216 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
ignorant of all business questions; to make them understand the meaning 
»f a contract, a sale, etc., and to enable them to manage their own prop- 
erty, if needed. 
Modern languages are taught sometimes in the preparatory classes, and 
always in the secondary classes; there, during five years the girls have 
shree hours a week of German, English, or both ; and in some parts of 
France, of Spanish or Italian. The pupils are accustomed not only to 
read and write, but also to speak ; the lessons are never delivered in 
French, and, as a rule, French talking is strictly forbidden. Very often 
the teachers ask the pupils to speak German or English during the time 
of recreation ; some of the girls do it willingly, and, after five years of 
;his training, they speak English or German fairly well. 
Of our teaching of sciences much could be said, and ought, perhaps ; 
out, feeling not sufficiently entitled to speak about it, I will remark only 
shat our aim is to make the girls acquainted with the great principles of 
abstract and concrete sciences, and to give them, especially in mathe- 
matics, natural history, physics, and chemistry, the amount of knowledge 
aseful for a general development of mind and for practical life. 
I must conclude with the regret of saying nothing of drawing, which is 
saught three hours a week, always from the casts; of the teaching of 
sewing and cutting, which enables the girls to make their own dresses if 
they choose ; of the teaching of singing and gymnastics. But I have 
already said too much. I will conclude these remarks about our second- 
ary education by saying that, when a girl leaves our colleges after the 
completion of her studies, her mind is alive to all the great ideas which 
can interest a human being; and, if she wishes to pass special examina- 
sions, her general training is such that she easily gets the special knowl- 
edge required. You must not think, however, that we consider our 
lycées as perfect ; far from it. They have many defects that we know 
and try to amend. Among the many reasons which attracted us here 
this is even one of the strongest. We know that you have done for the 
sducation of women more than any nation in the world ; we think that 
ve have much to learn from you. One of our writers, M. de Varigny, 
after having studied America, said that the American woman was the 
woman of the future, and would some day educate her European sisters. 
This day seems. to have come now ; and certainly, when we return to our 
own country, after all we have heard in the World’s Fair Educational 
Congress, all we have seen of American schools and of American society, we 
shall be more able to see and correct the imperfections of our girls’ educa- 
Hon. and we shall understand better what is the ideal type of woman. 
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