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one bound to overleap many steps in the social scale to start at once to eminence, perhaps to the foremost seats in the Chamber of Deputies, or the rank and emoluments of ministers—or at least are to shine in the world of letters, and take rank among the millionnaires of Journalism.' As to those whose more easy circumstances enable them to give their sons the luxury of a classical education—a luxury, and indeed a generous and noble one, which, from our different social system, the larger numbers of persons of rank and fortune, the greater extent of our liberal professions, including our still richly-endowed and still daily expanding Church, must, among us, be far more general-they are too apt to leave their sons utterly ignorant of the management, at all events utterly incapable of the improvement, of their estates and fortunes. But if the sons of this wealthier class, thus altogether emancipated from parental control, are content to cast their lives on one throw, to sacrifice the ease and respectability of their manhood and age to a wild youth of vanity and folly-this is but the usual temptation of rank and wealth committed to young and irresponsible hands-temptations perhaps more dangerous from the greater tendency of the French to gather to one brilliant focus in Paris, where there must be more than an ordinary prodigality and excess to create that sensation which is the ambition of this section of la jeune France. It is the far larger class of youths, the children of parents by no means in easy circumstances, who, in misjudging but natural tenderness, have spared no cost to give their sons a classical education, under the erroneous conviction that such an education must lead to fortune-it is these who are the victims of the present system.

"When breakers make the approach to a coast or a harbour dangerous, the government sets up a beacon: here there is no warning to the parents of the dangers to which they expose the destiny of their children; no voice proclaims to them that an education too much the same for all classes, imprudently and indiscriminately given, casts a vast number of adventurers upon society, and perpetuates, in the bosom of the country, agents destructive of that well-being which arises out of peace and order. 'Poor youths! separated from the multitude by education, at a distance from the upper ranks by want of fortune, crushed in their intermediate sphere by countless competitors, and obliged, notwithstanding all this, to wear the outward appearance of easy circumstances, from a lingering feeling of respect for the education they have received-these unhappy youths, if they are ambitious, of capacity, and courage, have no other prospect but political convulsions; if they are laborious, modest, they resign themselves to accept some small employment of clerks (commis)— generally worse paid than artisans or day-labourers, above which the social hierarchy appears to place them, merely that it may be more oppressive and exacting towards them."

With the useful design of setting up a beacon not merely to warn the navigator of his danger, but to guide him into the port, M. Girardin has compiled his Guide des Familles,' which fills one-half of the volume before us. The object is to substitute a good professional education for the more general system of instruction; to induce parents to consider the character and disposition of their children before they finally decide on their destination; to inform them what institutions actually exist in France, in which they may qualify their sons for their future course of life; and, by showing how insufficient these establishments are for the wants of the country, to induce the government and the legislature to engraft such institutions, on a much wider and more general scale, upon the education of the people.

In this part of the work a separate chapter is assigned to each profession or pursuit, and the institutions connected with it. M. Girardin states what he considers the natural qualifications requisite for success in each line, with the means which all may, or ought to be able to command for their improvement.

1. Agriculture.-The agriculturists are divided into two classes: husbandmen, and farmers of their own estates (cultivateurs, and propriétaires agronomes).

The natural qualifications for an agriculturist of the first class are strength, good sense, patience. The previous acquirements for this, as for all classes, are the primary education both of the lower and superior kind, which the state ought to furnish and enforce on all alike. Their professional education he would make to comprehend book-keeping-(A husbandman,' he observes, 'is a manufacturer of corn and of other commodities: a regular method of keeping accounts is as imperatively required of him as of a shopkeeper')—the elements of geometry, geology, physics, and chemistry; of mechanics, in order to judge of the comparative value of the instruments of agriculture; hydraulics, for purposes of irrigation; botany, vegetable physiology, zoology, as far as regards the habits and care of domestic animals; the veterinary art, domestic architecture, and every branch of domestic economy. If it be objected that all this knowledge may be, and in England is perhaps, to a certain extent, practically and experimentally learned, or taught by rural tradition, the vast tracts of productive but unimproved land in France prove that there they are neither so taught nor so learned there.

There are no institutions whatever in France accessible to the husbandman, where he may learn to become a scientific agriculturist. One, it seems, was established at Coëtbo in Morbihan, where both the board and instruction were gratuitous. It differed from Hoffwil in receiving only one class of pupils, who were to

be

be instructed, both theoretically and practically, in all that related to rural concerns. It was also a kind of normal school for agricultural teachers. This establishment, however, has not succeeded. We do not quite understand the somewhat enigmatic causes of its failure. Il est à regretter qu'il n'ait pu se soutenir sur ses bases primitives, et qu'il ait rencontré pour obstacles des intérêts personnels irréconciliables avec la haute pensée de désintéressement et de bien public qui avait présidé à son établissement.'-p. 173. There is no other institution of the same nature, though M. Girardin mentions, under this head, the royal veterinary schools of Lyons, Alfort, and Toulouse.

