If it no longer retains its ubiquity, it is because something even less adaptable to the object in view has been since invented.
Lest, in spite of all, the British schoolboy should obtain, even from the like of "Ahn," some glimmering of French, the British educational method further handicaps him by bestowing upon him the assistance of, what is termed in the prospectus, "A native gentleman." This native French gentleman, who, by-the-by, is generally a Belgian, is no doubt a most worthy person, and can, it is true, understand and speak his own language with tolerable fluency.

There his qualifications cease.

Invariably he is a man with a quite remarkable inability to teach anybody anything.
Indeed, he would seem to be chosen not so much as an instructor as an amuser of youth.

He is always a comic figure.

No Frenchman of a dignified appearance would be engaged for any English school.