“You know,” he announced to his parents when his appointment was definitely settled, “that a supplementary master has board and lodging and 300 francs a year!” This sum appeared to him enormous. He added, on January 20: “At the end of this month money will already be owing to me; and yet I assure you I am not really worth it.” Pleased with this situation, though such a modest one, full of eagerness to work, he wrote in the same letter: “I find it an excellent thing to have a room of my own; I have more time to myself, and I am not interrupted by those endless little things that the boys have to do, and which take up a good deal of time. Indeed I am already noticing a change in my work; difficulties are getting smoothed away because I have more time to give to overcoming them; in fact I am beginning to hope that by working as I do and shall continue to do I may be received with a good rank at the Ecole. But do not think that I am overworking myself at all; I take every recreation necessary to my health.” Besides his ordinary work, he had been entrusted with the duty of giving some help in mathematics and physical science to the youths who were reading for their baccalauréat. As if reproaching himself with being the only member of the family who enjoyed the opportunity of learning, he offered to pay for the schooling of his youngest sister Josephine in a girls’ college at Lons-le-Saulnier. He wrote, “I could easily do it by giving private lessons. I have already refused to give some to several boys at 20 or 25 fr. a month. I refused because I have not too much time to give to my work.” But he was quite disposed to waive this motive in deference to superior judgment. His parents promised to think over this fraternal wish, without however accepting his generous suggestion, offering even to supplement his small salary of 24 francs a month by a little allowance, in case he wished for a few private lessons to prepare himself more thoroughly for the Ecole Normale. They quite recognized his right to advise; and--as he thought that his sister should prepare herself beforehand for the class she was to enter--he wrote to his mother with filial authority, “Josephine should work a good deal until the end of the year, and I would recommend to Mother that she should not continually be sent out on errands; she must have time to work.”