After him, the springs of his machine relax; and so do, naturally, the two groups controlled by the machine. The first, that of adult men, frees itself the most and the soonest: during the following half century, we see the preventive or repressive censorship of books, journals and theatres, every special instrument that gags free speech, relaxing its hold, breaking down bit by bit and at last tumbling to the ground. Even when again set up and persistently and brutally applied, old legal muzzles are never to become as serviceable as before. No government will undertake, like that of Napoleon, to stop at once all outlets of written thought; some will always remain more or less open. Even during the rigorous years of the Restoration and of the second Empire the stifling process is to diminish; mouths open and there is some way of public expression, at least in books and likewise through the press, provided one speaks discreetly and moderately in cool and general terms and in a low, even tone of voice. Here, the imperial machine, too aggressive, soon broke down; immediately, the iron arm by which it held adults seemed insupportable to them and they were able more and more to bend, push it away or break it. Today, in 1890, nothing remains of it but its fragments; for twenty years it has ceased to work and its parts, even, are utterly useless.

But, to the contrary, in the other direction, in the second group, on children, on boys, on young men, the second arm, intact down to 1850, then shortened but soon strengthened, more energetic and more effective than ever, maintained its hold almost entirely.

Undoubtedly, after 1814, its mechanism is less rigid, its application less strict, its employment less universal, its operation less severe; it gives less offence and does not hurt as much. For example, after the first Restoration,6301 the decree of 1811 against the smaller seminaries is repealed. They are handed back to the bishops, resume their ecclesiastical character and return to the special and normal road out of which Napoleon forced them to march. The drum, the drill and other exercises too evidently Napoleonic disappear almost immediately in the private and public establishments devoted to common instruction. The school system ceases to be a military apprenticeship and the college is no longer a preparatory annex for the barracks. Soon and for many years, Guizot, Cousin, and Villemain brilliantly hold the chairs at Sorbonne university and teach the highest subjects of philosophy, literature and history admired by attentive and sympathetic audiences. Later, under the monarchy of July, the Institute, mutilated by the First Consul, restores and completes itself. It becomes once more united with the suspect division of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, which after the Consulate, had been missing. In 1833, a minister, Guizot, provides, through a law which has become an institution, for the regular maintenance, the obligatory appropriation, the certain recruitment, and for the quality and universality of primary instruction. At the same time, during eighteen years, the university administration, moderating its pressure or smoothing its sharp points, operates at the three stages of instruction in tolerant or liberal hands, with all the caution compatible with its organization. It does so in such a way as to do a great deal of good without much harm, by half-satisfying the majority which, in its entirety, is semi-believer, semi-freethinker, by not seriously offending anybody except the Catholic clergy and that unyielding minority which, through doctrinal principle or through religious zeal, assigns to education as a directing end and supreme object, the definitive cultivation, rooting and flowering of faith. But, in law as well as in fact, the University of 1808 still subsists; it has kept its rights, it levies its taxes, it exercises its jurisdiction and enjoys its monopoly.

In the early days of the Restoration, in 1814, the government maintained it only provisionally. It promised everything, radical reform and full liberty. It announced that, through its efforts, "the forms and direction of the education of children should be restored to the authority of fathers and mothers, tutors and families."6302 Simply a prospectus and an advertisement by the new pedagogue who installs himself and thus, by soothing words, tries to conciliate parents. After a partial sketch and an ordinance quickly repealed,6303 the rulers discover that the University of Napoleon is a very good reigning tool, much better than that of which they had the management previous to 1789, much easier handled and more serviceable. It is the same with all social tools sketched out and half-fashioned by the Revolution and completed and set a-going by the Consulate and the Empire; each is constructed "by reason," "according to principles," and therefore its mechanism is simple; its pieces all fit into each other with precision; they transmit throughout exactly the impulsion received and thus operate at one stroke, with uniformity, instantaneously, with certitude, oil all parts of the territory; the lever which starts the machine is central and, throughout its various services, the new rulers hold this lever in hand. Apropos of local administration, the Duc d'AngoulÊme said in 1815,6304 "We prefer the departments to the provinces." In like manner, the government of the restored monarchy prefers the imperial University, sole, unique, coherent, disciplined and centralized, to the old provincial universities, the old scattered, scholastic institution, diverse, superintended rather than governed, to every school establishment more or less independent and spontaneous.

