The building of the Institute is surmounted by a splendid dome, and it presents a striking appearance to the stranger.  It immediately fronts the foot-bridge which crosses the Seine to the Louvre.

The university of France it is supposed was founded by Charlemagne.  It is a magnificent and truly liberal institution, and is under the authority of the minister of public instruction.  It has five departments, an immense library and funds for aged or infirm teachers.

The Academy of Paris consists of five faculties—­science letters, theology, law, and medicine.  In the department of sciences, which includes that of mathematical astronomy, Leverrier occupies a professor’s chair—­the man who demonstrated the existence of another planet by mathematical Calculations, and pointed out the place where it must be found.

The Faculty of Law has seventeen professors.  Four years of study are necessary to gain the highest honors, or the title of Docteur en droit.

The Faculty of Medicine has twenty-six professorships, with salaries varying from two thousand to ten thousand francs a year.  Every student before taking his degree must serve the government one year, at least, in a hospital.  This is an admirable regulation.  The lectures are all gratuitous, and what is better still, they are open to the people and the world.  Any foreigner can attend the course of lectures of the most celebrated men in France, and indeed in the world, for nothing.  The law students number about three thousand; those studying medicine about three thousand; and those studying the sciences about fifteen hundred.  Foreign students are admitted upon the same terms as French, and a diploma given by an American college, if it be of high repute, will put the student upon the same footing as a French bachelier et lettres when the object is to study law or medicine.

The College Royal has twenty-eight professors, who give gratuitous lectures on astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, chemistry, natural history, law, ethics, etc. etc.  There is a college of Natural History, connected with the Jardin des Plantes, with fifteen professors.  The Ecole Normale is an institution for the education of students who intend to become candidates for professorships.  There are in Paris besides these, five royal colleges where a student is boarded as well as educated.  The charge for board is two hundred dollars a year; the additional charges, educational and otherwise, are only twenty dollars, which the published terms state, “does not include music or dancing!”

Among the literary and scientific societies is the Institut Historique, where public and gratuitous lectures are given.  A journal is published, and all that members pay for it, and the advantages of the institution, is about four dollars a year.  There is a flourishing agricultural society, a society for the encouragement of national industry, one for the improvement of national horticulture, one for the civilization and colonization of Africa, one for the promotion of commercial knowledge, etc. etc.