The Modern Regime, Volume 2

VI. Summary.

In this manner does the education by the State end. (in 1890) When a matter is taken out of the hands of those who are concerned and handed over to a third and differently motivated party, it cannot end well; sooner or later, this basic defect will dominate and lead to unexpected results. In this case a growing disparity between education and life. On the three levels of instruction, infancy, adolescence and youth, the actual theoretical and direct instruction is extended and overloaded with the examination, the grade, the diploma and the certificate in view only. To this end any and all means is used; through the application of an unnatural and anti-social system competition, through excessive delay in practical apprenticeship, through the internat, through artificial stimulation and mechanical cramming, and through overwork. There is no consideration of the future, of the adult epoch and the duties of the complete man. The real world in which the young man is about to enter, the state of society to which he must adapt or resign himself, the human struggle in which he must defend himself or keep erect is left out. For this new life he is neither armed, equipped, drilled and hardened. That solid common sense, that determination and those steady nerves, indispensable tools in life, are not dispensed by our schools; quite the contrary; far from qualifying him for his approaching independence the schools disqualify him for it. Accordingly, his entrance into the world and his first steps on the field of practical life are generally a series of painful failures; as a consequence he remains bruised, often for a long time, offended sometimes permanently crippled. This is a rude and dangerous ordeal; the moral and mental balance is altered and risks never being restored; his illusions vanish too suddenly and too completely. His deceptions have been too great and his disappointment too severe. Sometimes, among close friends, embittered and worn out like himself, he is tempted to tell us:

"Through your education you have led us to believe, or you have let us believe, that the world is made in a certain fashion. You have deceived us. It is much uglier, more dull, dirtier, sadder and harder, at least in our opinion and to our imagination: you judge us as overexcited and disordered; if so, it is your fault. For this reason, we curse and scoff at your world and reject your pretended truths which, for us, are lies, including those elementary and primordial verities which you declare are evident to common sense, and on which you base your laws, your institutions, your society, your philosophy, your sciences and your arts."

This is what our contemporary youth, through their tastes, opinions, vague desires in letters, arts and life, have loudly proclaimed for the past fifteen years.63106 (Written in 1890.)

POSTSCRIPT:

It is only fair to the French to note that they have, since the law called Debré in 1959 allowed the Catholic schools to operate freely with teachers paid by the state provided they,

* use qualified teachers,

* have a contract with the government submitting to inspection of their buildings etc.,

* submit to government study programs,

* regular accepted hours etc. (SR.)

6301 (return)
[ Ordinance of Oct. 4, 1814.]

6302 (return)
[ Liard, "L'Enseignement supérieur pendant la Restauration." (Rev. des deux Mondes, number for Feb.15, 1892.) Decree of April 8, 1814.]

6303 (return)
[ Ordinance of April 17, 1815 (to suppress the university pay and separate the sole University into seventeen regional universities.) This ordinance, dating from the last days of the first Restoration, is repealed the first days of the second Restoration, Aug. 15, 1815.]

6304 (return)
[ "The Modern Régime," p.316. (Laff. II 581-582.)]

6305 (return)
[ Basset, censor of studies in the Charlemagne college, "Coup d'oeil général sur l'Éducation et l'Instruction publique en France" (1816), p. 21. (State of the University in 1815.)]

6306 (return)
[ Today, in year 2000, the educational machinery in France employs more than 1 million teachers and, as all children are in school from the age of 3 to at least 16 years of age, there are more than 12 million children and students under the tutelage of the state. (SR.)]

6307 (return)
[ Political party terms.]

6308 (return)
[ Ordinance of Feb.21, 1821, article 13, and Report by M. de Corbières: "The youth clamour for a religious and moral direction.. .. The religious direction belongs by right to the highest pastors: it is proper to ask from them for these establishments (the university colleges) for constant supervision and to legally call on them to suggest all measures that they may deem necessary."]

6309 (return)
[ Liard, "L'Enseignement supérieur," 840 (Speech by Benjamin Constant in the Chamber of Députés, May 18th, 1827).]

6310 (return)
[ Ordinances of Novem. 21, 1822, article I, and Feb. 2, 1823, article II.]

6311 (return)
[ Ordinances of Sep. 6, 1822, and of Feb. 21st, 1821, title VI, with report by M. de Corbières.]

6312 (return)
[ Liard, ibid., p. 840. (Circular addressed to the rectors by Monseigneur Freyssinous immediately after his installation:) "In summoning a man of sacerdotal character to the head of public instruction, His Majesty has made all France well aware of his great desire to have the youth of his kingdom brought up in monarchical and religious sentiments.... Whoever has the misfortune to live without religion, or not to be devoted to the reigning family, ought to be sensible of what he lacks in becoming a worthy instructor of youth. He is to be pitied and is even culpable."—"Ambroise Rendu," by Eug. Rendu, p. III (circular to rectors in 1817). "Make it known to the MM. the bishops and to all ecclesiastics that, in the work of education, you are simply auxiliaries, and that the object of primary instruction is above all to fortify religious instruction."]

