ping
lads were there, mixed up together, at very different educational
stages, but all incorrigibly agreed to play tricks upon the master, the
boy master who was no older than some of them, or even younger.

To the little ones I gave their first lessons in reading; the
intermediate ones I showed how they should hold their pen to write a
few lines of dictation on their knees; to the big ones I revealed the
secrets of fractions and even the mysteries of Euclid. And to keep this
restless crowd in order, to give each mind work in accordance with its
strength, to keep attention aroused and lastly to expel dullness from
the gloomy room, whose walls dripped melancholy even more than dampness,
my one resource was my tongue, my one weapon my stick of chalk.

For that matter, there was the same contempt in the other classes for
all that was not Latin or Greek. One instance will be enough to show
how things then stood with the teaching of physics, the science which
occupies so large a place to-day. The principal of the college was a
first-rate man, the worthy Abbe X., who, not caring to dispense beans
and bacon himself, had left the commissariat-department to a relative
and had undertaken to teach the boys physics.

Let us attend one of his lessons. The subject is the barometer. The
establishment happens to possess one, an old apparatus, covered with
dust, hanging on the wall beyond the reach of profane hands and bearing
on its face, in large letters, the words stormy, rain, fair.

'The barometer,' says the good abbe, addressing his pupils, whom, in
patriarchal fashion, he calls by their Christian names, 'the barometer
tells us if the weather will be good or bad. You see the words written
on the face--stormy, rain--do you see, Bastien?'

'Yes, I see,' says Bastien, the most mischievous of the lot.

He has been looking through his book and knows more about the barometer
than his teacher does.

'It consists,' the abbe continues, 'of a bent glass tube filled with
mercury, which rises and falls according to the weather. The shorter
leg of this tube is open; the other...the other...well, we'll see. Here,
Bastien, you're the tallest, get up on the chair and just feel with your
finger if the long leg is open or closed. I can't remember for certain.'

Bastien climbs on the chair, stands as high as he can on tip-toe and
fumbles with his finger at the top of the long column. Then, with a
discreet smile spreading under the silky hair