In the first place, it gains thereby a vast staff of salaried dependents, the entire teaching staff,6305 on which it has a hold through its favors or the reverse through ambition and the desire for promotion, through fear of dismissal and concern for daily bread. At first, 22,000 primary teachers, thousands of professors, directors, censors, principals, regents and subordinates in the 36 lycÉes, 368 colleges and 1255 institutions and boarding-schools. After this, many hundreds of notable individuals, all the leading personages of each university circumscription, the administrators of 28 academies, the professors of the 23 literary faculties, of the 10 faculties of the sciences, of the 9 faculties of law, and of the 3 faculties of medicine. Add to these, the savants of the CollÈge de France and École Polytechnique, every establishment devoted to high, speculative or practical instruction: these are highest in repute and the most influential; here the heads of science and of literature are found. Through them and their seconds or followers of every degree, in the faculties, lycÉes, colleges, minor seminaries, institutions, boarding schools, and small schools, beliefs or opinions can be imposed on, or suggested to, 2000 law students, 4000 medical students, 81,000 thousand pupils in secondary education and 700,000 scholars in the primary department. Let us retain and make use of this admirable tool, but let us apply it to our own purposes and utilize it for our service.6306 Thus far, under the Republic and the Empire, its designers, more or less Jacobin, have moved it as they thought best, and therefore moved it to the "left". Let us now move, as it suits us, to the "right."6307 All that is necessary is to turn it in another direction and for good; henceforth," the basis of education6308 shall be religion, monarchy, legitimacy and the charter."

To this end, we, the dominant party, use our legal rights. In the place of bad wheels we put good ones. We purify our staff. We do not appoint or leave in place any but safe men. At the end of six years, nearly all the rectors, proviseurs and professors of philosophy, many other professors and a number of the censors,6309 are all priests. At the Sorbonne, M. Cousin has been silenced and M. Guizot replaced by M. Durosoir. At the CollÈge de France we have dismissed Tissot and we do not accept M. Magendie. We "suppress" in block the Faculty of Medicine in order that, on reorganizing it, our hands may be free and eleven professors with bad notes be got rid of, among others Pinel, Dubois, de Jussieu, Desgenettes, Pelletan and Vauquelin. We suppress another center of insalubrities, the upper École Normale, and, for the recruitment of our educational body, we institute6310 at the principal seat of each academy a sort of university novitiate where the pupils, few in number, expressly selected, prepared from their infancy, will imbibe deeper and more firmly retain the sound doctrines suitable to their future condition.

We let the small seminaries multiply and fill up until they comprise 50,000 pupils. It is the bishop who founds them; no educator or inspector of education is so worthy of confidence. Therefore, we confer upon him "in all that concerns religion,"6311 the duty "of visiting them himself, or delegating his vicars-general to visit them," the faculty "of suggesting to the royal council of public instruction the measures which he deems necessary." At the top of the hierarchy sits a Grand-Master with the powers and title of M. de Fontanes and with an additional title, member of the cabinet and minister of public instruction, M. de Freyssinous, bishop of Hermopolis,6312 and, in difficult cases, this bishop, placed between his Catholic conscience and the positive articles of the legal statute, "sacrifices the law" to his conscience.6313—This is the advantage which can be taken from the tool of public education. After 1850, it is to be used in the same way and in the same sense; after 1796, and later after 1875, it was made to work as vigorously in the opposite direction. Whatever the rulers may be, whether monarchists, imperialists or republicans, they are the masters who use it for their own advantage; for this reason, even when resolved not to abuse the instrument, they keep it intact; they reserve the use of it for themselves,6314 and pretty hard blows are necessary to sever or relax the firm hold which they have on the central lever.

