THE SECONDARY EDUCATION OF GIRLS IN FRANCE. 213 
Tt” 
9 
1 
A 
» 
y 
nN 
IL 
e 
1 
ary classes. These classes are divided in two periods ; after the end of 
she first, including three years, the pupils pass an examination which 
rakes place in the lycée. The examining committee comprises teachers of 
‘he lycée itself, with teachers of other colleges ; they deliver to the girls 
a diploma called ¢¢ Certificat d’Etudes de Troisiéme Année.” This cer- 
sificate gives them the right to enter into the class of the second period, 
which consists of two years. Here the instruction is, of course, higher, and 
‘he pupils may follow—not completely but in a certain measure—their own 
-astes and attend a more specially scientific or literary course. At the end of 
these two years they can gain a diploma, delivered by a committee formed 
in the same manner as mentioned above ; this diploma, called ‘¢ Certificat 
I’Etudes de Cinquiéme Année,” confers on its owner the same rights as 
the ¢¢ Brevet Supérieur” of the primary education. 
We have in many colleges a sixth class, attended generally by girls of 
eighteen or twenty years, who wish to continue their studies. manv of them 
vith the view of becoming teachers. 
Such is, very briefly, our organization. A question arises now, far 
more important : 
“What do we teach ?” Before answering this question I must speak 
of another, closely connected with it : ¢¢ What is our aim in giving a sec- 
ondary education to our girls 7” This aim is not to train the girl’s mind 
like a boy’s ; not that we do not think her intelligent enough to go through 
she same course of study, but becanse we think her destiny being not 
juite the same in the present life, it is better not to train her quite in the 
same way. I know that many people—and among them remarkable phi- 
osophers—are of a different opinion. Who is right ? It does not behoove 
xe to judge here. All that I can say is this: As long as a nation believes 
shat women ought not to be educated like men, she would be wrong to act 
otherwise. Now, in France the majority think that women are made—I 
do not say only, but especially—7for home life ; that they must be before all 
good wives, real companions to their husbands, ready to enter into his 
‘deas, to interest themselves in his preoccupations and his tastes ; that they 
must aiso be mothers in the full meaning of the word, not only bringing 
children to physical existence, but to moral and intellectual life. To form 
such women is the main aim of our education, and to succeed it is not 
thought necessary to give them a thorough knowledge of sciences ; to cram 
them, as boys too often are, with things required only for examinations 
and soon after forgotten. But it is necessary to develop their minds and to 
give them, according to an expression of Moliére that we like to quote on 
the subject, “Des clartés de tout ”—that is to say, some knowledge of 
everything—and also a sound moral training. It isin this spirit that our 
programmes have been formed. To give a full account of them would be 
certainly useless ; it is sufficient to say that they embrace letters and science, 
French and general history, with a special study of the history of civ-