New-York tribune., 1905-11-12
FRENCH SCHOOL SPORTS.
Radical Change Effected Since the
Adoption of English Methods.
Paris, Oct. %.


Pacific revolution, which has taken place in
France of late years, and has changed profound
ly the aspect of French social lfe has been the
Introduction, mainly from England of athletic
sports of all kinds into the curriculum of public
and private education. French revolutions,
whether Of the political or the social order have
Elways been curiously rapid, SO that it has needed
only a few years for the old features and effete
a1ethods of the French lycees and colleges to
undergo a radical change, and the process of
Transformation is not yet at an end.
Ask any FTenchnan of thirty years of age or
tereabouts for description of his youthful
ehool days and he will draw most melan-
holy picture of monastic seclusion in un-
Healthy and often indescribably filthy school
srracks, where grinding lessons went on from
six in the morning till late at night, with only
/ few minutes for recreation, which invariably
consisted Of more than dull walk through
The town, the pupils marching three by three
1nder the eye of tiresome and tyranncal
lunior master enthusiastically nicknamed the
-pion,' spy.
The result of this method was, Of course, that
The average French schoolboy was a weedy,
EpirtleSs lad, mentally and physically un-
healthy, with a brain either dulled by the sheer
snnui and ugiiness of his life and its surround
fEgs, or overstrained by studies which If he
were at all intellectually inclined were per-
1litted and encouraged by his masters to form
Tar too exclusively the supreme subject of his
thoughts Established by Napoleon, this cast
Iron system Of education, which enabled the
great Minister, Durny. to boast that at any
given hour of the day every boy In France OF
the same age learning exactly the same
facts out Of the same book at the moment,
continued almost without change until about
twenty-five years ago.
1t was then that the Commune the great
political revolution which followed the fall of
the Second Empire, acted strangely enough as
he starting point for eminently peacea BILE
md bloodless revolution of social order, the
Introduction, namely, of what may be truly de-
scribed as the Anglo-Saxon spirit into French
educational methods For 1t the Com
n1unist refugees. who had fed to London after
The wholesale condemnations to death pro-
ncunced by the newly constituted republican
government OF Nj. Thiers who brought back
With them to Paris, after several years of exile
\ thorough knowledge OF the English public
school system, with its large recognition of out
door sports, and firm belief in its superiority
Until then the only educationalists in France
from whom physical exercises for schoolboys
had met with any serious encouragement had
been the Jesuits, but though Communists Of the
type Of Paschal Grousset and Rarrere the
tather Of the present French Ambassador in
Rome were the bitterest enemies of the Jesuits
LIN I'LL ulelf WorkS, tne experience which they
had themselves gained In England as teachers
lad convinced them. so far as the effect Of
physical moral and intellectual education
was concerned, that the priests were in the
right So Jesuit and Communist clasped hands
IN common effort to give the French school
boy physique.
Football was, believe, first introduced into
The Dominican College at Arcueil, under the
headmastership Of the brilliant Pare Didon. But
not until some years later, In $780, that
. state school In Paris played It's first match at
football This WIS the Lycee de Sally. under
the headmastership Of N. Kortz, some Of whose