Except for these excesses and especially after they finish, when the government, from 1828 to 1848, ceases to be sectarian, and the normal play of the institution is no longer corrupted by political interference, the governed accept the University in block, just as their rulers maintain it: they also have motives of their own, the same as for submitting to other tools of Napoleonic centralization.—And first of all, as a departmental and communal institution, the university institution operates wholly alone; it exacts little or no collaboration on the part of those interested; it relieves them of any effort, dispute or care, which is pleasant. Like the local administration, which, without their help or with scarcely any, provides them with bridges, roads, canals, cleanliness, salubrity and precautions against contagious diseases, the scholastic administration, without making any demand on their indolence, puts its full service, the local and central apparatus of primary, secondary, superior and special instruction, its staff and material, furniture and buildings, masters and schedules, examinations and grades, rules and discipline, expenditure and receipts, all at its disposition. As at the door of a table d'hÔte, they are told,

"Come in and take a seat. We offer you the dishes you like best and in the most convenient order. Don't trouble yourself about the waiters or the kitchen; a grand central society, an intelligent and beneficent agency, presiding at Paris takes charge of this and relieves you of it. Pass your plate, and eat; that is all you need care about. Besides, the charge is very small."6315

In effect, here as elsewhere, Napoleon has introduced his rigid economical habits, exact accounts and timely or disguised tax-levies.6316 A few additional centimes among a good many others inserted by his own order in the local budget, a few imperceptible millions among several hundreds of other millions in the enormous sum of the central budget, constitute the resources which defray the expenses of public education. Not only does the quota of each taxpayer for this purpose remain insignificant, but it disappears in the sum total of which it is only an item that he does not notice.—The parents, for the instruction of a child, do not pay out of their pockets directly, with the consciousness of a distinct service rendered them and which they indemnify,6317 but 12, 10, 3, or even 2 francs a year; again, through the increasing extension of gratis instruction, a fifth, then a third,6318 and later one half of them are exempt from this charge.

For secondary instruction, at the college or the lycÉe, they take out of their purses annually only 40 or 50 francs; and, if their son is a boarder, these few francs mingle in with others forming the total sum paid for him during the year, about 700 francs,6319 which is a small sum for defraying the expenses, not only of instruction, but, again, for the support of the lad in lodging, food, washing, light, fire and the rest. The parents, at this rate, feel that they are not making a bad bargain; they are not undergoing extortion, the State not acting like a rapacious contractor. And better yet, it is often a paternal creditor, distributing, as it does, three or four thousand scholarships. If their son obtains one of these, their annual debt is remitted to them and the entire university provision of instruction and support is given to them gratis. In the Faculties, the payment of fees for entrance, examinations, grades and diplomas is not surprising, for the certificates or parchments they receive in exchange for their money are, for the young man, so many positive acquisitions which smooth the way to a career and serve as valuable stock which confers upon him social rank. Besides, the entrance to these Faculties is free and gratuitous, as well as in all other establishments for superior instruction. Whoever chooses and when he chooses may attend without paying a cent.

Thus constituted, the University seems to the public as a liberal, democratic, humanitarian institution and yet economical, expending very little. Its administrators and professors, even the best of them, receive only a small salary—6000 francs at the MusÉum and the CollÉge de France,6320 7500 at the Sorbonne, 5000 in the provincial Faculties, 4000 or 3000 in the lycÉes, 2000, 1500 and 1200 in the communal colleges—just enough to live on. The highest functionaries live in a very modest way; each keeps body and soul together on a small salary which he earns by moderate work, without notable increase or decrease, in the expectation of gradual promotion or of a sure pension at the end. There is no waste, the accounts being well kept; there are no sinecures, even in the libraries; no unfair treatment or notorious scandals. Envy, notions of equality scarcely exist; there are enough situations for petty ambitions and average merit, while there is scarcely any place for great ambitions or great merit. Eminent men serve the State and the public cheaply for a living salary, a higher rank in the Legion of Honor, sometimes for a seat in the Institute, or for European fame in connection with a university, with no other recompense than the satisfaction of working according to conscience6321 and of winning the esteem of twenty or thirty competent judges who, in France or abroad, are capable of appreciating their labor at its just value.6322

