The Modern Regime Volume II Part 14

(Geist und Inhalt).--Cf. Guizot, "Essai sur l'histoire et l'etat actuel de l'instruction publique," 1816, p.103.]

[Footnote 6161: "Travels in France during the Years 1814 and 1815"

(Edinburgh, 1816), vol. I., p. 152.]

[Footnote 6162: "Ambroise Rendu et l'Universite de France," by E. Rendu (1861), pp. 25 and 26. (Letter of the Emperor, Floreal 3, year XIII, and report by Fourcroy.)]

[Footnote 6163: "Recueil," etc., by de Beauchamp, I., 151. (Report to the Corps Legislatif by Fourcroy, May 6, 1806.)]

[Footnote 6164: "Proces-verbaux et papiers" (ma.n.u.scripts) of the superior council of the University, session of March 12, 1811, note by the Emperor communicated by the Grand-Master: "The Grand-Master will direct that in all boarding-schools and inst.i.tutions which may come into existence, the pupils shall wear a uniform, and that everything shall go on as in the lycees according to military discipline." In the decree in conformity with this, of Nov. 15, 1811, the word military was omitted, probably because it seemed too crude; but it shows the thought behind it, the veritable desire of Napoleon.--Quicherat," Histoire de Sainte-Barbe," III., 126. The decree was enforced "even in the smallest boarding-schools."]

[Footnote 6165: Testimony of Alfred de Vigny in "Grandeur et Servitude militaires." Same impression of Alfred de Musset in his "Confession d'un enfant du siecle."]

[Footnote 6166: Quicherat, ibid., p.126.]

[Footnote 6167: "The Modern Regime," I. (Laff. I. p. 550.)]

[Footnote 6168: Hermann Niemeyer, ibid., I., 153.]

[Footnote 6169: "Travels in France," etc., II.,123. (Testimony of a French gentleman.) "The rapid destruction of population in France caused constant promotions, and the army became the career which offered the most chances. It was a profession for which no education was necessary and to which all had access. There, Bonaparte never allowed merit to go unrecognized."]

[Footnote 6170: Veron, "Memoires d'un bourgeois de Paris," I., 127 (year 1806).]

[Footnote 6171: Guizot, ibid., pp.59 and 61.--Fabry, "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de l'instruction publique," III., 102. (On the families of these favorites and on the means made use of to obtain these scholarships.)--Jourdain, "le Budget de l'instruction publique (1857)", p. 144.--In 1809, in the 36 lycees, there are 9,068 pupils, boarding and day scholars, of whom 4,199 are boursiers. In 1811, there are 10,926 pupils, of whom 4,008 are boursiers. In 1813, there are 14,992 pupils, of whom 3,500 are boursiers. At the same epoch, in private establishments, there are 30,000 pupils.]

[Footnote 6172: Fabry, ibid., II.,391 (1819). (On the peopling of the lycees and colleges.) "The first nucleus of the boarders was furnished by the Prytanee.... Tradition has steadily transmitted this spirit to all the pupils that succeeded each other for the first twelve years."-- Ibid., III., 112 "The inst.i.tution of lycees tends to creating a race inimical to repose, eager and ambitious, foreign to the domestic affections and of a military and adventurous spirit."]

[Footnote 6173: Quicherat, ibid., III., 126.]

[Footnote 6174: Hermann Niemeyer, ibid., II.,350.]

[Footnote 6175: Fabry, ibid., III., 109-112.]

[Footnote 6176: Ambroise Rendu, "Essai sur l'instruction publique,"

(1819), I., 221. (Letter of Napoleon to M. de Fontanes, March 24, 1808.)]

[Footnote 6177: "Memorial," June 17, 1816.]

[Footnote 6178: Pelet de la Lozere, ibid., 154, 157, 159.]

[Footnote 6179: "Memorial," June 17, 1816. "This conception of the University by Napoleon must be taken with another, of more vast proportions, which he sets forth in the same conversation and which clearly shows his complete plan. He desired "the military cla.s.sing of the nation," that is to say five successive conscriptions, one above the other. The first, that of children and boys by means of the University; the second, that of ordinary conscripts yearly and effected by the drawing by lot; the third, fourth and fifth provided by three standards of national guard, the first one comprising young unmarried men and held to frontier service, the second comprising men of middle age, married and to serve only in the department, and the third comprising aged men to be employed only in the defense of towns--in all, through these three cla.s.ses, two millions of cla.s.sified men, enrolled and armed, each with his post a.s.signed him in case of invasion. "In 1810 or 1811 up to fifteen or twenty drafts of this" proposal "was read to the council of State. The Emperor, who laid great stress on it, frequently came back to it." We see the place of the University in his edifice: from ten to sixty years, his universal conscription was to take, first, children, then adults, and, with healthy persons, the semi-invalids, as, for instance, Cambaceres, the arch-chancellor, gross, impotent, and, of all men, the least military. "There is Cambaceres," says Napoleon, "who must be ready to shoulder his gun if danger makes it necessary.... Then you will have a nation sticking together like lime and sand, able to defy time and man." There is constant repugnance to this by the whole Council of State, "marked disfavor, mute and inert opposition.... Each member trembled at seeing himself cla.s.sed, transported abroad," and, under pretext of internal defense, used for foreign wars. "The Emperor, absorbed with other projects, saw this plan vanish."]

