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but because it cannot face a rupture of habits and attachments which date from childhood. With such feelings inculcated in them from their babyhood, it is but natural that most French girls should do exactly as they are told. They acquire mastery over their parents only in cases where their mothers are weak enough to let them do it. In almost every instance they occupy a position in the home life of France which is far beyond that accorded to children in other lands; but, putting aside the exceptional examples, they do not abuse the power which their position gives them; they remain natural, tender, and emotional, and they do not revolt or seek to usurp command.

child would not give way. The father the contrary, its adaptability is notorious), came and tried his eloquence, with no better success. Then the small creature, seeing her advantage, increased her demands; not only did she insist that neither father nor mother should leave the house, but called upon them to immediately undress and go to bed. They faintly resisted; the baby grew imperious, and threatened to cry forthwith. That beat them, as the mother deprecatingly observed to her astounded listeners. Of course when the sweet child told us she was going to cry we were forced to yield; it would have been monstrous to cause her pain simply for our pleasure; so I begged Henri to cease his efforts to persuade her, and we both took off our clothes and went to bed. As soon as she was asleep we got up again, re-dressed and here we are, with a thousand apologies for being so late."

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These two examples are literally true, and there may be others of equal force. They show that excess of parental adoration may produce idiotcy; but it is scarcely necessray to say that they are grotesque exceptions. They are worth mentioning as illustrating a curious French form of madness; but they are valueless as proofs of a condition of society. The reality is all the other way. French girls, as a whole, are singularly docile; most of them obey for the best of all possible reasons because they love. They live in such unceasing intimacy with their father and mother, that the tie between them indisputably grows stronger than in other lands where there is less constant community of heart and thought. In evidence of this, it is sufficient to point out the numerous examples which are to be found in France of three generations lodging together the old people, their children, and their grandchildren, all united and harmonious. The fact is and it is a fact, however prodigious it may appear to people who have always believed the contrary that the family bond is extraordinarily powerful in France. What we call "united families" are the rule there, and the unity goes far beyond our usual interpretation of the word. It means not only affection and mutual devotion, but it affects the instincts of the nation to such a point that colonizing, and even, to a certain degree, foreign travel, are rendered impossible by it. Neither sons nor daughters will consent to leave their parents; the shortest absence is regarded as a calamity; and the population, as a whole, shrinks from expatriation, not because it is unfit to create new positions for itself (on

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The advantages of the system of bringing up girls in constant contact with their mothers are numerous and real. They may perhaps acquire somewhat less pure book-knowledge than if they were sent to school, but they acquire what is generally more useful to them in after-life, the faculty of conversation, habit of their own language, manners, tact, and even experience of human nature. The French girl learns how to be a woman from her very cradle, and this must certainly be admitted to offer a large compensation for want of discipline and of the habit of application. Children who are brought up in schools and convents may acquire more passive obedience, more knowledge of history and of literature; but when they enter life they are less well prepared for it than other girls who have already studied its details for twenty years at home. All this, however, is general, not absolute. After all, no principles apply to every case, especially when all the varieties of human nature have to be taken into account. There are plenty of girls brought up at home who in no way profit by the advantages at their disposal; there are many others who, fresh from school, instantly take their places as wives and mothers, and take it well. The rule is in favour of the former, but the exceptions amongst the latter are abundant enough to entitle them to serious notice. Those exceptions are the result of personal aptitudes, suddenly fortified by new influences, and developed by the imitative capacities so universal amongst the French. Still, the child who has never left her mother is, theoretically, the fitter of the two to immediately discharge her duties and fill her place in life. She has kept the house, ordered dinner, and probably cooked sometimes herself; she is accustomed to receive her

