OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
Prize-Day in a French Public School.
OUR foreign household was in an unusual state of excitement. So, too, was the quiet French town in which we lived. Flags were waving from the roof of the theatre, the hotel-de-ville, and the big, bare, ugly college buildings. The blare of inartistic music, resembling that of a circus-band, filled the summer air.
Our young American had made his bravest toilet, and, with the semi-military képi or school-cap on his head, and wearing for the first time in his life kid gloves, was wending his way with us through the narrow and picturesque Norman streets toward the theatre. The whole town, as well as many of the neighboring country folk, seemed to be going in the same direction,—mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, cousins, all in their best dress, and all with the same alert, interested, and even excited air we were quite conscious we had ourselves. Nevertheless, we felt sure that none of them could feel quite as we did, for this experience was not so new and strange to them as to us foreigners, who for the first time were to see our young American prove his scholarship among a host of students speaking another language than his own.
The theatre was densely crowded. The stage-boxes were occupied by the wives and families of the chief dignitaries of the town, the galleries and floor-seats by a curiously-mixed audience of white-capped and blue-bloused peasants and plainly-dressed people of the town, with now and then a Parisian toilet indicating some visitor from the capital. As we took our seats, our eyes turned quickly to the stage. Then instantly our young American's mamma gave utterance to a queer sound which the others declared was an inarticulate gasp, but which she insists was only the word "Look!"
No wonder she gasped! For there, in full view, gracefully and prominently displayed among the French flags with which the stage was profusely draped, was the most glorious object American eyes can behold in a foreign land.
"The stars and stripes!" cried mamma. "And Charlie is the only American in the school!"
On the stage were seated the dignitaries of the town, the mayor and aldermen, as well as distinguished guests from other towns. "Monsieur le Principal," a dignified gentleman in long black robe and violet scarf, was prominent among his corps of professors, all wearing the same robes, with different-colored scarfs according to the collegiate degrees they had received. The band was playing in one of the galleries. The front seats were filled with boys of between ten years and eighteen, in charge of pions, or school-ushers, all well dressed and wearing white gloves. The internes, or boarders in the college building, all wore the semi-military uniform of French public schools,—black bound and trimmed with red,—the externes, or day-pupils, being distinguished from them by being dressed in their "Sunday best" civilian garb. Charlie was among them, bright as an 1884 dollar, and telegraphed with eloquent eyes to his mother at sight of his country's flag.
Stimulating merit by reward is the rule in France; and all the world knows what stupendous ambitions feel amply recompensed by the right to wear a bit of red ribbon in the button-hole! To stimulate scholarship by the giving of prizes is thus the rule of all French schools, from the école laïque, or common free school, attended chiefly by children of poor parents, up to the highest classes of the government "college," such as this whose "prize-day" we were witnessing. Every year, at the close of school for the long vacation, the local newspapers give long accounts
