58 TRANCE.
inscribed on the parish register are electors. The Presbyteral Council is placed under the authority of the Consistory, which is composed of the Presbyteral Council of the chief town of the Consistorial district, augmented by all the pastors of the district, and 10 lay delegates from each of the other Presbyteral Coimcils.
Public education has made great progress in France within the last generation, according to a voluminous report issued by the Minister of Public Instruction in March 1865. The report gives a comparative statement of the numbers who attended primary schools in 1832, 1847, and 18G3 respectively; from which it appears that in 1832 there were 59 pupils per 1,000 of the population, 99'8 in 1847, and 116 in 1863. As regards the number of children who are not known to go to any school, the report states that between 1847 and 1863, 8,566 public schools were opened with a gain of 806,233 pupils, averaging 59,000 per annum. There are still 818 communes without schools, but in most of these places the children are sent to schools in the vicinity. There appears to be a deficit of 884,887 children between seven and thirteen who ought to be at the primary schools, but some receive instruction at home or in the elementary classes of secondary establishments. The duration of school life is regulated by the religion of the scholar. Catholics rarely visit school after eleven or twelve, the age at which they receive their first com- munion ; Protestants commonly remaining until about sixteen. As far as can be ascertained, the number of children over eight and under eleven who have never been to school does not exceed 200,000. Of the children who left school in 1863, 60 per cent, could read, write, and cast accounts fairly ; the remaining 40 per cent, had either passed through school uselessly or left it with such imperfect knowledge as not to be able to pass an examination.
According to official returns, there were, in October 1863, in France 82,135 establishments of primary instruction, or 16,136 more than in 1848 ; and the scholastic population, which at this last period was only 3,771,597, had risen in 1862 to 4,731,946, giving an augmentation of nearly a million, or a quarter of the whole. The 36,499 communes provided, in October 1863, with means of instruc- tion, comprised 41,426 public and free schools, special for youths or mixed as to the sexes, of which 37,895, numbering 2,145,420 pupils, were directed by laics, and 3,531, numbering 482,008 pupils, had 'congregationist' masters. Of the 2,627,428 children in these schools, 922,820, or more than one-third, were admitted gratuitously. The number of schools for girls, in October 1863, amounted to 26,592; of which 13,491 were directed by laics provided with diplomas of capacity, and 13,101 by religious sisters, of whom 12,335 had only the ' letter of obedience.' These schools received 1,609,213 pupils, of whom rather more than a third, or 604,247, were in the lay schools, and 1,059,966 in the congregationist establishments.
