The village schools are kept up by the communes, aided by contributions from the department and from the government. The total annual amount of the contributions from these three sources does not exceed 65,000,000 francs for the whole of France. Deduct from this paltry sum of $13,000,000 a certain quota for the construction and keeping in repair of school-houses, and it will at once be seen that what remains to be divided among the 54,000 teachers is scarcely sufficient to afford them even the barest subsistence. The recent reduction of school-teachers' salaries throughout the United States has given rise to much unfavorable comment, but happy indeed would teachers in France consider themselves were they to receive even anything approaching the reduced pay of their Transatlantic brethren. Of the school-teachers above spoken of, 26,000 receive 750 francs ($150) per annum, 14,000 receive 550 francs, and 10,000 but 450 francs, or less than the common farm-laborer, who has at least food and lodging provided for him by his master. True it is that many of the teachers receive a slight additional salary for acting as secretary at the _mairie_; but a much larger number of them have to eke out a scanty subsistence by manual labor during certain hours of the day, especially in harvest-time. As for the school-houses, they are usually in such a dilapidated condition that the farmers would scarcely care to use them as cattle-sheds. We have visited schools--and they exist by the score, not to say by the hundred--without either benches or desks, blackboard or maps, and through the roofs of which the rain poured on teachers and pupils. On entering one of these schools and seeing the little fellows in their torn blouses, their feet simply encased in great wooden sabots, their lunch-baskets with coarse bread and a few nuts by their side, the stranger can hardly realize that he is in that country where there is a more even distribution of property, and where the peasantry are more prosperous and conservative, than anywhere else. Among the efforts made to improve things may be mentioned the frequent inspections, not only by government inspectors, but also by gentlemen called _delegues cantonaux,_ who are usually chosen from among the landed proprietary of the neighborhood by the prefects.