6313 (return)
[ De Riancey, "Histoire de l'instruction publique," II.,312. (Apropos of the lectures by Guizot and Cousin, stopped by Mgr. de Freyssinous:) "He did not believe that a Protestant and a philosopher could treat the most delicate questions of history and science with impartiality, and through a fatal effect of the monopoly he found himself placed between his conscience and the law. On this occasion he sacrificed the law."]

6314 (return)
[ Liard, ibid., p.837. After 1820, "a series of measures are passed which, little by little, give back its primitive constitution to the University and even end in incorporating it more closely with power than under the Empire."]

6315 (return)
[ Here Taine describes the very principle of democratic government in a welfare state. "Do not worry, demand and we supply, the rich will pay!!!" Taine understood and foresaw the riches which the industrial society could be made to produce but neither he nor anyone else could foresee that Human Rights should include central heating, housing, running hot and cold water, television, free health care, a car and worldwide tourism..(SR.)]

6316 (return)
[ See "The Modern Régime," I., pp.183, 202.]

6317 (return)
[ Maggiolo, "des Ecoles en Lorraine." (Details on several communal schools.) 3rd part, pp. 9-50.—Cf. Jourdain, "le Budget de l'Instruction publique," 1857, passim. (Appropriation by the State for primary instruction in 1829, 100,000 francs; in 1832, 1,000,000 francs; in 1847, 2,400,000 francs;—for secondary instruction, in 1830, 920,000 francs; in 1848, 1,500,000 francs; in 1854, 1,549,241 francs. (The towns support their own communal colleges.)—Liard," Universités et Facultés," p. II. In 1829, the budget of Faculties does not reach 1,000,000 francs; in 1848, it is 2,876,000 francs.]

6318 (return)
[ Law of Floreal 11, year X, article 4.—"Rapport sur la statistique comparée de l'enseignement primaire," 1880, vol. II.,p. 133;—31 per cent of the pupils in the public schools were gratuitously admitted in 1837; 57 per cent in 1876-77. The congregationists admit about two thirds of their scholars gratuitously and one third for pay.]

6319 (return)
[ Cf. Jourdain, Ibid., pp. 22, 143, 161.]

6320 (return)
[ Cf. Jourdain, Ibid., p.287. (The fixed salary and examination-fees are included in the above figures.) In 1850, the regular salary of the professor in the Paris Medical Faculty is reduced from 7000 to 6000 francs. In 1849, the maximum of all the salaries of the Law professors is limited to 12,000 francs.]

6321 (return)
[ Read, among other biographies, "Ambroise Rendu," by Eug. Rendu.]

6322 (return)
[ This, in France, lasted until the Communists in 1946 insisted as a price for their participation in governing France that the right to strike for civil servants be inserted in the French Constitution. In this way Stalin was sure to trouble France a great deal. (SR.)]

6323 (return)
[ "Rapport sur la statistique comparée de l'enseignement primaire," 1880, vol. II.,pp.8, 110, 206.—Law of March 15, 1850, "Exposé des motifs," by M. Beugnot.]

6324 (return)
[ "Revue des Deux Mondes," number of Aug.15, 1869, pp. 909, 911. (Article by M. Boissier.)]

6325 (return)
[ Act of Nov. 9, 1818. (Down to 1850 and after, the University so arranged its teaching (in high school) as not to come in conflict with the clergy on the debatable grounds of history. For example, at the end of the 8th grade the history of the Roman Empire after Augustus was rapidly passed over and then, in the 9th grade, they began again with the invasion of the barbarians. The origins of Christianity and the entire primitive history of the Christian Church were thus avoided. For the same reason, modern history ended in 1789.]

6326 (return)
[ M. Guizot, "Mémoires," vol. II.]

6327 (return)
[ An eminent university personage, a political character and man of the world, said to me in 1850: "Pedagogy does not exist. There are only personal methods which each finds out for himself and eloquent phrases for effect on the public."—Bréal, "Quelques mots sur l'instruction publique" (1872), p. 300: "France produces more works on sericiculture than on the direction of colleges; rules and a few works already ancient suffice for us."]

6328 (return)
[ On this day the monarchy of King Louis-Phillippe collapsed and the Republic was declared. (SR.)]

6329 (return)
[ "L'Église et l'État sous la monarchie de juillet," by Thureau-Dangin, 481-483.]

6330 (return)
[ Law of March 15, 1850 (Report by M. Beugnot).]