CHAPTER II.

I. Primary Instruction.

Primary instruction.--Additional and special restrictions on the teacher.--Ecclesiastical supervision.--Napoleon's motives.--Limitation of primary instruction.--Ignorant monks preferred.--The imperial catechism.

Such is secondary education, his most personal, most elaborate, most complete work; the other two stories of the educational system, under and over, built in a more summary fashion, are adapted to the middle story and form, the three together, a regular monument, of which the architect has skillfully balanced the proportions, distributed the rooms, calculated the service and designed the facade and scenic effect.

"Napoleon," says a contemporary adversary,[6201] "familiar with power only in its most absolute form, military despotism, tried to part.i.tion France in two categories, one composed of the ma.s.ses, destined to fill the ranks of his vast army, and disposed, through the brutishness which he was willing to maintain; to pa.s.sive obedience and fanatical devotion; the other, more refined by reason of its wealth, was to lead the former according to the views of the chief who equally dominated both, for which purpose it was to be formed in schools where, trained for a servile and, so to say, mechanical submission, it would acquire relative knowledge, especially in the art of war and with regard to a wholly material administration; after this, vanity and self-interest were to attach it to his person and identify it, in some way with his system of government."

Lighten this gloomy picture one degree and it is true.[6202] As to primary instruction, there was no State appropriation, no credit inscribed on the budget, no aid in money, save 25,000 francs, allotted in 1812, to the novices of the Freres Ignorantins and of which they received but 4,500 francs;[6203] the sole mark of favor accorded to the small schools is an exemption from the dues of the University.[6204] His councillors, with their habits of fiscal logic, proposed to exact this tax here as elsewhere; a shrewd politician, he thinks that its collection would prove odious and he is bound not to let his popularity suffer among villagers and common people; it is 200,000 francs a year which he abstains from taking from them; but here his liberalities in behalf of primary instruction stop. Let parents and the communes take this burden on themselves, pay its expenses, seek out and hire the teacher, and provide for a necessity which is local and almost domestic.

The government, which invites them to do this, will simply furnish the plan, that is to say, a set of rules, prescriptions and restrictions.

At first, there is the authorization of the prefect, guardian of the commune, who, having invited the commune to found a school, has himself, through a circular, given instructions to this end, and who now interferes in the contract between the munic.i.p.al council and the teacher, to approve of or to rectify its clauses--the name of the employee, duration of his engagement, hours and seasons for his cla.s.ses, subjects to be taught, the sum total and conditions of his pay in money or in kind; the school grant must be paid by the commune, the school tax by the pupils, the petty fees which help pay the teacher's living expenses and which he gets from accessory offices such as mayor's clerk, clock-winder, s.e.xton, bell-ringer and chorister in the church[6205]--At the same time, and in addition, there is the authorization of the rector; for the small as well as the average or larger schools are included in the University;[6206] the new master becomes a member of the teaching body, binds himself and belongs to it by oath, takes upon himself its obligations and submissions, comes under the special jurisdiction of the university authorities, and is inspected, directed and controlled by them in his cla.s.s and outside of his cla.s.s.--The last supervision, still more searching and active, which close by, incessantly and on the spot, hovers over all small schools by order and spontaneously, is the ecclesiastical supervision. A circular of the Grand-Master, M. de Fontanes,[6207] requests the bishops to instruct "messieurs les cures of their diocese to send in detailed notes on their parish schoolmasters;" "when these notes are returned," he says, "please address them to me with your remarks on them; according to these indications I will approve of the instructor who merits your suffrage and he will receive the diploma authorizing him to continue in his functions. Whoever fails to present these guarantees will not receive a diploma and I shall take care to replace him with another man whom you may judge to be the most capable."[6208]

If Napoleon thus places his small schools under ecclesiastical oversight, it is not merely to conciliate the clergy by giving it the lead of the majority of souls, all the uncultivated souls, but because, for his own interests, he does not want the ma.s.s of the people to think and reason too much for themselves.

"The Academy inspectors,"[6209] says the decree of 1811, "will see that the masters of the primary schools do not carry their teaching beyond reading, writing and arithmetic."

Beyond this limit, should the instructor teach a few of the children the first elements of Latin or geometry, geography or history, his school becomes secondary; it is then ranked as a boarding-school, while its pupils are subjected to the university recompense, military drill, uniform, and all the above specified exigencies; and yet more--it must no longer exist and is officially closed. A peasant who reads, writes and ciphers and who remains a peasant need know no more, and, to be a good soldier, he need not know as much; moreover, that is enough, and more too, to enable him to become an under and even a superior officer.

