The school benches.

Here we are close to the fateful date. Already the shadow of the "box" looms over the last days of vacation. And yet the start of the school year is no longer incarceration behind the high, forbidding walls of a sort of prison.

Corporal punishment, which was not spared even for "philosophy" students, whipped in the courtyard as the annals of Louis the Great tell us, was abolished in 1834 as incompatible with the dignity of the teacher and the student. In 1842, kneeling was abolished, and finally in 1887 the teacher was forbidden to address the student informally.

The college was also modernized according to the laws of hygiene. In some of our institutions, such as Lakanal founded by Jules Ferry, or in Vanves (Michelet high school) in the former domain of the princes of Condé, many courses are given outdoors. The Pasteur high school, the most recent, is perfectly equipped. As for the oldest of all Parisian colleges, since it was founded in 1289, Saint-Louis, it has had a new lease of life.