here a student is boarded
as well as educated. The charge for board is two hundred dollars a
year; the additional charges, educational and otherwise, are only twenty
dollars, which the published terms state, "_does not include music or
dancing!_"

Among the literary and scientific societies is the _Institut
Historique_, where public and gratuitous lectures are given. A journal
is published, and all that members pay for it, and the advantages of the
institution, is about four dollars a year. There is a flourishing
agricultural society, a society for the encouragement of national
industry, one for the improvement of national horticulture, one for the
civilization and colonization of Africa, one for the promotion of
commercial knowledge, etc. etc.

Besides the many colleges to which I have barely alluded, and the
societies, there are twenty or thirty literary and scientific societies
of note in Paris.

It will not be necessary to be more particular to convince the reader
that no other city in the world has the educational advantages of Paris.
What a privilege it must be to a poor Parisian to live near such schools
and colleges, we can at once perceive. If a young man has talents or
genius, his poverty need be no bar to his advancement. He is taken up at
once. He is not the charity student of America, for the very fact that
without money and friends he has by sheer force of native genius made
his way into the places given only to students poor and talented, adds
to his fame, and he is quite as well if not better liked for it. What an
advantage the many kinds of lectures, which are given to all who please
to attend gratuitously, must be to all inquiring minds in Paris, we can
feel at once. The artisan if he can spare an hour can listen to one of
the most brilliant lectures upon history, either of the sciences, or
medicine, side by side with the young aristocrat. Nothing higher in
character is to be had in Paris or out of it than that which he listens
to without cost. The effect of this vast system of public instruction is
very great, and the influence of the colleges and learned societies upon
society is wonderful. There is no spirit of exclusiveness, such as
characterizes the English and some of the American colleges, and the
people are not prejudiced against them. This system of instruction is
almost perfect, _of its kind_ but France lacks one thing which America
has--a system of common schools, which shall educate _the