Educated at the Lycee Corot, and the Rcole Normale he was successively professor of philosophy at the Lycee d'Angers 1881-3, at the Lycee de Clermont 1883-8, at the College Rollin 1888-9, at the Lycee Henry IV.
After a successful course of study at the College Rollin, he proceeded to Munich, where he attended the lectures of Schelling, and took his degree in philosophy in 1836.
Together with his elder brother Charles he was educated in Paris at the College Rollin.
Early in the 18th century Rollin pleaded for the " utility of Greek," while he described that language as the heritage of the university of Paris.
Rollin held Jansenist (2 vols., 1895-96), in the "Library of Early English Writers."