The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1900-05-17
TRAINING OF THE FRENCH.
!'rom Birth to Marriage n Close
watch Is Kept Upon Moral
Development.

The training of young Frenchmen
and Frenchwomen of the more pros
porous class is described with keen APP
probation of its weaknesses from the
Anglo-SaXon point of view by Richard
Whiting, in Century.
THE training for trities begins at
birth with the infant of fashion. 1t is
very much the business of his nurse to
see that light and air do not visit him
too roughly. His swaddling clothes
are marvel of completeness as nom
conductors of the winds of heaven. AS
soon as he is old enough to understand
| things, you see him toddling out with
| his tutor, a grave ecclesiastic, who
watches over him at work and play,
and pu-s the right notions into his
mind. The ties thus formed are never
wholly severed. The priests attend to
all the goings out and comings in.
! When ball is the game, he is there to
see that his charge does not hurt him-
self, nor hurt the ball. He makes the
lad gravely polite, and grounds him in
| the secondary religion of the salute,
clock without bow to your partner
He also, of course, grounds him in the
| humanities. At this early age the child
| is not sent to school. He is coached
at home by the priest, and taken once
or twice week to what is called a
cour, an establishment where private
teaching is tested by public examina-
ha 81,
and determines proficiency in them by
| question and answer. Tutor and pupil
prepare as best they can in the inter-
val.
THE essence of the system is the eX-
| clusion of everything from the boys
mind that ought not to be there. So
he is under the strictest supervision
from first to last. The priest takes him
to the cour and fetches him away
| again. When he goes to the lycee, or
| public school, it is much the same The
valet takes the place of the priest, and
| fetches and carries, with due provi-
sion of mufller and umbrella for rainy
days. So it goes on until the time of
the great change, when, perhaps, the
youngster is sent to Samur, the great
cavalry school. Then, for the first
time, he has to stand alone, and father,
mother, nurse, valet and priest have to
say good-by. 1t is always an anxious
moment-especially so for the neo-
phyte.
THE bound from tutelage to the
very license of liberty, moral and in
tellectual, is a marked characteristic
of the French system. Marriage makes
the trembling ninny of girl finished
woman of the world. A first shave con-
verts the gawky schoolboy into the
ape of boulevardier, vices and all.
The transformation is as sudden as
anything in eastern magic. He was Il
boy after his time under the tutelage
| system. He becomes a man before his
time at Saumur, and he generally goes
through stage of puppyism which is a
trial for his friends. This is the pc
Rod of his first duel, a thing done on
the sly, and revealed to his Mortified
mother only after the scratch has
healed. BY and by there may be other
escapades of a more serious nature.
But the mother is still there 10 find out
all about them almost before they hap
pen, and the watchful father is at hand
to see that they entail a minimum of
scandal.
"At this stage his people begin to
think of marrying him, and here again
all is provided for by the ever-watch-
full system. 1t is the mothers business
to learn the whereabouts of ingenues
| doubly lowered with virtue and with
millions. The marriage is arranged
the term has more than usually deep
significance in France-and the pair
have chance of living happily ever
after, if they know how to make the
best of it. 1t is no bad chance. Though
| the French marriage is not, in the first
instance, based on love, it is supposed
never to take place until liking, at
least, is assured. The rest il expected
| to come as matter of growth.
THE wife has been still more care
fully brought up, in her way. Nothing
can exceed the more than Hindu sane
| tity of know-nothingism in which the
| mind of the young French girl is
| shrouded from birth. At the convent
she has had the wall between her and
wicked world. Her whole art of polite
conversation with a man is little more
than 'Oui, monsieur, Non, monsieur
| After a dance she must be safely and
! swiftly deposited-a sort of returned
empty-by her mothers side, and dur
ing that brief fiutter of freedom it is
| not good form to take advantage of
the absence of the parent bird. A few
observations on the weather and the
picture galleries are considered to
mark the limit of taste. 'Gyp' has as
sured us in many a cynic page that
the ingenue is not half such a simple
| ton as she looks. But it must not be
| forgotten that 'Gyp' has largely in
vented type for her own business
uses. The real article. while it is not
| exactly a lamb in innocence. is still
happily unaware of most of the evil
going on in the world. Here, as mill
tary life was the great change for the
boy, marriage is the greater change
for the girl. She passes at once into a
sphere in which she is considered fair
game for any allusion to anything with
|