lace,' and the ever-increasing army of
'lay teachers,' male and female, whom it is yearly turning out of the
educational institutions of France to seek the employment which a vast
majority of them cannot possibly hope to find in the public schools, the
lyceums and 'faculties' of the nation.

On this point a Councillor-General whom I met here at Lille dwelt with
very grave emphasis. 'We are educating here in France,' he said to me,
'hundreds of young men and young women every year under false pretences
to enter a profession already overcrowded. For every post which now
exists or which can be created within the next ten years in the
educational system of these revolutionists at Paris, we are turning out
at least a hundred applicants each year of each sex, who must
necessarily be thrown upon the public. What will become of them? The
young men will go into Nihilism, as young men of the same sort do in
Russia; the young women will go upon the street. Only the other day at
Paris, the Government advertised a competition for about 70 positions in
the telegraphic service. How many young women applied? More than 800!
What is to become of the 730 unsuccessful competitors? And what right
has the State to flood the market thus, in advance of the necessities of
the country, and at the cost of the taxpayers, with male and female
teachers, any more than with carpenters, or with surgeons, or with
confectioners?'

One circumstance connected with the development of this great Catholic
University at Lille (as an American I permit myself to give the
institution its proper title) is of special significance. It is not the
only institution of the kind which has been called into existence in
France since the Third Republic began its war against religion in 1880.
There is a Free Catholic institution at Lyons, which consists of three
faculties under the administration of a company founded to receive and
administer all sums given or bequeathed to organise the institutes. The
Archbishop of Lyons is Chancellor of this institution, which has a dean
and seven professors of theology, a dean and eighteen professors of law,
with a secretary and librarian of that faculty, a dean and seven
professors of letters, a dean and nine professors of science. There are
similar institutions also at Angers and at Toulouse. All of these are
freely supported by the private subscriptions of Catholic France, as is
also the great Catholic Institute of Paris in the Rue Va