ere Annee d'Instruction Morale et Civique: notions de droit
et d'economie politique (Textes et Recits) pour repondre a la loi du 28
Mars 1882 sur l'enseignement primaire obligatoire: ouvrage accompagne de
Resume, de Questionnaires, de Devoirs, et d'un Lexique des mots
difficiles._ Par Pierre Laloi. Quatorzieme Edition. Paris, 1885.

3. _Report of the Committee of Council on Education_ (England and
Wales). 1884-85.

4. _Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Incorporated National Society._
1885.

Most travellers in France will have met occasionally in Paris and in the
provincial towns a school of boys walking two and two, and followed by a
serious-looking superintendent of very solemn deportment. The boys are
in no marked respect different from other boys, but they are orderly and
well conducted. They are probably on their way to a church; and if you
watch them, you will see them march in with much propriety. The
superintendent is evidently not an ordinary schoolmaster; you would
suppose that he is an ecclesiastic of some kind. He wears a loose black
cloak, a hat with a low crown and a portentous brim, and bands such as
were much worn by English clergymen till late years, and which, when
strongly developed, were supposed to indicate a sympathy with
Calvanistic theology. Nevertheless, the solemn-featured young man is not
an ecclesiastic, neither is he a Protestant minister. He is one of the
Freres Chretiens, or Christian Brothers; and the boys whom he has under
his charge are pupils in one of the Ecoles Chretiennes, or Christian
Schools.

We will venture to assume, that some of our readers are not well
acquainted with the story and the principles of the remarkable
institution known as the Schools of the Christian Brothers, or with the
life of their remarkable founder. We propose in this article to supply
some information upon the subject, not only because we think that such
information will be interesting in itself, but also because we believe
that from the story of the work and principles of the French schools of
the Christian Brothers, we may proceed without difficulty, and almost by
necessary consequence, to some useful considerations with respect to
English schools as now established and conducted amongst ourselves.

Jean Baptiste de la Salle was born in Rheims, April 30, 1651. The house
in which he was born is still standing, and is regarded with reverence.
He came of a noble family, which was originally of Bearn