The last reason for accepting or tolerating the University; its work at home, or in its surroundings, develops gradually and more or less broadly according to necessities.—In 1815, there were 22,000 primary schools of every kind; in 1829,6323 30,000; and in 1850, 63,000. In 1815, 737,000 children were taught in them; in 1829, 1,357,000; and in 1850, 3,787,000. In 1815, there was only one normal school for the education of primary teachers; in 1850, there are 78. Consequently, whilst in 1827, 42 out of 100 conscripts could read, there were in 1877, 85; whilst in 1820, 34 out of 100 women could write their names on the marriage contract, in 1879 there are 70.—Similarly, in the lycÉes and colleges, the University which, in 1815, turned out 37,000 youths, turns out 54,000 in 1848, and 64,000 in 1865;6324 many branches of study, especially history,6325 are introduced into secondary instruction and bear good fruit.—Even in superior instruction which, through organization, remains languid, for parade, or in a rut, there are ameliorations; the State adds chairs to its Paris establishments and founds new Faculties in the provinces. In sum, an inquisitive mind capable of self-direction can, at least in Paris, acquire full information and obtain a comprehensive education on all subjects by turning the diverse university institutions to account.—If there are very serious objections to the system, for example, regarding the boarding part of it (internat), the fathers who had been subject to it accept it for their sons. If there were very great defects in it, for example, the lack of veritable universities, the public which had not been abroad and ignores history did not perceive them. In vain does M. Cousin, in relation to public instruction in Germany, in his eloquent report of 1834, as formerly Cuvier in his discreet report of 1811, point out this defect; in vain does M. Guizot, the minister, propose to remove it:

"I did not find," says he,6326 "any strong public opinion which induced me to carry out any general and urgent measure in higher instruction. In the matter of superior instruction the public, at this time,... was not interested in any great idea, or prompted by any impatient want.... Higher education as it was organized and given, sufficed for the practical needs of society, which regarded it with a mixture of satisfaction and indifference."

In the matter of education, not only at this third stage but again for the first two stages, public opinion so far as aims, results, methods and limitations is concerned, was apathetic. That wonderful science which, in the eighteenth century, with Jean-Jacques, Condillac, Valentin, Hally, AbbÉ de l'EpÉe and so many others, sent forth such powerful and fruitful jets, had dried up and died out; transplanted to Switzerland and Germany, pedagogy yet lives but it is dead on its native soil.6327 There is no longer in France any persistent research nor are there any fecund theories on the aims, means, methods, degrees and forms of mental and moral culture, no doctrine in process of formation and application, no controversies, no dictionaries and special manuals, not one well-informed and important Review, and no public lectures. Now an experimental science is simply the summing-up of many diverse experiences, freely attempted, freely discussed and verified. Through the forced results of the university monopoly there are no actual universities: among other results of the Napoleonic institution, one could after 1808 note, the decadence of pedagogy and foresee its early demise. Neither parents, nor masters nor the young cared anything about it; outside of the system in which they live they imagine nothing; they are accustomed to it the same as to the house in which they dwell. They may grumble sometimes at the arrangement of the rooms, the low stories and narrow staircases, against bad lighting, ventilation and want of cleanliness, against the exactions of the proprietor and concierge; but, as for transforming the building, arranging it otherwise, reconstructing it in whole or in part, they never think of it. For, in the first place, they have no plan; and next, the house is too large and its parts too well united; through its mass and size it maintains itself and would still remain indefinitely if, all at once, in 1848, an unforeseen earthquake had not made breaches in its walls.