Take, for instance, Captain Coignet, whose memoirs we have, who, to be appointed a second-lieutenant, had to learn to write and who could never write other than a large hand, like young beginners.--The best masters for such limited instruction are the Brethren of the Christian Schools and these, against the advice of his counselors, Napoleon supports:

"If they are obliged," he says, by their vows to refrain from other knowledge than reading, writing and the elements of arithmetic,... it is that they may be better adapted to their destiny."[6210] "In comprising them in the University, they become connected with the civil order of things and the danger of their independence is antic.i.p.ated."

Henceforth, "they no longer have a stranger or a foreigner for their chief." "The superior-general at Rome has renounced all inspection over them; it is understood that in France their superior-general will reside at Lyons."[6211] The latter, with his monks, fall into the hands of the government and come under the authority of the Grand-Master. Such a corporation, with the head of it in one's power, is a perfect instrument, the surest, the most exact, always to be relied on and which never acts on one side of, or beyond, the limits marked out for it.

Nothing pleases Napoleon more, who,

* in the civil order of things, wants to be Pope;

* who builds up his State, as the Pope his Church, on old Roman tradition;

* who, to govern from above, allies himself with ecclesiastical authority;

* who, like Catholic authorities, requires drilled executants and regimental maneuvers, only to be found in organized and special bodies of men.[6212]

The general inspectors of the University give to each rector the following instructions as a watchword "Wherever the Brethren of the Christian Schools can be found, they shall," for primary teaching, "be preferred to all others."[6213] Thus, to the three cla.s.ses of subjects taught, a fourth must be added, one not mentioned by the legislator in his law, but which Napoleon admits, which the rectors and prefects recommend or authorize, and which is always inscribed in the contract made between the commune and the instructor. The latter, whether layman or 'frere ignorantin,' engages to teach, besides "reading, writing and decimal arithmetic," "the catechism adopted by the Empire."

Consequently, as the first communion (of the pupil) draws near, he is careful, for at least two years, to have his scholars learn the consecrated text by heart, and to recite this text aloud on their benches, article by article; in this way, his school becomes a branch of the Church and, hence, like the Church, a reigning instrumentality. For, in the catechism adopted for the Empire, there is one phrase carefully thought out, full and precise in its meaning, in which Napoleon has concentrated the quintessence of his political and social doctrine and formulated the imperative belief a.s.signed by him as the object of education. The seven or eight hundred thousand children of the lower schools recite this potent phrase to the teacher before reciting it to the priest:

"We especially owe to Napoleon I., our Emperor, love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military service, and the dues (tributs) prescribed for the preservation and defense of the Empire and the throne.... For it is he whom G.o.d has raised up in times of difficulty, to restore public worship and the holy religion of our forefathers, and to be its protector."[6214]

II. Higher Education.

Superior instruction.--Characters and conditions of scientific universities.--Motives for opposition to them.

--In what respect adverse to the French system.--How he replaces them.--Extent of secondary instruction.--Meets all wants in the new social order of things.--The careers it leads to.--Special schools.--Napoleon requires them professional and practical.--The law school.

Superior instruction, the most important of all, remains. For, in this third and last stage of education, the minds and opinions of young people from eighteen to twenty-four years of age are fully formed. It is then that, already free and nearly ripe, these future occupants of busy careers, just entering into practical life, shape their first general ideas, their still hazy and half-poetic views of things, their premature and foregone conclusions respecting man, nature, society and the great interests of humanity.

If we want them to arrive at sound conclusions, a good many scales must be prepared for them, and these scales must be substantial, convergent, each with its own rungs of the ladder superposed, each with an indication of its total scope, each expressly designating the absent, doubtful, provisional or simply future and possible rungs, because they are in course of formation or on trial.[6215]--Consequently, these must all be got together in a designated place, in adjacent buildings, not alone the body of professors, the spokes-men of science, but collections, laboratories and libraries which const.i.tute the instruments. Moreover, besides ordinary and regular courses of lectures, there must be lecture halls where, at appointed hours, every enterprising, knowledgeable person with something to say may speak to those who would like to listen. Thus, a sort of oral encyclopedia is organized, an universal exposition of human knowledge, a permanent exposition constantly renewed and open, to which its visitors, provided with a certificate of average instruction as an entrance ticket, will see with their own eyes, besides established science that which is under of formation, besides discoveries and proofs the way of discovering and proving, namely the method, history and general progress, the place of each science in its group, and of this group its place in the general whole. Owing to the extreme diversity of subjects taught there will be room and occupation for the extreme diversity of intelligences. Young minds can choose for themselves their own career, mount as high as their strength allows, climb up the tree of knowledge each on his own side, with his own ladder, in his own way, now pa.s.sing from the branches to the trunk and again from the trunk to the branches, now from a remote bough to the princ.i.p.al branch and from that again back to the trunk.