mother's visitors; she can talk and curt-cation in France tends to the development sey (two tests of a real woman of the of the more feminine faculties, while it exworld); her proclivities towards art, if cites the emotional side of nature and of she has any, have been nursed and duty, while it stimulates charm, while it strengthened by example and advice; she brightens family life by the po ition which has had full opportunity to acquire taste it assigns to girls and by the fitness which and charm, and to learn how to employ it rouses in them for that position, it may both; and with all these earthly merits, be asked if it is not accompanied by the she has probably lost nothing of the more inconveniences and disadvantages of eager solid virtues which were taught her as a imaginations and aspirations, by the indochild. She has passed through that grave lence which sentiment so often provokes, moment of her existence, her First Com- by unfitness for the practical work of munion, and she must be bad indeed if its everyday? The answer may, in all truth, impress does not rest on her. Who can be negative. As a rule, Frenchwomen took on at that touching sight and not feel are sensational, but not sentimental — exthat the performers in it are marking an citable, but good-tempered, active, and laepoch in their lives? From it dates, in borious. Their defects lie rather in want many a girl, the formation of her charac- of order; in that contempt for new expeter, the consolidation of her faith, the frank rience which so often results from strong acceptance of her duties and her pains. early prejudices; in the need for exciteIt goes home to every heart; its memory ment, or, more exactly, for distraction. rests; old women talk of it as "le grand These dispositions may often be detected jour de ma vie." The night before it the in the children. Most of them are disorchild kneels down and asks her father and derly; they throw their toys and books her mother to pardon all her faults; then about; fling their dresses on the floor she goes gravely through the house and where they take them off; leave the doors begs the same forgiveness from all its other open behind them wherever they pass; lie inmates. When the morning comes, she in bed late in the morning; and seem ungoes, in white all over, shrouded in a long able to form the habit of doing the same muslin veil, to join her comrades at the thing at the same hour every day. In church; they, like herself, have been pre- schools these faults are of course corrected, paring themselves by two years of special but in after-life they spring up again; instruction at the public Catechism for the and, with rare exceptions, all Frenchgreat day which had come at last. Then, women whether brought up in convents or amidst the roll of music and all the pomp at home, are equally dishevelled in their of ceremony, two columns of young chil- indoor habits. A certain quantity of disdren march slowly down the aisle and order appears to be a necessity of their kneel, right and left, boys on one side, nature. Indeed, a good many of the betgirls on the other, until they have filled the ter sort of them argue against too much nave. The church seems to be half choked order, as being a sign of a cold heart and with snow as the white sea of veils spreads of a soul incapable of feeling art. There over it. And when the moment comes is some reason in this view of the case, and the children advance slowly_to_the|but its influence on the education of young altar, there is not a dry eye round. Each children is necessarily bad; for though it. father and each mother watches eagerly may be wise, when we have grown old for its own; and, afterwards, if death enough to judge, not to attach too much should take them while still young, that is importance to strict regularity in all our the instant of their lives which is best and daily acts, it is evident that girls, so long most tearfully remembered. If the spec- as they are girls, ought to be taught that tacle can unnerve men and make women regularity and order are necessary virtues sob, what must be its effect on the child about which they have no more choice herself? Putting the moral influence than they have between truth and lies. aside, what must be the work wrought out The child hesitates because she sees her in little hearts by so tremendous a sensa- mother do so; she imitates, consciously tion? The mere intensity of prayer, at or unconsciously, in this as in nearly such a moment, provokes new ardent feel- every thing else. In the one point of ings; a vista of joy, and love, and resolute seeking for distraction the child does good intentions opens out. If there be not imitate; she does not need excitepurity and adoration on earth, if ever hu- ment yet, and therefore does not comman nature faintly grows like angel na-prehend that it has to be pursued. Her ture, it must be at a First Communion. lessons and her doll suffice, and they But while the whole system of girl edu- 'suffice till she is almost a woman; for it

a woman.

The average result of girl-making in France is to produce a somewhat ignorant, very prejudiced, charming young woman, susceptible of strong emotion and strong love, curious to see for herself what life is, anxious to please and to win admiration and affection, but controlled, in nine cases out of ten, by deeply-rooted religious faith and a profound conviction of duty. If we admit that the great function of women is to create joy around us, to gild our lives, and to teach their children to do the same, then we shall recognize that the French system attains its end. But if we insist that a mother has a nobler task than that-if we assert that her highest duty is to make her then we shall be forced to own that French mothers do not achieve their task.

