The St. Johns herald., 1900-06-30
FASHIONABLE PARIS.
The. French and Their Training
 from Birth to Marriage.
Essence of the System Ls ExcluziOn of Everything COntaminating to the Youthful MInd-Quick
 Transformation.

The training of young Frenchmen
 and Frenchwomen of the more pros.
 porous class is described with keen ap-
 preciation of its weaknesses from the
 Anglo-Saxon point of view by Richard
 Whiting. in Century.
 "The training for trifies begins at
 birth with the infant of fashion. It is
 very much the business of his nurse to
 see that light and air do not visit him
 too roughly. lis swadGling clothes
 gre a marvel of completeness as non-
 conductors of the winds of heaven. As y soon as he is ClG enough 10 understand
 things, you see him toGCling out with
 his tutor, a grave ecclesiastic, who
 watches over him ct work and play,
 and puts the right notions into his
 mind. The tics thus formed are never
 wholly severed. The priests attend to
 sll the goings out and coInings 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,
 on the principle of no game of shuttle
 clock without bow to your partner.
 He also, of course, grounds him in the
 humanities. At this early age the child
 is not sent 10 school. He is coached
 at home by the priest. and taken once
 or twice week to what is called
 cour, an establishment where private
 teaching is tested by public examina-
 tions. The cour directs the studies,
 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- elusion of everything from the boys mind that ought not to be there. So be 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 muller 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. It 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 a girl finished 1 woman of the world. A first shave con- verts the gawky schoOlboy into the ape of a boulevardier, vices and all. | The transformation is as sudden as | anything in eastern magic. He was a 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 trial for his friends. This is ihe pe- riod of his first duel. 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 more serious nature. But the mother is still there to find out all about them almost before they hap- pen. and the watchful father is at hand to see that they entail 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- ful system. It is the mothers business n aaarO 4ha of doub.y lowered with virtue and with millions. The marriage is arranged the term has more than usually deep in France-and the pair have chance of living happily ever after, if tlry know how to make the best of it. It is no bad chance. Though 1 the French marriage is not, in the first instance, based on love. it is supposed never to take place until liking, at east. is assured. The rest ie 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 ,ity of know-nothingism in which the mind of the young French girl is 'hrou6ed from birth. At the convent he has had the wall between her and wicked world. Her whole art of polite with a man is little more han 'Oui, monsieur, Non, monsieur After a dance she must be safely and wiftly Geposited-a sort of returned mpty-by her mothers side. and dur ng that brief futter of freedom il. is ot good form to take advantage of he absence of the parent bird. A few observations on the weather and the icture galleries are considered to lark the limit of taste. 'Gyp' has as- uHed us in many a cynic page that he ingenue is not half such a simple T on as she looks. But it must not be 8 that 'Gyp' has largely in- l ented type for her own business ! ses. The real article, while it is not g xactly a lamb in innocence, is still T apply unaware of most of the, evil V oing on in the world. Here, as mfli- S 'ry life was the great change for the b oy, marriage is the greater change g 'r the girl. She passes at once into a Il 'here in which she is considered fair " allusionto anything with e
 the bounds of good breeding She d ses to her opportunity. or to the W ern duties of her station, whichever S; ay you choose to put it, and in a sur fl 'isiDgiy short time comes out as the Ii lished woman of the world. This is e French way. l neither blame it ror u fend it; I do not even try to account dl ' it. simply say what it is,'' e!