We would like to know exactly how many boys and girls have been able, after their discharge, to work at a trade and to maintain themselves. Upon this point of capital importance the publications of Bicêtre tell us nothing--absolutely nothing. It is, therefore, impossible to find out the real value of this institution, so richly endowed, where the visitor perambulates palatial buildings, is saluted by a fanfare, and admires museums of natural history which would be the envy of many a public educational establishment. The publications give a number of particulars as to the number of dancing lessons, the walks to the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and the cost of laundry, etc.; but we are left in entire ignorance as to what all this is good for, and what is the practical tangible benefit which society receives from it. Everyone knows, however, that the director of the school for defectives at Bicêtre is an enlightened philanthropist, who has devoted himself with remarkable zeal and activity to procuring for his old pupils situations which they are capable of filling. He has understood, and was one of the first to do so, that the question of the education of defectives will never be settled until one has settled that of the social usefulness of these children. We have even learned indirectly that he has made many endeavours to induce employers to engage his defectives as workmen; but it is likely that these suggestions have not met with the success they deserved, for the employers, threatened by the new law regarding accidents at work, hesitate to saddle themselves with workers who, being liable to attacks of epilepsy, or affected by motor inability, would lay upon them a very heavy responsibility. On the other hand, the school education has had a good deal of success since it has happened, as we have already remarked, that several of the pupils obtained their certificates of study.[14] But the only publications which we have consulted say no more about these certificates of study than about the trades followed by the defectives after leaving school. This silence is very significant. In spite of oneself, one puts a bad interpretation upon it. One has an irresistible tendency to believe, not that all the effort at Bicêtre has been in vain, but that it has been disproportionate in relation to the result achieved. We have no difficulty in admitting that idiots have been improved, but to what an extent this amelioration loses in importance if the majority of these idiots are destined to pass the rest of their life in an asylum, where they will be nourished in absolute idleness, and where, consequently, the heedless administration will gain nothing for what has been taught them at the price of such great efforts!