Besides the many colleges to which I have barely alluded, and the societies, there are twenty or thirty literary and scientific societies of note in Paris.

It will not be necessary to be more particular to convince the reader that no other city in the world has the educational advantages of Paris.  What a privilege it must be to a poor Parisian to live near such schools and colleges, we can at once perceive.  If a young man has talents or genius, his poverty need be no bar to his advancement.  He is taken up at once.  He is not the charity student of America, for the very fact that without money and friends he has by sheer force of native genius made his way into the places given only to students poor and talented, adds to his fame, and he is quite as well if not better liked for it.  What an advantage the many kinds of lectures, which are given to all who please to attend gratuitously, must be to all inquiring minds in Paris, we can feel at once.  The artisan if he can spare an hour can listen to one of the most brilliant lectures upon history, either of the sciences, or medicine, side by side with the young aristocrat.  Nothing higher in character is to be had in Paris or out of it than that which he listens to without cost.  The effect of this vast system of public instruction is very great, and the influence of the colleges and learned societies upon society is wonderful.  There is no spirit of exclusiveness, such as characterizes the English and some of the American colleges, and the people are not prejudiced against them.  This system of instruction is almost perfect, of its kind but France lacks one thing which America has—­a system of common schools, which shall educate the children.  Far better have this system and lack the one she has now, but if she only had our common school system together with her colleges and academies, she would surpass, by far, any other nation.  America very much needs such a system.  It is free, broad, and liberal, and with ordinary care will make any country glorious in the sciences and arts.  Certainly until America cares less for mere cash and more for the arts and sciences, until she is generous enough to foster them and appropriate money to help young men of genius, and offer prizes to men of talent, the fine arts will not prosper with us.  Only the arts which in a pecuniary sense pay, will thrive, and the rest will live a starveling life.  Can we rest content with such a prospect?  No country is better able to be generous in such matters than America.

While in Paris I made the acquaintance of several students of law and medicine from America, and from them I learned that the professors in all the different institutions are exceedingly polite and kind to foreign students, and especially to Americans.  Foreign diplomas are granted by the different colleges, and no difference is made between a native and a foreign scholar.