However, it belonged to the Third Republic to achieve the task conceived by the Revolu tionaries of 1789, unsuccessfully attempted by their successors and only begun by Guizot him self. In 1882 Parliament adopted Jules Ferry's famous education bill that rendered primary instruction compulsory and gratuitous. Nor was its interest limited to the more elementary and democratic form of knowledge, all the de partments of education were infused with a new life: 800,000,000 francs ($160,000,000) were spent on new buildings including Faculties and Lycees as well as schools, and the annual edu cational budget was raised within 30 years from 44,000,000 francs to 225,000,000 francs.
These figures, of course, must be understood to represent the share of the state only, not the total of the expenses connected with education; besides the national schools and faculties, there exist a very large number of private institu tions, of which further mention will be made.
Organization of National Education.— The modern "University of France° is still to some extent organized as was Napoleon's °Im perial University° ; only it is no longer, as it was then, an independent corporation. Since the creation of the Ministry of Public Instruc tion by Charles X (26 Aug. 1824) it has been administered directly by the state, as the other great public services. The supreme authority is officially in the hands of the Minister of Public Instruction, who, however, is helped in his decisions by the directors of the three de partments of superior, secondary and primary education, and more effectually still by several deliberating assemblies of professors and offi cials, the most important of which are the Uni versity Council and the Committee of Public Instruction. As direct representatives of the central power, 15 rectors residing in the 15 university towns has the supervision and man agement of all educational matters in their academy (or academic district). Each academy possesses also an assembly of professors elected by their colleagues, the Academic Council, in which are treated pedagogical and administra tive questions interesting the academic district. Under the rector.are placed Academy Inspectors, who have the care of secondary and primary instruction, and under them again Primary Inspectors who superintend the primary schools.
Thus the three different branches of educa tion are grouped into one vast administrative organism, insuring their homogeneity and the necessary unity of direction. Each of them,
however, being destined to meet distinct and separate wants and consequently being managed on a distinct and separate plan, it is necessary to view them each by itself.
Primary is for all children from 6 to 13; those who do not attend the government schools (where it is gratuitous), are obliged to prove that they receive proper tuition either in a private school or at home. The matters taught are reading and writing, orthography, composition, arithmetic, the ele ments of natural history and natural philos ophy, history, geography, drawing and singing and also gymnastics for boys and needlework for girls. At the end of their regular course of studies, those of the pupils who want a more substantial and wider instruction, and yet do not choose to go to a lycee or a college, may get it in one of the 350 °superior primary schools° created within the last 25 years, or attend the so-called °complementary lectures* where superior schools have not yet been es tablished. This "superior primary education,° which in some points is like a sort of cheap secondary education, has, however, a more prac tical and positivf object than the latter and is better suited to the wants of the working and commercial classes.. For such of the young men or girls who cannot spare the time to complete their studies in superior primary schools, there exist in all towns and in most villages evening classes, which, it is true, are due to the masters' own initiative, but which at the same time are officially recognized and encouraged by the academic. authorities.
Everyone possessing the necessary diplomas may apply for a post of master or mistress in a primary school; but the government, under standing that good teaching can only be given by well-trained teachers, has provided in each of the 83 districts called "departments" two 4raining schools, Ecoles Normales Primaires, one for girls and one for young men, in which the future masters and mistresses are kept and educated for three years at the expense of the state. Schoolmasters and mistresses are ap pointed and promoted, not by the minister, as is the case for the professors of the other two degrees of education, but by the prefect in each department, with approbation of the Academy Inspector.