mother gradually decreases. It is, however, nevertheless an undeniable fact, that the physical and mental prosperity, the whole character of the child through the whole childhood, is principally dependent on the mother, and is in a prosperous or languishing condition, according as this support is good or bad. In this fact lies the extraordinary educational influence of the mother upon children, which cannot be supplied by any other influence. The characteristics of the physical development in this period are thus similar to those in the mental development, namely: a predominating receiving and appropriating of materials from without, under the preponderating influence of the exterior world. In the second period, the body reaches or attains a certain symmetry in its proportions, and that solidity in the osseous system which enables the boy to resist the exterior world, and fits him for exertion in manual labor. The appearance of stronger teeth indicates a gradually growing equilibrium between external influences and the reaction on the side of the young body, as far as they prepare the body for receiving more solid food, particularly animal food. In the same proportion as the soul takes the external world to itself, and it forms also its physical organ, i. e., the body, out of the most different nutritious matters. Muscles and bones attain almost their permanent proportions. The brain ceases to grow. The physiognomy receives its permanent form. The body, however, possesses thus far not yet that freedom and ripeness which fits it for powerful action upon the exterior world. The powers of generation are yet slumbering. A certain immaturity is as yet in all parts of the body. The latter is, so to speak, as yet a closed bud that will burst open in the third period, in the age of youth. Breast and pelvis, as well as the organs of breathing, and the sexual organs, develop themselves perfectly, and often with such rapidity that great caution is needed in order to prevent their development from becoming injurious to the life of the whole organism. It is, therefore, often the case, that just at this period is sown the germ of diseases of the lungs. The devolopment of the larynx, also, the features becoming more defined, the appearance of the beard and body hairs, and of the last molar or wisdom tooth, all announce the attainment of the full size and that strength which gives the self-conscious power to act upon the outer world for human purposes and to the full measure of human accomplishment, although the greatest perseverance in exertions depending upon longer exercise, experience, absence of passion, and discretion, is, as a general thing, the property of a later period in life, i. e., of manhood. There is nothing more injurious to the progress of the human mind than national jealousies. Formerly, France might be accused of being, of all nations, the most disdainful to foreigners, but that fault she has partially corrected. In the arrangement of public instruction, at least, there has been a series of missions, having for their object the study of the system of education of neighboring countries + Our neighbors have not acted in a similar manner, and it is to be regretted, for if works by Frenchmen upon public instruction in Germany and Holland are useful, similar works upon public instruction in France, written by Germans or Hollanders, would be much more so to us. The scarcity of such books gives great value to the work of Mr. Hahn,‡ although it is not official. Mr. Hahn undertook his mission himself, or rather he received it from the chance which made him pass a few years in our midst. His book proves, moreover, even more than the indifference of his compatriots, how far the German universities are from approving of the French system of instruction. It is difficult to carry severity to greater extent. There is scarcely a point in our system of instruction that receives unqualified praise from Mr. IIahn, and there is not a single one that is not severely criticised. Very frequently, also, he has drawn his information and appreciation only from the enemies of the University I. The work of Mr. IIahn comprises two distinct parts: one devoted to the exposition of legislation and the state of public instruction in France, the other devoted to criticism, in which he judges, according to its principles, our institutions and regulations. The first part, of course, has no interest for us. As to the opinions of Mr. Hahn upon the merits and defects of our system of public education, as they are evidently those of most of his countrymen, it is well to know them, although it must be regretted sometimes, that they are founded upon superficial observation and inexact information. Mr. Hahn observed hastily a certain number of classes; he took notes hurriedly, collected a few anecdotes, and attached importance to trifles. His criticism very often reminds one of the traveler who judges the complexion of all the women of a country by that of his hostess. Thus he relates that a pupil in rhetoric, with whom he was conversing upon the * By Ernest Renan, in Rerue des Deuz Mondes. + The following are among the official reports which have been made and published in Paris on the Systems of Public Instruction in other countries:-Cuvier submitted a Report on Public Instruction in Holland in 1811; Julien, on the Institutions of Pestalozzi in 1812; Cousin, on Public Schools in Germany, and particularly in Prussia, in 1833, and a second, on Secondary Education, in Prussia in the same year; St. Marc Girardin, on Intermediate Schools in the South of Germany in 1839; Eugene Rendu, on Popular Education in the North of Germany in 1855, and in England, and particularly in London, in 1858; Minssen, on Secondary and Superior Education in Germany in 1866; Monnier, on Popular Education in Germany, Switzerland, and Northern Europe in 1866; Bandouin, on Special and Primary Schools in Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland in 1865; Morin, on Industrial and Technical Education in Germany and Switzerland in 1864; and Demogeot and Montucci, on the Schools in Great Britain in 1866.