If there is one hostage more precious than
another, which a family, or a nation, can
confide to a neighbour, it is undoubtedly
their children—their delight, their pride, their
comfort, their hope. Hundreds of such
precious hostages are confided by England to
the keeping of France; and the portion of
the number who are sent to our own droll
little town, are what I call Our Boys and
Girls. Most readers of The Times must
have observed twice a-year, shortly after the
summer and the winter solstices, numerous
advertisements from French school-masters
and mistresses, principally resident in
Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Guînes, and
Bourbourg, but also in towns scattered over the
whole of the North of France. These
advertisements are, in great measure, addressed to
English parents whose business compels them
to live in London, though many pupils come
from the inland counties, to swell the ranks
of foreign educational establishments. Le
Havre and its neighbourhood mainly invite
American children; and very many young
persons, both coloured and white, cross the
Atlantic to receive instruction as boarders
in Normandy. It is strange that so many
of the rising generation should be driven
from a republic, a quasi-land of self-styled
freedom, by the necessity of seeking, in
monarchical and despotic Europe, the equality
of access to the means of instruction which
is denied to them at home. In European
schools a black, or mulatto, or creole boy,
may say his lessons in the same class, eat
his meals at the same table, and take his
rest in the same dormitory, with a pure-
blooded white boy. " Wonder of wonders!"
an American might exclaim. Would he call
that a land of freedom, where a white boy
might not drive a black boy from his
presence? But, as the Western-French
schools are mostly frequented by juvenile
free travellers, or dark-skinned refugees,
from America, so the Eastern-French
academies are generally patronised by parents
who prefer for their young folk the shortest
cut across the Channel.

Our own boys and girls are received in
roomy mansions, which are complimented
by English titles; we have Victoria House,
Britannia House, Park House, and so forth.
The masters and mistresses, at the
commencement of each vacation, accompany
their returning pupils to London, and await
the starting of such new ones as they can
get, together with those sent back to
France, after passing the midsummer or
Christmas holidays with their friends at
home. Many children remain abroad at
school, during the whole of both those
holidays—orphans whose guardians do not find
it convenient to receive them; boys and
girls whose parents are settled in distant
colonies—we have some charming young
people from Australia—boys and girls
whose French, whose dancing, whose power
of resistance to London fogs, or whose
something else, is backward and behind-
hand, and who must lose no time in making
up lee-way. For these school and class-
time go on much as usual, under the
superintendence of the sub-masters, French
and English. As a general rule, I think,
the principals have the tact to select able
and trusty school-assistants. I also think
that, were it my destiny to be an usher
or a governess, I had rather fill either one
or the other of those situations in France
than in England. True, they get better
paid, and sometimes better fed, in England;
but money and meat alone are not sufficient
to satisfy all the reasonable requirements
of rational and warm-hearted young
men and women. The travels of the little
pilgrims to our town—their journey by rail—
their sickness at sea, or their triumph over
it—their custom-house troubles, and their
ride in the caravan of carriages which
conducts them inland—are a practical romance
which is mostly the commencing enlargement
of their views of life, their first knowledge
of a world beyond their threshold.
Homekeeping youth, they remember, have
ever homely wits; and even if they don't
remember an adage they may have never
heard, their proud consciousness of travelled
superiority attests its truth.

Schoolkeeping in England and in France,
are not the same profession in respect to
liberty of action. In Great Britain and
Ireland, any man or woman may turn school-
master or mistress, provided they can but
persuade pupils to come to them. In France,
no person under five-and-twenty years of age,
and without a diploma gained by passing the
prescribed examinations, can open a boarding-
school for boys or girls. The diploma
may be gained previously to their twenty-
sixth birthday; but the school cannot be
opened, nevertheless. Before that age many
of the privileges of majority are not legally
attainable in France; there is a great difference,
the Code Napoléon assumes, between
the maturity of judgment of a person of
twenty-one, and of the same person arrived
at twenty-five. However, in England we
contrive to drive coaches-and-six through
Acts of Parliament, and similar attempts are
made elsewhere, with more or less success.
Principals deficient in the requisite qualifications
obtain the services of a qualified
person, whom they set up as the ostensible
head of the concern, for a time at least,
and who is known as their Prête-nom, or
name-lender. But taking a prête-nom is
accompanied by so many disagreeables, that
it is only resorted to as an expedient of
the last necessity; it is setting up a master
or a mistress over your own head, in your
own household: not to mention the constant
explanations with the authorities.

Even when their establishment is thus
legitimately opened, schoolmasters and school-