should be observed that French girls gen- try gentlemen (of whom there are few erally remain children very late. They enough), brought up to ride and shoot, to seem to be exposed to hothouse training, live out of doors, and to behave like men. and to be forced on to premature young- The immense majority are indisputably ladyhood; but that view of them is an il- little curs, funky, tale-tellers and nasty. lusion. In no country do girls continue How can such boys ever grow into brave young so long; and that result becomes men? and yet they do, a good many of quite comprehensible when we reflect that them at least. Their defects cannot be atthough the child is frequently with grown- tributed to the direct influence of their up people, and so acquires an ease of man- parents; for whereas most of the girls, in ner above her age, she is always with a families of decent position, are brought up fondling mother, who treats her as a baby at home, the boys, almost without excepbecause in her eyes she always is so. The tion, are sent to school. It is at school, it mother's influence being stronger than is from each other seemingly, that they that of strangers, the child remains a pick up the sneaking little notions which child until necessity obliges her to become are so universal amongst thein. They Imake faces at each other, they kick a little, they slap; but as for real hitting-as for defending a point of honour-as for hard, rough games, where force and skill are needed, who ever heard of such things in France? At school they are taught book-work, at home they are taught affection. They may become learned, and they do become affectionate; but, positively, they do not become what we mean by manly. The whole life of France is different from that of England. Wealth is distributed there with relative equality; there are few large fortunes; the families who can enable their sons to hunt are rare. Boys are brought up almost exclusively for professions, trade, or Government clerkships, with the prospect of having to live their lives out with insufficient incomes, and without ever tasting pleasures which cost money. The training which Wholesale definitions are not applicable our boys need to fit them for the generally to character. Description of human nature energetic occupations or pastimes of their needs so many reservations, so many after-life is unnecessary and unknown. subtleties, so much and such varied shad- We can pay for travel and for horses, for ing, that it is impossible to bring it into cricket, golf, and football, all which means a sentence or a word. It would therefore money and leisure time. The French have be, in principle, absurd as well as unjust to neither; at least the exceptions are so few say that all French boys are sneaks; but that they represent nothing in the mass. so many of them are so, in the purest So, not wanting the preparation which meaning of that abominable designation, makes men hard, and straight, and ready, that the most ardent friends of France are they do not get it. Their education is inreluctantly compelled to acknowledge the tended to fit them for something else; and fact, and to own that the mass of the that something, whatever be its merits, apyoungsters across the Channel come out pears to us to reach a lower standard than frightfully badly when they are judged by our own. And, furthermore, the French our notions of what boys ought to be. It boy does not even attain the object of the is not easy to determine how far their education which he gets. He is particumeanness of nature is inherited, and how larly taught two things, by his mother at far it is a consequence of education; but least-to love, and to believe in God. it is unmistakably evident that an im- He learns one of them, almost always, but mense part of it is produced by the de- he rarely learns the other. He remains, fective teaching under which they live. as a man, faithfully and profoundly atThe only boys in France who, as a rule, tached to his parents and relations; but realize our notions of pluck, and manli- the religious faith, which was so carefully ness, and honour, are the children of coun- 'instilled into him, generally fades at his

son a man

Let us turn to the boys.

once more. And here is the great distinction between boys and girls which was alluded to at the commencement of this article. The girls from their earliest childhood give promise that they will turn out well, and will grow into what women should be everywhere, with an additional and special charm peculiar to themselves. The boys, on the contrary, are little-minded, pettifogging, and positively cowardly, as we understand cowardice in a boy. Until they can be changed, radically changed, there will be small hope of seeing France take her place once more amongst the nations. She will pay her debts, she may grow rich again; but so long as her boys

frankness, they will never grow into men capable of feeling and discharging the higher duties. Many of them may bud into surprisingly better form than their youth indicates as possible - we see that already; but such cases are not the rule; and want of religious faith, of political conviction, of resolute will, of devotion to a cause, will continue to mournfully distinguish the population of France so long as its boys continue to be sneaks.

first contact with the world, and with it goes a goodly part of the other principles which were simultaneously set before him. In discussing the causes of the defeat of France, Europe has not attached sufficient importance to the effect produced by the education of the boys, to the utter want of stubborn pluck which characterizes it, and to the facility with which the higher moral teachings disappear when manhood comes. Here we seem to see that women do not suffice to make men. There have been, in history, some few examples of the contrary the Gracchi, Constantine, St. Louis, were essentially their mother's work; but, in modern France, something more is wanted than a modern mother's are not taught pluck, and honesty, and love can give. The French woman of our day can make good girls into charming women, and good women too; but it looks as if she could not get beyond that relatively inferior result, and as if she were as unable as the schoolmasters to whom she confides her boy to lift that boy into a thorough man. In the higher classes, where tradition still exists, and where money is comparatively less important than in the middle and lower stages of society, we see models of gallant gentlemen; Many of them, however, are agreeable but they are not numerous. In the late enough to chatter with. They generally war the great names of France were every- have good manners (they beat us there); where on the lists of killed and wounded; they are almost always tender-hearted and but despite the example set by Luynes and loving-they are even tolerably obedient; Chevreuse, Mortemart and Tremouille, and and, judging solely from the outside, it a thousand other volunteers like them, might be imagined that they promise well. France did not follow. Can we suppose They are devoted sons and faithful brothfrom this that good blood replaces teachers; they work hard at books; while they ing? It looks almost like it, and yet it are little, they say their prayers; but there seems absurd to seriously put forward such is no stuff in them. Discipline makes them an argument in these utilitarian days. The French, however, say themselves that "bon sang ne peut mentir;" and it may be that, in this particular point, they clearly recognize the truth as regards themselves. Anyhow, whatever be the influence of hereditary action in forming men, it can scarcely be denied that, be it money or be it race, it is in the upper ranks alone that, as a rule, character assumes a vigorous shape in France.

brave if they should become soldiers; honour and tradition do the same for the better born amongst them; but it is wonderful that such boys should have any latent courage at all, for their whole early teaching seems to us to be invented on purpose to drive it out. They are forbidden to fight, and scarcely ever get beyond scratching.

