor and pharmacien. (2.) Doctor in medical and pharmaceutical sciences.

29. Candidates for the degree of licentiate must have previously obtained the degree of bachelor of letters or of science, and have to undergo—

(1.) A first examination in the physical, chemical, and natural sciences applied to medicine.

(2.) Three other examinations on the subjects named in Art. 25, to be hereafter determined by the Imperial Council, and, finally, a clinical examination. (3.) Hospital or pharmaceutical studies for the period of three years, dating from the first examination, and consisting of assiduous and registered attendance in a hospital, or in a laboratory under a licentiate.

30. Candidates for the degree of doctor in medical sciences must have previously obtained the degrees both of bachelor in letters and sciences, or of the degree of special bachelor, named above; the degree of bachelor in letters is not required of those who seek the degree of doctor in pharmaceutical science. The candidates undergo three examinations on the subjects named in Articles 25 and 26, and write a thesis.

31. If the pupils, after seven years' study, have not obtained the degree of licentiate or doctor, their names are struck off the lists of the faculty; an exception is, however, made in the case of internes, dressers in the hospitals, pupils in lunatic asylums, and anatomical preparators and assistants.

32. Candidates for the degree of licentiate or doctor, who engage before the rector to exercise their art in any of the districts of medical assistance, where there is no practitioner, are relieved from all fees of inscription, examination, and diploma, and they may, moreover, obtain through the Minister of Public Instruction an annual allowance during the time of their studies.

33. Before entering on the practice of their profession, all who have obtained their degree must register their diplomas, either at the Academy or at the civil tribunal of their district.

34. The medical and pharmaceutical are not incompatible with each other. Chapter IV deals with the public schools of superior education.

35. The public schools which now exist, or may hereafter be founded by communes or departments for special superior education, law, economic science, medicine, and pharmacy, prepare pupils for the grade of licentiate, whether educated in private or public schools.

36. The professors and assistant professors in the public schools of medicine and pharmacy are named in the same manner, and on the same conditions as those of the faculties, with the single difference that the jury for the compet itive examination of assistant professors is formed, two-thirds of professors of the said schools, and one-third of licentiates and doctors attached to the schools. As regards schools of law or economic science, which any towns may desire to establish, the Minister will make the nominations, so long as there are no more than three such schools, after which the existing system of presentation will come into operation. The regulations respecting professors in the faculties, given above, apply also to the public schools of superior instruction.

38. These schools deliver the diploma of licentiate, but the recipient must pass the final examination in one of the faculties. In the case of a medical degree the examination is clinical.

A commission of the Imperial Council will be charged with the revision of the statutes and regulations of the University.

PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL IN A GRADED SYSTEM.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL OF HARTFORD, IN A LETTER TO THE PRINCIPAL.

HENRY BARNARD, LL. D., TO PROF. S. M. CAPRON.

DEAR SIR: In complying with your request to jot down briefly the substance of our talks on efforts put forth here in Hartford and in Connecticut generally, prior to the final action of the First School Society of Hartford in 1846-7 to establish a Public High School, to revive the old requirements of the Statutes, by which such a school (called originally a grammar school for the town, or county), was made possible, I shall note such only as I was personally conversant with, viz Efforts (1,) to change the law, by which such School Societies as Hartford, or the Districts into which the compact portions of all the cities and villages of the State were unfortunately divided, could be authorized to establish schools of different grades (including the highest), and maintain the same by tax like any other public interest; and (2,) to induce the wealthy and educated to give up their reliance on academies and select schools and unite in establishing on the firm basis of public law and with a proper equipment of school-house, apparatus, and teachers, a local school which while it met their wants better than any existing institution, should also be open to worthy and talented children of their poorer and less fortunate fellow-citizens. I will try to be brief, but as this chapter in our school history seems not to be fresh in the memory of the present generation, it will be necessary to go into details, to show that a good deal of work was done, and done too with some thoroughness, before the policy of a Public High School supported by tax could be put back on the statute book, and into the hearts and habits of this people.

The English and Classical High School of Hartford, as established in 1847 by the First School Society (now coterminous with the Town), and especially when viewed in its present connection with the Trustees of the old Town Grammar School, may be regarded, legally and historically, as the School taught by Mr. Higginson in 1637, Mr. Collins in 1641, and Mr. Andrews in 1643, and partially endowed by the Town in 1642; the Grammar School made imperative on Hartford as a town of one hundred families by the act of 1650, "the masters thereof being able to instruct youths, so far as they may be fitted for the University" then in operation in Cambridge; the Latin School, "for the maintenance" of which William Gibbins (steward of the Wyllys family) who died in 1655, devised by will about thirty acres of meadow and upland in Pennywise, in the town of Wethersfield (part of the tract on the Cove on which E. G. Howe in 1863 erected a residence); the County Grammar School, in aid of which the General Court appropriated in 1672 six hundred acres of land "to be improved in the best manner that may be for the benefit of a Grammar School in said county, and for no other use or end whatever "; and one of the two Free Schools

ordered in 1690-"the one at Hartford, and the other at New Haven, the masters whereof shall be chosen by the magistrates and ministers of the county, for the schooling of all such children as shall come to be taught (among other things) the Latin and English languages," and towards the salary of such masters the school revenue from bequests (of Edward Hopkins and others), were appropriated.

The Town Grammar School and County Free School, thus supported in part by taxation and in part by endowment, was made imperative on Hartford, and was maintained with varying efficiency till 1798, when its funds and management were transferred to Trustees, "to maintain according to the original intent of the donor for the education of youth in the rudiments of the higher branches of science not taught in common schools, of the Latin, Greek and other useful languages; of the grammar of the English tongue; of geography, navigation, book-keeping, surveying and other similar studies, preparatory to an education at the University, or a life of active employment." Although the school, under its new management, was never brought up to the standard set forth in its charter, the immediate results were favorable,-the funds were better administered, the income was increased, and a succession of able teachers (generally graduates of excellent scholarship from Yale College) were secured. But hav. ing no organic connection with other public schools, it exerted no influence except to depress them by withdrawing the children of the educated and wealthy families, who were able to send their sons to college. Having no responsibility to the town, neither trustees or teachers made reports, or did any thing to awaken public interest in the School. With a fixed and very limited curriculum, which was to prepare young men for college, and with only one teacher the education given was very one-sided, and was always deficient in science and English studies. There were times, when both teachers and trustees needed the rousing shake of a town meeting, and the School needed to be lifted up to a new and higher plane of action by the aid of larger appropriations and public sympathy.

A change in the school policy of the State, commenced at an earlier period, but consummated in 1795, by which ecclesiastical societies under the designation of School Societies, were clothed with the powers and duties before attached exclusively to towns; the multiplication and special incorporation of School Districts; the practical abandonment of the principle of gradation in the revision of the school law in 1799, by which the maintenance of a Grammar School in certain towns was no longer made imperative, but the establishment of a common school of a higher order was left with each School Society to establish by a vote of two-thirds of the inhabitants present at a legal meeting warned for that purpose-this radical change, coupled with other changes quite as fundamental in the school habits of the people in which the strength of a popular school system like that of New England and Scotland resides; the gradual abandonment of property taxation, which ceased to be compulsory in 1822 by the silent operation of a provision of law introduced in 1820; the growing and fatal reliance of parents on the dividends of the School Fund, for the support of their district school; and the mere perfunctory inspection of schools, and examination of teachers with a view of not losing by open neglect the distributive share of the dividends,-these and other causes, operating all over the State, reduced the common schools to the condition in which they were found