Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/28

 his life he had a passion for the Greek writers, especially Homer and Plato. Jaurès' youth was very studious and he had to be restrained at times from reading even at meals. Owing however to the circumstances in which his parents were placed, he would not have been able to continue his education without the help of M. Felix Deltour, an Inspector of Schools, who "discovered" the young Jaurès in the college at Castres, and took him under his protection. M. Deltour's views were reactionary and he would probably have been far from satisfied if he could have foreseen the development of the boy in whom he was so interested. This, however, being mercifully hidden from him, he enabled Jaurès, with true kind-heartedness, not only to go to Paris to spend two years at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, but also to follow up his studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. The Ecole Normale Supérieure is a training school for teachers in State Secondary Schools, and the students follow the classes at the Sorbonne.

During his boyhood in the country, Jaurès had always loved talking with the peasants and sharing in their work. On the Thursday half-holiday which is customary in France, or after he had finished preparing his lessons in the evenings, he loved to help load the hay, and later in the year to join in the vintage and even to guide a plough. It has been remarked more than once