Now, is all this a consequence of innate defects of character, or is it simply brought The boys are girlish at least no other about by the vile system pursued in adjective so correctly expresses their pe- French schools? Many a French mother culiar disposition. The word is not quite will tell her boy always to return a blow, true, however, for the boys have defects but somehow he does not. Whose fault which the girls have not. The latter are is that? If the mother feels instinctively frank and straightforward; the former are that self-defence should be inculcated as not only feminine, they are something one of the elements of education - if, as is more and something worse. It is disa- sometimes the case, the father supports the greeable to revert to the same word; but same view - it is strange that, consideras the thing expressed is rare in England, ing the enormous influence of French parone word has been found sufficient to ex-ents over their children, they should fail press it, so we must perforce say "sneak "to produce the result which they desire.

The reason is that the collective power of all the boys in school is greater than that of any one boy; so that, if that one should act on parental advice and should hit another between the eyes, all the others will tell the master, and the offender will be punished as a danger to society and a corrupter of good morals-good morals consisting in making faces, putting tongues out, and kicking your neighbours' legs under the tables. A Swedish boy at a pension in Paris was called a liar by an usher sixteen years old: the youngster went straight at him, got home his right on his teeth and his left behind his ear, and then asked if he would have any more; whereupon the thirty-seven other boys in the room rushed together at the Swede, rolled him on the floor and stretched themselves upon his body as if he were a rattlesnake in a box. When the poor fellow was got out, his nose was flattened and his arm broken. Those thirty-seven boys were quite proud about it, and were ready to begin again. They had not a notion that thirty-seven to one was unfair; and as for saying, "Well done, little one! hit straighter,"so fantastic an idea could not enter their brains. If the Swede had made scornful mimicries at the usher behind his back, or called him by a variety of uncivil titles when he was out of hearing, the others would have vehemently applauded; but going in at him in front was not the solution French boys like, so they scotched the Swede.

of the sweeter qualities of human nature; and, provided he is not tested by purely masculine measures, he often seems to be a very charming little fellow. Children of both sexes constitute so essential and intimate a part of indoor life in France, that they naturally and unconsciously strive to strengthen and develop indoor merits; and it is fair to call attention to the fact, that when the subject of education is discussed, French parents always urge that the object of all teaching being to fit the young for the particular career which they have to follow, their boys ought necessarily to be prepared for social and family duties rather than for the rougher and hardier tasks which other nations love. But, however true this argument may seem at first sight, it is, after all, specious and unworthy. The end proposed in France is not a high one; and we have just seen how the acceptance and practice of a low standard of moral education has broken down the people as a whole, and has rendered them incapable of discipline, of order, and of conviction. Their conduct during the last sixteen months has been composed of fretful excitement, alternating with petulant prostration. Excepting the gallant few who have nobly done their duty during and since the war, they have acted like a set of their own schoolboys, who don't know how to give a licking, and still less know how to take one. Who can doubt, amongst the lookers-on at least, not only that No social merits can make up for such a France would have made a better fight, lack of fair-play and courage. A boy may but would, still more, have presented a sing cleverly and paint in water-colours; nobler and more honourable attitude in he may talk four languages (which none defeat, if this generation had been brought of them do), and love his dear mamma; up from its infancy in the practice of perhe may polish mussel-shells for his sisters, sonal pluck, and of solid principles and and catch shrimps at the seaside,- those solid convictions? Who can pretend to polite acquirements will not make him a define the principles and convictions which good fellow; and though the French boy rule France to-day? Are there any at takes refuge in such diversions, he is none all? When, therefore, we hear it urged the greater for it: they don't help to make that French boys are educated for the part him into a man. He is pretty nearly as which they are destined to play in life, we expansive and as demonstrative as the are justified in replying, that their fitness girls; he has an abundant heart; he is for that destiny appears to us to unfit natty at small things; but he cries too them for any other; and that, though they easily, and thinks tears are natural for may become charming companions, brilboys. No one tells him that emotions liant talkers, loving husbands, and tender which are attractive in women become fathers, full of warm sensations, and flowridiculous in men; so he grows up in them, | ing emotions, they have distinctly proved and retains, when his beard comes, all the themselves to be utterly incapable of growsensibility of his boyhood. ing into wise citizens or wise men.

And yet there is no denying that, like his sisters, he contributes wonderfully to the brightness of home. His intelligence is delicate and artistic; his capacity of loving is enormous; he possesses many

What is the use of turning round upon the Empire, and of piling abuse upon Napoleon III. as the cause of the shame of France? all that is but an accident, a mere detail in the whole. If France were

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