Morning and evening, at the sound of a bell, there tumbled in some fifty young rascals, who, having failed to master De viris and the Epitome, were devoting themselves, as one said then, to “some good years of French.” The failures at “Rosa, a Rose,” came to me to learn a little spelling. Children were mingled with tall lads at various stages of education, and all distressingly agreed in playing tricks on the master—no older, even younger, than some of themselves. I taught the little ones to read syllables, the middle ones to hold a pen in the right way while writing a few words of dictation on their knees; for the eldest I unveiled the secrets of fractions, and even the mysteries of the hypotenuse. And the only means I had to keep this restless crowd in order, give each mind appropriate food, arouse attention, expel dulness from the gloomy room whose very walls dripped melancholy, were my tongue and a bit of chalk. For that matter there was equal disdain in the other classes for all which was not Latin or Greek. One instance will suffice to show the style in which physical science was treated, now so large a part of education. The principal of this college was an excellent man—the worthy Abbé X, who, not anxious himself to grow green peas and bacon, turned over such matters to some relation of his, and undertook to teach physical science. Let us attend one of his lessons, which happens to be on the barometer. By good luck the college owned one. It was an old article, very dusty, hung high out of reach of profane hands, and bearing on its face in large letters the words, Storm, Rain, Fine. “The barometer,” began the good abbé, addressing himself to his disciples—he used a fatherly second person singular to each,—“the barometer gives notice of good or bad weather. Thou seest the words written here—Storm, Rain—thou seest, Bastien?” “I see,” replies Bastien, the most mischievous of the troop. He has run through his book, and knows more about the barometer than does his professor. “It is composed,” the abbé goes on, “of a curved glass tube full of mercury which rises and falls according to the weather. The small branch of this tube is open; the other—the other—we shall see as to the other. Bastien—Get on this chair, and just feel with the tip of thy finger if the long branch is open or closed. I do not quite remember.” Bastien goes to the chair, stands as high as he can on tip-toe, and feels the top of the long column with a finger tip. Then, with a slight smile under the down of his dawning moustache, he replies, “Yes, exactly; yes, the long branch is open at the top. I can feel the hollow.” And to corroborate his mendacious statement he went on moving his forefinger on the top of the tube, while his co-disciples, accomplices in mischief, stifled their laughter as best they could. The abbé said calmly, “That will do. Come down, Bastien. Gentlemen, write in your notes that the long branch of the barometer is open. You might forget it.