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CHAPTER V
SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Education in France has neither the moral
nor social value it has in England. In the
first place, public-school life has nothing like the
importance it has with us, where a university
education almost suffices to make a gentleman
of a young man, for, whatever his origin may
be, the Oxonian is pretty sure to plume himself
on the prestige of his training. In France there
is no equivalent for this rank. Where a man has
been educated is of no consequence to him in
after life. While he is at school, his parents, if
they happen to be nobles, or snobs who desire
to pass for nobles, or as belonging to a set bien pensant, like to be able to say that their son is at
the school of Vaugirard, Madrid, La Poste, or
at the Marists. This fact suffices to pose a family
with the hall-mark of indisputable correctness.
Neither the Jesuits nor the Marists offer
such solid advantages in the way of pretension
and reputation as the English universities do,