-Am. Editor. Das Unterrichts-Wesen in Frankreich, mit einer Geschichte der Pariser Universitat, von Ludwig Hahn; Breslau, 1848. difficulties of Phaedon, said to him, in order to free himself from embarrassment: "Those silly things we pass over!" Elsewhere he tells us that when the principal of an institution wants a teacher, he applies to the nearest drinking saloon, and that the pupils call that aller à la foire aux pions (auf den Pionsmarkt gehn)-redeeming a teacher left in pawn. However, the criticisms of Mr. Hahn upon the whole arrangement of our system of public instruction, are important; for they come, not from a knowledge, more or less incomplete, of what transpires in our colleges, but from principles opposed to ours, and which are, in some respects, correct. In the French organization of public instruction, the source of all the evil, in the eyes of Mr. Hahn, is the system of public competitions. Our German critic continually recurs to this fundamental idea, and, imitating the manner of the old Cato, he thus terminates chapters the most diverse: Caeterum censeo concursum delendum esse. If we believe him, this institution would be as fatal as a test for professors, as a means of emulation among pupils. "It is much to be lamented," says he, "that competition is the only way to attain the professorship in the colleges, and that practical skill, joined to sufficient knowledge, cannot give the entrance to it. Men the most experienced in education-those who bring to their difficult functions, not brilliant talents, but a solid intellect with a little slowness and timidity-will always be placed, in public examinations, after the young people who know how to amuse the audience and their judges, and who, although endowed with ready speech to extricate themselves from difficulties, possess neither patience nor firmness enough to teach well. All the regulations which they may try to introduce into the legislation for these competitions, in favor of more experienced teachers, will be insufficient to obviate the inconveniences of this system. There should be conditions of another kind and more fully understood, in order to reach the important places of secondary instruction. There are now in the colleges, some professors who, without exceeding the limits of grammatical instruction, have given proof of the greatest zeal and of superior skill; there are even some whose writings show more literary culture than is found in most of the Aggrégés of the superior classes, and who yet are condemned to grow old in a grammar class, because their advanced age no longer permits them to attempt a dangerous contest with so many young candidates. Independently of the injustice of such a course, the most honest devotion must necessarily grow cold, if it sees no goal before it, especially in a country where pedagogy inspires but little interest for itself. The exclusive system of competition is therefore at the same time iniquitous and prejudicial to the instruction of colleges." (p. 536.) It is easy thus to point out the weak side and the inconveniences of every institution, but the proof of sagacity is in indicating the remedy. The principle of the French administration being to distrust the free choice of the superiors, and to limit as much as possible the arbitrary will of the principals, the system of competition, at least for secondary instruction remains a necessity. The system of vouchers, mutual bonds, and in some sort infeoffment of men, one with the other, which exists in England and Germany, cannot be adopted in France. The whole personal service of secondary instruction is not with us as elsewhere, analogous to a religious corporation; it is a sort of army; it must have a system of regular promotion in which there is no room for caprice. It may be regretted that France is so strongly attached to such a system; but the system being what it is, competition for the offices of secondary instruction results as a logical necessity. The observations of Mr. Hahn are much more true as regards superior education. Here competition is too imperfect a means of valua- The centralization and uniformity of public instruction among us are, with Mr. Hahn, the object of reproaches almost as bitter as the system of competition. "There can be but one opinion of the simplicity and efficiency of the Napoleonic organization of the University. It was impossible to imagine a system more powerful and more simple, for establishing the unity of national instruction and providing for the stability of the traditions. But, on the other hand, an institution directed solely to that end bore within itself an immediate danger, and that danger has been but too much developed; it was sacrificing progress to stability, causing unity of mind to degenerate into uniformity of method and process, stifling all the new efforts put forth for education. In fact, the openly avowed demand of the university men, from one end of the kingdom to the other, is that no change shall be made, either in the direction of studies or the maintenance of discipline, which is not prescribed by the central authority; that as to the methods of instruction, and the classical books, the distribution of hours and disciplinary regulations, a college in the North shall correspond in the minutest details with a school situated on the Mediterranean. Before introducing any innovation, it must be tried, but it is natural that they should hesitate to try an experiment upon all the schools, so that the severe uniformity