At The University of Paris

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 21, 16 April 1927, Page 7

At The University of Paris

The Terrors of Examinations *** . Politics and Study at the Sorbonne

(Written for THE SUN by

J. E. D. WHITE.)

IT Is a dangerous thing to generalise at any time, and I am not at all sure that a period of 12 months is long enough to entitle me to say much about the French Universities and their students. The whole of the secular educational system in France is administered by the Government. All the primary schools are, as in New Zealand, confined strictly to certain standards fixed by the Department of Education. The secondary schools are freer, as they are in New Zealand, but the universities are strictly departmental. This appears to lead to a want of sympathy between the teaching staff and the Government university officials. Without going into details, I content myself by mentioning that the professors treat one with the greatest courtesy, while the behaviour of the other side makes me hope that our university will remain as it is.

It is no easy matter for the French boy or girl to enter the University with a view to proceeding to a degree. The Baccalaureat is as exacting a matriculation examination as any in the world. This chiefly because of the oral section, which is as searching as it is nerve-wracking. I am informed that the various educational curricula have been considerably altered since the war, so as to give the children more time for exercise and play. From the number of pale faces and thin legs one can see round the Parisian schools, there is still room for improvement. In the secondary schools sport now holds an important place, but in no case is it subordinated to school work. Proficiency in sport is not yet in France an excuse for a low place in class. The result of this intensive primary and secondary training is that the student has a very good grounding indeed by the time he faces his professors. Perhaps he or she is a little too precocious and self-assertive. It comes as a bit of a shock to see a lad of 19 hold forth authoritatively on a passage from Moliere in front of a class of two or three hundred, accepting patronisingly an occasional kindly hint from the presiding professor. After the first few weeks, each student is invited to read to the an essay on any part of the subject he may have chosen. Not only that, but he has to defend his point of view in the face of any criticism the class

or the professor may offer. It is astonishing how good these esays are, and how ably they are defended. This would certainly be something of an ordeal for a New Zealand student, but then the Frenchman is trained not to be diffident. Oral examinations eliminate shyness. One of the favourite subjects for students at the Sorbonne is French Literature. is not because it is a “soft option.” I think every Frenchman is genuinely proud of his mothertongue and its classics. It is quite safe for a French journalist to make a classical allusion. He is sure to be understood. The method of study of French Literature is, to the British mind, extraordinary. Instead of being content with a wide reading knowledge of the authors of a prescribed period, they concentrate more on a minutely careful analysis of a few given works line by line, even word by word. This is doubtless a firstclass training for the student in the art of expressing himself clearly and logically. But I wonder what Voltaire would say if he heard a brilliantined literature student analyse in the prescribed manner a passage from say, his Letters Philosophiques. Voltaire worked harder than anybody else ever has, but he would need to have lived 200 years and worked 24 hours a day from birth to think of all the subtleties attributed him in such an analysis, let alone write them down.

The time is ten minutes before lecture hour. Outside a locked door is a great crowd of students of both sexes, all with students’ cards. Presently the porter appears from inside the lecture-hall and the students begin to file in, having shown their cards. No card, no admission is the strict rule. The hall is a big one, even for the Sorbonne, but, there seems no end to the file of incoming students. Soon there is not even standing-room. Every now and then there enters a star. He is one of the recent successful essay readers. Overcoat carelessly slung over one shoulder, hair carefully brushed back from pimpled brow, he makes his way down to the front, distributing hand-shakes and nods as he goes. (You use either right or left hand in hand-shaking in Paris, a thing which made me think of a certain illustrious personage who visited New Zealand not so long ago.)

With a last comprehensive backward glance he takes the seat carefully kept for him by some pig-tailed admirer. This is his hour . . . Punctually to the minute the Professor enters preceded by the porter, who makes careful survey of the hall to see that no window has been left open and that every door is shut. (Heating is made effective by heaters and no ventilation). In the meantime the professor is receiving an ovation. He always does, what time he raises gently protesting palm to quell the tumult, which in the course of time dies away. Then follows a lecture to which you listen entranced. It is a gem of scholarship and a true inspiration, so much so that the second ovation which follows the professor out of the room seems excusable. If it were not for the rowdiness of not a few* members of the class, I might take such manifestations to be genuine. As it is I have nr.y doubts . . Corporal punishment is forbidden in* French schools. I wonder if this explains things. The French student is keenly in-! terested in politics. Quite often it 1 appears to be his sole recreation* NowFrench politics is a pretty complicated business. It is a spectrum with Royalist ultra-violet at one end and Communist red at the other. The students seem to sort themselves out somewhere near one or other of the two extremes; arguments are held everywhere about the College; fracas w’ith consequent mishaps occasionally happen; stink-bombs are thrown in Xiolitical meetings; luckily the differences are mostly wordy ones. Talking of politics makes me think of the' Students’ Association. It exists and its activities are many, because the Students’ Handbook nays so. Its headquarters are hard to find. I found them after a long search in a malodorous quarter across the river from Notre Dame. I presented myself there, seeking admission as a member, but in spite of the courtesy of the secretary, I found the formalities rather too complicated and fled the spot. I think it was chiefly the shady neighbourhood which put me off. Anyway there are other means of getting concession tickets for the theatres. . .

I said before that the French student is trained to work. He gets no chance to lose the habit at the University, for h£ has always before him the spectre of the oral examination, which precedes the written one. For an audience at this orjil test you are allowed to invite your friends; if you are fortunate enough to have one more there in the person of your inscrutable examiner so much the better. No? One of the first things I did on starting lectures was to inquire for past examination papers. I w r as told there weren’t any. This was somewhat of a blow’, for we in New Zealand have such things and very useful they are. In racing terms we try to become “pickers” of likely questions. Not so the Frenchman. At 8 o'clock in the morning he goes into the examination room with his morning repast in his pocket. He has for company a hundred or so other unfortunate candidates for asphyxiation. (I told you about the French heating system.) The Professor comes in to w’rite the subject for the examination on the blackboards: one or, at the most, two questions. Supervision is quite lax, but this doesn’t matter in such examinations. Everyone else is too interested in his own fate and in his struggle to get air, to bother to he*n a comrade in misfortune.