Introduction to the Study of History Part 16

But, during the interval, visible progress has been made in the direction which we consider the right one, and now a solution seems near.

IV. The old examination-system required candidates for degrees to show that they had received an excellent secondary education. As it condemned those candidates, students receiving higher instruction, to exercises of the same kind as those of which they had already had their fill in the _lycees_, it was a simple matter to attack it. It was defended feebly, and has been demolished.

But how was it to be replaced? The problem was very complex. Is it any wonder that it was not solved at a stroke?

First of all, it was important to come to an agreement on this preliminary question: What are the capacities and what is the knowledge students should be required to give proof of possessing? General knowledge? Technical knowledge and the capacity of doing original research (as at the ecole des chartes and the ecole des hautes etudes)?

Pedagogic capacity? It came gradually to be recognised that, considering the great extent and variety of the cla.s.s from which the students are drawn, it is necessary to draw distinctions.

From candidates for the licentiate it is enough to require that they should give proof of good general culture, permitting them at the same time, if they wish, to show that they have a taste for, and some experience in, original research.

From the candidates for _agregation_ (_licentia docendi_) who have already obtained the licentiate, there will be required (1) formal proof that they know, by experience, what it is to study an historical problem, and that they have the technical knowledge necessary for such studies; (2) proof of pedagogic capacity, which is a professional necessity for this cla.s.s.

The students who are not candidates for anything, neither for the licentiate nor for _agregation_, and who are simply seeking to obtain scientific initiation--the old programmes did not contemplate the existence of such a cla.s.s of students--will merely be required to prove that they have profited by the tuition and the advice they have received.

This settled, a great stride has been made. For programmes, as we know, regulate study. By virtue of the authority of the programmes historical studies in the Faculties will now have the threefold character which it is desirable that they should have. General culture will not cease to be held in honour. Technical exercises in criticism and research will have their legitimate place. Lastly, pedagogy (theoretical and practical) will not be neglected.

The difficulties begin when it is attempted to determine the tests which, in each department, are the best, that is, the most conclusive.

On this subject opinions differ. Though no one now contests the principles, the modes of application which have hitherto been tried or suggested do not meet with unanimous approval. The organisation of the licentiate has been revised three times; the statute relating to the _agregation_ in history has been reformed or amended five times. And this is not the end. New simplifications are imperative. But what is the importance of this instability--of which, however, complaints begin to be heard[247]--if it is established, as we believe it is, that progress towards a better state of things has been continuous through all these changes, without any notable retrogression?

There is no need to explain here in detail the different transitory systems which have been put into practice. We have had occasion to criticise them elsewhere.[248] Now that most of what we objected to has been abolished, what is the use of reviving old controversies? We shall not even mention the points in which the present system seems to us to be still capable of improvement, for there is reason to hope that it will soon be modified, and in a very satisfactory manner. Let it suffice to say that the Faculties now confer a new diploma, the _Diplome d'etudes superieures_, which all the students have a right to seek, but which the candidates for _agregation_ are obliged to obtain. This diploma of higher studies, a.n.a.logous to that of the ecole des hautes etudes, the _brevet_ of the ecole des chartes, and the doctorate in philosophy at the German universities, is given to those students of history who, qualified by a certain academical standing, have pa.s.sed an examination in which the princ.i.p.al tests are, besides questions on the "sciences" auxiliary to historical research, the composition and the defence of an original monograph. Every one now recognises that "the examination for the diploma of studies will yield excellent fruit, if the vigilance and conscientiousness of examiners maintain it at its proper value."[249]

V. To sum up, the attractions of preparation for degrees have brought the Faculties a host of students. But, under the old system of examinations for the licentiate and for _agregation_, preparation for degrees was a task which did not harmonise very well with the work which the Faculties deemed suitable for themselves, useful to their pupils, and advantageous to science. The examination-system has therefore been perseveringly reformed, not without difficulty, into conformity with a certain ideal of what the higher teaching of history ought to be. The result is that the Faculties have taken rank among the inst.i.tutions which contribute to the positive progress of the historical sciences. An enumeration of the works which have appeared under their auspices during the last few years would, if necessary, bear witness to the fact.

This evolution has already produced satisfactory results, and will produce more if it goes on as well as it has begun. To begin with, the transformation of historical instruction in the Faculties has brought about a corresponding transformation at the ecole normale superieure.

The ecole normale has also, for two years, been awarding a "_Diplome d'etudes_"; original researches, pedagogic exercises, and general culture are encouraged there in the same degree as by the new Faculties.

It now differs from the Faculties only in being a close inst.i.tution, recruited under certain precautions; practically it is a Faculty like the others, but with a small number of select students. Secondly, the ecole des hautes etudes and the ecole des chartes, both of which will be installed at the end of 1897, in the renovated Sorbonne, have still their justification for existence; for many specialists are represented at the ecole des hautes etudes which are not, and doubtless never will be, represented in the Faculties; and, in the case of the studies bearing on mediaeval history, the body of converging instruction given at the ecole des chartes will always be incomparable. But the old antagonism between the ecole des hautes etudes and the ecole des chartes on the one hand, and the Faculties on the other, has disappeared. All these inst.i.tutions, lately so dissimilar, will henceforth co-operate for the purpose of carrying on a common work in a common spirit. Each of these retains its name, its autonomy, and its traditions; but together they form a whole: the historical section of an ideal University of Paris, much vaster than the one which was sanctioned by the law in 1896.

Of this "greater" University, the ecole des chartes, the ecole des hautes etudes, the ecole normale superieure, and the whole body of historical instruction given by the Faculty of Letters, are now practically so many independent "_inst.i.tuts_."