The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-09 00:00:00

report, including acts, documents, and results. I repea
here in a few words and figures, such of the latter as can
be so conveyed. In the course of the year named, the
number of primary schools for boys increased from 31,420
to 33,695, and the pupils actually receiving instruction from
1,200,715 to 1,654,828. In 1,272 townships, school-houses
had been built, purchased or repaired. Fifteen new elemen-
tary normal schools had been established. Thirteen years
later, by the end of 1847, through the unremitting efforts of
my successors in the department of Public Instruction, the
number of elementary schools for boys had augmented from
33,695 to 43,514, that of the pupils from 1,654,828 to
2,176,079, and of the school-houses belonging to the town•
ships, from 10, 316 to 23,761. Seventy-six primary normal
schools supplied masters to every department. I pass over
in silence all that had been either begun or accomplished
for girls' schools, asylums, workrooms and other establish-
ments, directly or indirectly affecting popular education.
Such at the end of fifteen years were the fruits of the law
of June, 1833, and of the movement which I cannot say A
created, but which it undoubtedly directed to a real and
effective institution."

He frequently finds occasion to censure the want
of public liberality towards men of art, science, and
literature. With regard to the holders of offices
in public buildings, he speaks of " that jealous par-
simony which bitterly assails the worldly comfort of
those hard-working men, the greater part of whom
are distinguished, nearly all of whom are limited
in means, and which doles out to them the produce,
always extremely moderate, of their long labours."
He inserts a letter of M. Saint Hilaire in answer
to an assertion publicly made, that the house
allotted to him in connection with his duties at the
Botanical Gardens was unnecessarily large. M. de
Saint Hilaire says, with justice, after disposing of
the accusation, that if he had devoted the 40 years
of uninterrupted labour and research which he had
passed at the Botanical Garden, to the active prose-
cution of a trade, he would in all probability have
been a rich man, instead of which he had diminished
his own private means by the purchase of books
and materials for the prosecution of his studies,
and by the publication of works of elaborate science
for the diffusion of knowledge. On another occa-
sion M. Guizot writes as follows respecting literary
societies :-
4, I am a steady partisan of monarchy and administrative
government. France owes to both much of her prosperity
and progress. I feel sincerely grateful to the Emperor Na.•
poleon I. for having said to M. de Fontanes, "Leave us at
least the republic of letters," and I adopt these words more
seriously than perhaps Napoleon himself meant when he
uttered them. The system of administrative monarchy, its
intractable unity, its monotonous bearing from head to feet,
its frigid prepossession for things rather than persons, its
severity against disorder, and its want of sympathy with
liberty,—all these characteristics are unsuited to the region
in which the literary and scientific character holds rule.
Such establishments require a large share of independence
and spontaneous action, of variety and personal govern-
ment. Not to gratify vain or fantastic whims, but from
the very nature of the 'men with whom we treat, and the
matters specially treated of in such cases. General and su-
perior administration requires rules and agents ; above all
things it fears and rejects individual caprices, unforeseen
acts, anomalies, and abuses. It is ill suited to the manage-
ment of scholars and philosophers, men accustomed and
disposed to invent, to criticise, and determine their own
ideas and labours, and with whom it is necessary to con-
verse and argue incessantly, instead of simply sending them
a copy of instructions on a formal circular. Shall govern-
ment place over them an agent analogous to itself, a petty
administrative Sovereign? In that case, the scholars and
philosophers thus controlled, take offence, the Government
incurs their secret opposition and ill-humour • they resign
and nullify themselves, leaving the affairs of letters and
science to be transacted by mere strangers to their necessi-
ties, their tastes, their pleasures, their studies, and their
books ; who may, perhaps, introduce order into literary es-
tablishments, while they utterly destroy their vitality.
Then follows a general feeling of astonishment that letters
languish and scholars become disaffected."
The narrative portion of the volume before us ter-
minates with the downfall of the Ministry in
1837, though the Historical Documents occupy a
considerable portion. Whatever may be our opinion
of a statesman's career, it is always interesting to
see his own account of it, and in criticising the
acts of the French Government at that epoch we
must remember the serious and alarming perplexities
which surrounded them. In recalling a time, how-
ever, when the press was comparatively free, and a
vigorous opposition was possible in. the Chamber
of Deputies, we should conjecture, notwithstanding
all the trimming statecraft of Astutio and his
master, that modern Parisian liberals must be in-
clined to reflect on a certain fable which tells us
hew a discontented body politic exchanged a King
Log for a King Stork.