The only instruction in practical military exercises, which is compulsory upon all, is that in drill. The pupils are exercised under arms in company drill, and are also occasionally drilled as a battalion; but very little importance is attached to this point--the only really military portion of their training. Drill goes on only for about three months in each year during the spring and summer, and even during this brief period only takes place about twice a week. By the regulations of the school the pupils should be exercised in musketry practice, but although they are armed with the Chassepot rifle this regulation is never carried out. Instruction is given in fencing and gymnastics, but attendance at both is voluntary, and scarcely more than half the pupils take advantage of it. Neither riding nor swimming are taught at the school. The school year commences about the 1st of November, and terminates about the first of August. Some seven months of the year are given up to lectures and the ordinary routine of study; about two months are occupied with the annual examinations and private preparation for them; the remaining three months--August, September, and October--are the vacation. In addition to this long vacation, from eight to twelve days are allowed after the periodical examination, which takes place near the end of February, at the close of the first portion of each year’s study. One peculiarity in the arrangements of the school is that the subjects of each year’s course are not all studied simultaneously. The lectures in the main subjects of instruction--those which, as a rule, present the most difficulty--are divided into courses which continue only during a certain portion of each year. Thus in the junior division, analysis and descriptive geometry are the mathematical subjects studied during the first three months, or three months and a half. The course in them is then concluded; an examination by the professors (_interrogation générale_) is held in these subjects, and they are laid aside for the remainder of the year, though they enter into the examination at the close of the year. Their place is then taken by a course of lectures in mechanics and geodesy. Similarly in the second year, analysis and mechanics are the subjects of the first course of lectures, at the termination of which there is an examination; and for the remainder of the year no further lectures in them are given, stereotomy and military art taking their place. The subjects involving as a rule less difficulty--such as history, French literature, German, and drawing--are spread over the whole year, forming generally the evenings’ occupation. THE SPECIAL MILITARY SCHOOLS OF FRANCE. SCHOOL FOR ARTILLERY AND ENGINEERS AT METZ. HISTORY AND GENERAL DESCRIPTION,