The politeness
of the French working-classes may be partly accounted for in the
association of all ranks in early life. Convent, or other schools, for
young ladies, do not exist at Montbeliard, and those who study for the
first and second diploma are generally prepared at Belfort and Besancon,
where the examinations are held.
There is also here an Ecole Normale, training school for teachers; also
a Protestant training school, noted for its excellence. On the whole,
for a town of eight thousand inhabitants, Montbeliard must be considered
rich in educational and intellectual resources.
Much of the farming in these parts is tenant-farming on a fair scale,
i.e., fifty to two or three hundred acres. In the case of small peasant
properties, which, of course, exist also, the land is usually not
divided on the death of the father, the eldest son purchasing the shares
of his brothers and sisters. More on the subject of agriculture will be
said further on, there being nothing particularly striking about the two
tenant-farms I visited with friends in the immediate proximity of the
town. The first, though not a model farm, is considered a good specimen
of farming on a large scale, the size being two hundred and fifty acres,
hired at a rental of fifty francs per hectare, or about a pound per
acre.
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