We have thus rapidly seen what Paris does for her poor youth. The city has often been called the focus of light and the centre of intelligence. Without going quite so far as this, it must nevertheless be acknowledged that with her public schools, her splendid libraries, her museums, her natural history and art collections, and her very numerous and valuable institutions open free to all, Paris affords unusual facilities for boys, taken even from the lowest strata of society, to rise by dint of hard study, a firm will and exemplary conduct to the very highest positions. SECONDARY EDUCATION. In France, children of parents in easy circumstances do not go to the primary schools at all. Every man occupying a higher social position than that of a mechanic does his utmost to procure for his children an education which shall place them above what the French call "the common people." Even a small farmer, with but a few thousand dollars at his command, strives to place his son in an institution where the higher cultivation of the intellectual faculties, the dress worn, and the very bearing, shall distinguish him from one of "the people." It need hardly be said that such a system as this, so diametrically opposed to that which prevails in the United States, tends to foster somewhat of jealousy and bitterness among the lower classes. As for those who have received this higher education, they would, as a general rule, consider it derogatory to their dignity ever in after life to perform any manual labor: this they leave to the illiterate and to those who have only attended the primary schools. The result may be imagined in the case of those whose parents, having paid their eight or nine years' schooling, are unable to do anything more for their offspring when they leave college. They cannot all earn their living in a professional capacity, or in the literary field, or as government employes, or, to be brief, in one of those situations which a graduate _can_ accept; and those who fail, insensibly and by degrees fall into the ranks of the _declasses_. The common workman may occasionally and for a short period suffer privation and want, but that becomes the chronic condition of the poor graduate. He becomes a misanthrope, hates his fellow-beings and resorts to petty shifts in order to live. Gradually his sense of honor and his moral feelings get weaker and weaker, and finally disappear altogether. Then he becomes one of those men who, like the conspirators denounced by Corneille, Si tout n'est renverse ne sauraient subsister.