lost--the BROTHERS OF ALSACE AND
LORRAINE.'

This is the conclusion of the manual. All works up to ALSACE AND
LORRAINE. (The capital letters are in the original.) Is it not
delightful? Is it not most truly French?

We should be sorry to see a parody or parallel to this French manual
introduced into our schools. At the same time we think there is
something to be learnt from studying it. Our neighbours seem to have in
some respect learnt better than ourselves the maxim of Horace:--

'pueris dant crustula blandi
Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima.'

The pages of our manual are full of literary _crustula_; and we imagine
that most boys would find themselves sufficiently amused to read and
study the book, whether they were desirous of profiting by the contents
or not. And after all it is a great thing to _get hold_ of a boy,
whether it be by the loving and evidently self-sacrificing efforts of
the Christian Brothers, or by the ingenious mental food provided by the
Minister of Public Instruction. Notwithstanding such ingenuity, we do
not, however, believe that the present system of French teaching can
answer: it is hollow and unsound: it ignores the deepest of motives, and
disregards the most potent of influences: it may breed a desire to fight
with Germany for the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine, but it can
scarcely produce the highest class of citizens and heroes, because it
does not acknowledge the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom, and the
love of God as the best foundation of the love of man. The principles of
duty inculcated in the manual from which we have been exhibiting a few
elegant extracts will never rear such a character as De la Salle, nor
supply the foundation of such an institution as that of the Christian
Brothers.

But we must come nearer home--

'Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.'

We have not yet arrived in England at the complete secularization of our
elementary schools; but we are, in the opinion of some and in the wish
of others, within measurable distance of the Paradisiacal terminus of
secularism and secular reform; and therefore, with the thought of what
has been going on and is still going on in France, we may do well to
look for a few moments to our own country, and examine what has been
going on and is going on there.

Let us beware, however, of exaggeration or alarmism. We do not at all
desire to imply that there is anything approach