ATHLETIC SPORTS IN FRENCH COLLEGES.

"It is easy to tell a lyceen from a collegien (college being the generic term now applied to the higher class of clerical schools) by his way of conducting himself in the presence of his elders," says the London Times. "The lyceen is a rougher fellow altogether. He lives in a sort of barracks, wears a uniform, counts only as a unit in a mass who are governed in a semi-military fashion, and gets little or no separate attention from his masters. Outside the college walls no moral restraint is put upon him at all. If a professor saw him smoking or drinking spirits in a cafe on Sunday while he was out on leave no notice would be taken of the fact, nor would a professor or usher think of cross-questioning him on his return from the holidays as to what he had been doing, what books or newspapers he had read. This curious mixture of subjection and license might have worked well if French boys had the same taste for out-door games as the English, and could be trusted to make a healthy use of their freedom; but political accidents have combined in an odd way to check all athletic tendencies among the youth of the State schools in France. Most of the lycees were in old time richly endowed schools under monastic rule; they had large playgrounds, and in those days French boys were adepts in all sorts of games. But when the church lands were confiscated in 1792 the great schools temporarily collapsed, and the revolutionary government, being in straits, sold the large playing fields. The mischief thus done could never be remedied."