For the agricultural proprietors, farmers of their own estates, M. Girardin would require as previous qualifications, a spirit of order and of observation, perseverance and foresight, and the art of management. Besides the primary education of the first and second class--they should receive a superior elementary instruction, in rural and commercial law, statistics, natural history, breeding and improvement of cattle, rural architecture and mechanics. There are three institutions of this nature in Franceof course utterly inadequate to the wants of this large classbut furnishing, in some degree, a model for scientific and experimental schools of agriculture. One is at Grignon, near Néaulphe (Seine et Oise). It is a farm of 500 acres, of very various soil, with wood of different kinds, water-courses, a large lake or piece of water, irrigated water-meadows; all inventions in agricultural implements and machinery are brought to trial; the farm-yard contains every kind of cattle, teams of all sorts and breeds-Swiss, Norman, and cross-breeds of bulls and cows; 1000 head of sheep, Merinos, English, Artesian, Solognese, Vendomese, with all the cross-breeds; swine of the English, AngloAmerican, and Anglo-Chinese breeds; threshing-machines of the best kind, a cheese-dairy, a botanic garden, a nursery garden, an orchard, and mulberry plantations. The course of instruction lasts two years. In the first year are taught:1. elementary mathematics applied to mensuration, taking plans and levels; 2. topography and drawing; 3. practical elementary physics and chemistry, practical botany and vegetable physiology, as applied to cultivation and planting; 4. first principles of the veterinary art; 5. rational principles of cultivation and farming; 6. principles of rural economy, employment of capital, and internal management of farms. In the second year are taught:1. principles of husbandry in their application to the art of production and its employment; 2. mathematics, as applied to mechanics and hydraulics, and the elements of astronomy; 3. physics and chemistry applied to the analysis of earths, waters, manures, &c., distillation,

and

and the economical employment of heat; 4. mineralogy and geology, applied to the use of various fossil substances, boring and sinking wells; 5. culture of the kitchen garden and orchard, woodman's craft, and the knowledge of useful or destructive insects; 6. rural architecture, as applied to buildings, roads, waterdams, and drains, &c., making of lime, mortar, cement, &c.; 7. law, as relates to property in land; 8. principles of hygiène for men and animals. All these courses are illustrated by practical experiments, in winter and in summer. The pupils are taught to guide the plough and to use other implements of husbandry, and to study all the details of the internal management. The pupils are free pupils or house-boarders: the first must be twenty, the latter fifteen years old. The pension for free pupils is 1500 francs; for house-boarders 1300, with 300 more for a separate apartment. There are twenty-five scholarships of 300 francs given for house-boarders. Each pupil brings his trousseau. The Institut Agricole of Roville appears to be a much smaller establishment. That of Grand Jouan (Loire Inférieure) is situated in a department which contains a vast deal of heath and shifting sand. It has a more extensive farm than Grignon; it has 500 hectares of land of every kind of quality: and the object is to bring this into cultivation. It professes to teach-1st, practical, 2d, theoretic agriculture. There are courses of lectures apparently as extensive, though differing in some parts from those of Grignon. The expense is 250 francs per quarter. The pupils remain two, three, or four years, according to their capacity and progress. There is also a course of agriculture in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers at Paris, and an Ecole Royale Forestière at Nancy.

We pass over the chapters on Arts et Métiers, or mechanics and artisans, that on Trading and Merchants, and the two professions of Law and Medicine, all of which contain much useful information and much sensible advice. We turned with curiosity to the head of Letters, and with anxiety to that of Theologythe Clergy. On the former, however, M. Girardin is unexpectedly brief; his advice is almost summed up in one old truism— viz., that in this course of life 'mediocrity is synonymous with misery.' The great school for this class is the College of France in Paris, which unites names of the highest European fame both in science and literature:-In science-Binet, Lacroix, Biot, Savart, Majendie, Thenard, Elie de Beaumont; in GreekBoissonade and Letronne; in Oriental Literature-Des Granges, Stanislas Julien and Bournouf; with Michelet on History, and Lherminier on Law.

M. Girardin appears deeply penetrated with the importance of

of religion, and of the influence of the clergy on the general educational regeneration of France. But it is impossible not to feel that he writes in a tone of discouragement and despondency. Those, he says, who estimate earthly enjoyments at their real value may render great service to their country by devoting great talents to the Christian ministry :—

'Quelle heureuse et rapide régénération n'opérerait pas chez un peuple cassé de vieillesse l'homme de talent qui, animé du zèle de la maison de Dieu, comprendrait ce que le Christianisme doit être à une époque où toutes les idées tendent à l'application des ces deux principes fondamentaux de notre religion selon l'Evangile-l'égalité et la fraternité des hommes! Il aurait saisi le seul moyen d'assurer le triomphe de la religion et de lui rendre son premier éclat.'-p. 315.

We protest, as we have always protested, against this degradation of Christianity to a vulgar principle of democracy. The equality of man, it is true, is a fundamental principle of the gospel; but it is not a social, a worldly equality of rank, of position, of fortune, or even of political rights, with which it has no concern; it is an equality in the sight of God, an equality in the blessings and privileges of the gospel; in the humanising and ennobling graces of the Christian character, the true happiness on earth, the consolation in sorrow, the conscious immortality in death, the eternal life in Christ Jesus; the redemption through the same Saviour, the sanctification by the same Spirit; the everlasting blessedness in the presence of the same Universal Father. It unites mankind indeed in one brotherhood, but by far finer and more subtle links than is implied by the tainted word fraternity; that spirit of evangelic charity which blends into one the Church of Christ throughout the world; of which the source and wellspring is common prayer, the action benevolence, the affection love to all mankind.

The Ecclesiastical ministry worthily filled, M. Girardin asserts to be the noblest of professions; yet it is not, he says, and in one sense he says truly, by any means lightly to be recommended to adults. In his opinion it is peculiarly suited for those who, having been tried by the misfortunes of life, have been supported by a lively faith, who are no longer bound by any earthly tie, and may therefore prepare themselves by study and reflection for the most beautiful mission of man, speaking to the people from the pulpit the language of Christianity, without making it lose the majesty with which it has been arrayed by the Fathers of the Church and the great Christian orators. But what hope is there that the 30,000 parishes of France will be supplied with men thus disciplined in the chastening school of adversity, and at the same time elevated above the depression and despondency of that

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