not permitting these trials to be made in isolated cases, the result is that the whole corporation is chained in complete immobility. The educating corps has become so stationary in France, that I know of no society which, in this age of universal progress, and in a nation the most mobile in the world, persists in its ways with so much ease and satisfaction, which repels with so much disdain and presumption, all foreign methods, and which is so prompt to see a revolution, even in the most insignificant changes. This uniformity seems to me the principal cause of the relative weakness of the studies in the provincial colleges. If the schools of Paris, with a very defective system of instruction, sometimes produce brilliant results, they are less the fruits of the system than the effects of exterior motives, which keep up among the studious youth of the capital a really remarkable ardor. În the provinces, on the contrary, where these motives of emulation are wanting, the teachers never think of changing or modifying anything in the official method; indeed they often relax them, and are negligent to a deplorable degree. The brilliant routine of the capital becomes, in the rest of the country, an irksome task, without life or interest. If the head masters and professors of the provincial colleges could follow their own inspiration, we should find in many cities centers of instruction, less brilliant perhaps than the colleges of Paris, but quite as fruitful. Uniformity, on the contrary, has destroyed liberty and life; absolute equality, it is the breathing of death... Of the two devices of the French revolution, liberty and equality, Napoleon in his creations, regarded the second alone; the effect of equality has been absolutely to exclude liberty. Equality and the principle of centralization served the views of the imperial despotism. The restoration was but little more interested in the emancipation of the academies. But has the government of July been faithful to its principles and its programme, in maintaining GERMAN VIEWS OF FRENCH EDUCATION. uniformity in the establishments of the University? I think not. However, not to cast upon the government itself a reproach which falls upon it much less than on its adversaries, I must remark that it is especially the fault of the pretended liberal opposition (der vermeintlich liberalen Opposition der Linken), if stagnation has become a law of the University, and if equality has remained intact at the expense of liberty. Since the clerical party has begun to demand liberty of instruction the university corps has become, in the eyes of those who call themselves liberals, the representative of modern mind, and woe to the profane hands that dare to touch this holy of holies! In blind zeal against the party who derive advantage to their plans from the profound errors of the University, the opposition think they can do nothing better than deny these faults and cover them with the cloak of their popularity. The right of the State over the education of children is sometimes exaggerated to a Spartan degree the principle of unity of mind in modern societies is extolled in every way and on all occasions; considerations really loyal and right are fatally sacrificed to the needs of controversy." (176.) What follows surprises us. Mr. Hahn presents, as a useful reform and the first step towards progress, the modification or suppression of the Council of public instruction, and certain other measures which have seemed among us to be entirely innocuous, and which, in fact, have so resulted, These passages show that the author has not fully comprehended the real spirit of French society. Let us be just, however. Mr. Hahn has seen things in our country under a false light; he has allowed himself to be taken by declamations everywhere repeated; he is not, however, an enemy of intelligence. His principles upon the education of the people are a proof of it. "If it is a duty," says he, " for all regimes to give their principal attention to the instruction of the people, this duty devolves especially upon governments which are founded upon the principle of liberty. The truly liberal policy is not ignorant that the diffusion of education is its surest guaranty and firmest foundation. A country that wishes to be free must be enlightened otherwise its noblest sentiments are dangerous to it. If political rights surpass intellectual culture, it is to be feared that the people will allow themselves, in the exercise of their rights, to be drawn into the gravest errors." (184.) In the appreciation of facts, Mr. Hahn shows himself here, as elsewhere, a severe critic. "The principle of obligatory instruction (die Schulpflichtigkeit), in the German sense, that is to say, the rigid duty imposed by the law upon parents, of having their children share the benefits of instruction, is not yet introduced in France. Principles of liberty, badly understood, have hitherto prevented the employment of this means, the only efficacious one for procuring the general diffusion of elementary instruction. A liberalism, not very secure of itself, reposing on false principles, and, on that account, timid and always on its guard against the power of the State, has refused to give to society the right of constraint relative to education. The question was agitated during the first years of the revolution of July. . . . The government was induced to recognize, at least indirectly, the principle of obligatory education but the Chamber of Deputies repudiated it, and the Chamber of Peers expressed the same sentiment, although the most competent members of the two assemblies, and especially the committee charged with the report, had, through the organ of M. Cousin, pronounced very decidedly in favor of universal obligation." (209.) Mr. Hahn thinks that primary |