Secondary Education is given to the boys in 112 lycies and 231 colleges. A lycee is properly a public school, being the property of the state, kept and administered by the state; whereas a college is a municipal institution. In both the professors are appointed by, and placed under the authority of, the Minister of Public Instruction ; in both also the matters taught are the same; yet there is a difference between them as regards their respective importance, the aver age number of boys in a lycee being 500 to some 200 in a college; and instruction in the former being generally recognized as of a higher standard. In the lycee the masters are divided into two clams: the ((ogre)* l'Uni versite" (i.e., fellows) who hold a regular pro fessorship, and the licencies (mi..) who are simply •charges de tours" or lecturers. In a college the professors are only licencies.
Within the last 25 years the secondary cur riculum has been repeatedly modified; originally it comprised only two parallel courses of study, of which one was chiefly classical and the other chiefly scientific. It has now become more complex : the division in two sections is kept through the lower forms up to the third, after which the boys have to choose between four sections according to the *specialties" they think will be most useful to them in after life. These specialties, which are part of the staple or secondary education, are coupled into four groups: (1) Latin and Greek; (2) Latin and Modern Languages; (3) Latin and Sciences; (4) Sciences and Modern Languages. At the end of the first form, generally at the age of 17, the boys undergo one of the four examina tions corresponding to the section to which they belong, and then spend one year more in the study of philosophy or of the more advanced mathematics, after which another examination (the second of the ebaccalaureat") successfully passed gives them the title of ebachelier," the official conclusion and stamping of secondary education, the possession of which is necessary for most liberal professions, and absolutely requisite for admission as regular students at the University.
Up to 1881 the state had provided no regu lar system of education for girls. In spite of a ' not very successful attempt of Duruy in 1867 to organize lectures for them with the help of professors from the boys' lycees and colleges, it may be said that the girls had really no choice but between education at home or in private schools, chiefly in convents. Within six years (1881-87) 35 lycies and colleges for girls were founded in as many towns, and the number has since rapidly increased. In these the lessons are now given everywhere by lady teachers qualified after studying in the universities or in the special training college of Sevres. There was at
first a strong prejudice against these establish ments among the families that were accustomed to another sort of feminine education, but it is gradually dying out, though it cannot be de Died that, even at the present time, the great majority of girls are still educated in private and congregational schools. There are 54 17cees for girls (20,339 pupils) and 84 municipal colleges (12,943 pupils).
Superior Of the 25 universities that existed in France before the Revolution, 13 were suppressed in 1793 and have not been re opened since; four new ones have been created, bringing the total to 16. Here they are in the order of their foundation: Montpellier (1125), Paris (1150), Toulouse (1230), Grenoble (1339), Aix-Marseilles (1409), Caen (1431), Poitiers (1431), Bordeaux (1441), Besancon (1485), Nancy (1572), Dijon (1722), Rennes (1735), Lyon (1808), Lille (1808), Clermont (1808) and Algers (1849).
A university consists of four Faculties: Let ters, Sciences, Medicine and Law. At the head of each Faculty is a dean elected by the pro fessors and placed immediately under the rector of the university, who, it must be remembered, is the head of the academic district of which the university is the centre. The lectures in each Faculty are given by (professors" who must be doctors, and emaitres de conferences) (tutors or lecturers) who are agrees (fel lows). These lectures are open to all under graduates that have duly matriculated, i.e., who, being in possession of the necessary diploma of ebachelier," have entered their name on the Faculty's register and paid the matricula tion fee of 100 francs a year. This, with 30 francs for the use of libraries and laboratories, is all that the undergraduates have to disburse. Such small sums of course cannot be regarded as an equivalent for the lessons received, but as a kind of duty exacted to ensure the legal status of the student. Officially, superior education, like primary education, is gratuitous.
Two degrees may be taken at a university: The first is the (the old licentia do cendi) for letters, sciences and law, and the second the degree of doctor which is the reward of at least one scientific work (thesis) presented and publicly discussed by the candidate that must already be elicencie.) The old medical licence having been suppressed long ago, doctors of medicine make an exception to the otherwise general rule that to be a doctor one must first be a licencie, but the test of their attainments and ability is previously made in progressive ex aminations during the course of their studies which extend over five years at least.