If a youth aim yet higher, he can apply for admittance at the College Chaptal, where he may eventually obtain gratuitously a classical education, and at its close a university degree. From the Chaptal school--the new building devoted to which forms a conspicuous feature on the Boulevard des Batignolles--the pupil may, on passing an examination, enter either of the two higher colleges, the Central or the Polytechnic. Then, too, the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers may be looked on in the light of a magnificent annex to the schools of primary instruction. The idea of such an institution originated with the celebrated mechanician of the last century, Vaucanson, who bequeathed to the government his splendid collection of models, drawings, tools, machines and automatons. The Convention decreed the establishment of the Conservatoire, which now contains some 12,000 models in its industrial museum. Among them may be mentioned Pascal's arithmetical machine, Lavoisier's instruments, the first highway locomotive constructed by Cugniot in 1770, a lock forged by Louis XVI., clocks and watches of historic interest, and those patents which have run out by lapse of time. The machinery is set in motion at certain hours of the day, during which the public is admitted free. The library, rich in works of science, art and industry, is always open. In the evening there are gratuitous lectures delivered by men of science on such subjects as geometry, mechanics and chemistry applied to the arts, industrial and agricultural chemistry, agriculture, spinning-looms, dyeing, etc. The Conservatoire turns out the best foremen and heads of workshops to be found in Paris. It occupies the fine old building once used as the abbey of St. Martin des Champs, which has been tastefully restored in the original style, and takes up one of the sides of a handsome square laid out with flowers and fountains. Nor must we pass over entirely unnoticed the admirable gratuitous lectures given by the Polytechnic Association--_not_ the Polytechnic School--on such subjects as hygiene, linear drawing, French grammar, bookkeeping and geometry. These lectures are held in some twenty different buildings, so as to be within the reach of the working-classes, no matter what part of Paris they may reside in. Among the lecturers in recent years are to be found such names as those of Ferdinand de Lesseps, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Barral and Batbie.