Let us try, however, to interpret the silence of the text. In four years 240 boys have left the school at Bicêtre. In studying the school of the Salpêtrière we distinguished three classes of children--the _improved_, the _stationary_ or _doubtful_, and those who have got _worse_. We have consulted the statistical tables of Bicêtre, and we have not found a single one marked _worse_, although one-third of the entire contingent are epileptic. Now, this is very surprising, since we know that epilepsy with repeated fits inexorably results in mental decadence. It is an enigma, which we explain in the following manner: Those who are really decadent have been marked _stationary_ by medical or pedagogical optimism. If our interpretation is correct, it recoils forcibly upon the expression _improved_, which is applied frequently to those discharged. To the interpretation of this word _improved_ we are, therefore, obliged to turn our attention. What, then, must be understood by _improved_ when this word is found in the publications of Bicêtre? First of all we must subtract a certain number of subjects who have been marked _transferred_. We know what is meant by this little word _transferred_ when it is applied to the children. It is lugubrious. It amounts to a sentence for life. A subject _transferred_ is one who, his time at school come to an end, is removed to an asylum for the insane, where, in all probability, he will stay to the end of his useless existence. If we eliminate the transferred, and if we keep amongst the improved only those who, having been so designated, have returned to their families, we get a proportion of 58 in 290--that is, 20 per cent. of boys. This proportion seems to us too large, on account of the optimism which these documents exhibit. It is to be noticed, however, that children are sometimes marked _very much improved_, or _notably improved_. If, for the sake of prudence, we consider as improved only those who are designated in this way, we have only eighteen, or 7 per cent. This new proportion, if small in absolute value, still seems to us an exaggeration, because it is reached only by including a certain number of children affected with epilepsy. It must, therefore, be believed that their epilepsy has improved. But the amelioration or cure of epilepsy is not a matter of education; it cannot be considered as a success to be credited to active medico-pedagogical treatment. Let us therefore put the cured epileptics aside. There will then remain only seven who have undergone a notable amelioration and have returned to their families. What percentage is this? The total contingent upon which we have been making our calculations numbered 290, but it is right to exclude all the epileptics, for the reasons we have mentioned. This brings the number down to 216, and the number of children really improved, calculated upon 216, amounts, for the boys, to from 3 to 4 per cent.