6331 (return)
[ Law of March 15, 1850, art. 21.]

6332 (return)
[ Law of March 15, 1850, article 21.]

6333 (return)
[ "Ambroise Rendu et l'Université de France," by E. Rendu, p.128 (January, 1850). The discretionary power given to the prefects to punish "the promoters of socialism" among the teachers in the primary schools.—Six hundred and eleven teachers revoked.—There was no less repression and oppression in the secondary and higher departments of instruction.]

6334 (return)
[ Kingdom of July, (Louis-Philippe from 1830 to 24-2-1848.) (SR.)]

6335 (return)
[ De Riancey, ibid., II.., 476. (Words of M. Saint-Marc Girardin.) "We instruct, we do not bring up (children); we cultivate and develop the mind, not the heart."—Similar evidence, as for instance that of M. Dubois, director of the Ecole Normale and of M. Guizot, minister of public instruction. "Education is not up to the level of instruction." (Exposition of the intent of the law of 1836.)]

6336 (return)
[ De Riancey, ibid., II., 401, 475.—Thureau-Dangin, ibid., 145 and 146.—(Words of a fervent Catholic, M. de Montalembert, on the trial of the Free School, Sept.29, 1831.) "It is with a heart still distressed with these souvenirs (personal) that I here declare that, were I a father, I would rather see my children crawl their whole life in ignorance and idleness than expose them to the horrible risk I ran myself of obtaining a little knowledge at the cost of their father's faith, at the price of everything that is pure and fresh in their soul and of honor and virtue in their breast."—(Testimony of a zealous Protestant, M. de Gasparin.) "Religious education does not really exist in the colleges. I remember with horror how I was on finishing my national education. Were we good citizens? I do not know. But it is certain that we were not Christians."—Testimony of a free-thinker, Sainte-Beuve.) "In mass, the professors of the University, without being hostile to religion, are not religious. The pupils feel this, and they leave this atmosphere, not fed on irreligion, but indifferent.... One goes away from the University but little of a Christian."]

6337 (return)
[ Boissier, ibid., p.712]

6338 (return)
[ In my youth, I was able to talk with some of those who lived during the Consulate. All agreed in opinion. One, an admirer of Condillac and founder of a boarding-school, had written for his pupils a number of small elementary treatises, which I still possess.]

6339 (return)
[ Charles Hamel, "Histoire de Juilly," pp. 413, 419 (1818).—Ibid., 532, 665 (April 15, 1846.) The Tontine Association replaced by a limited association (40 years) with a capital of 500,000 francs in 1000 shares of 500 francs each, etc.]

6340 (return)
[ For example, "Monge," the "École Alsacienne," the "École libre des Sciences Politiques." Competent jurists recommend the founders of a private school to organize it under the form of a commercial association, with profit for its aim and not the public good. If the founders of the school wish to maintain the free management of it they must avoid declaring it "of public utility."]

6341 (return)
[ The "École Alsacienne" has been supported for some years mainly by a subsidy of 40,000 francs allotted by the State. This year the State furnishes, "Monge" and "Sainte-Barbe" with subsidies of 130,000 and 150,000 francs, without which they would become bankrupt and close their doors. The State probably thus supports them so as to have a field of pedagogic experiences alongside of its lycées, or to prevent their being bought by some Catholic corporation.]

6342 (return)
[ Even when the masters are conciliatory or reserved the two institutions face each other and the pupils are aware of the antagonism; hence, they turn a cold shoulder to the pupils, education and ideas of the rival institution. In 1852, and on four circular journeys from 1863 to 1866, I was able to observe these sentiments which are now very manifest.]

6343 (return)
[ The period of the annual school examinations in France.—Tr.]

6344 (return)
[ This word means something more than an ordinary "boarding-school," as the reader will see by the text, and is therefore retained as untranslatable.—Tr.]

6345 (return)
[ Expositione universelle of 1889, "Rapport du jury," group II., 1st part, P.492.—Documents collected in the bureaus of public instruction for 1887. (To the internes here enumerated must be added those of private secular establishments, 8958 out of 20,174 pupils.)—Bréal, "Excursions pedagogiques," pp.293, 298.]

6346 (return)
[ All these figures are today in 1998, 100 years later, no longer valid, they are only included in order to understand Taine's insights into human nature and education in general. In 1994-5 there were, in the State lycées and colleges over 4 millions students and only those whose parents live too far from the schools, or some 9%, are boarders. (SR.)]

6347 (return)
[ Today, in 1998, the number of pupils living on French school premises amount to approximatively 10%, mostly because the parents live too far away from the school. (SR.)]

6348 (return)
[ Bréal, ibid., pp. 10, 13. Id., "Quelques mots sur l'instruction publique," p. 286. "The internat is nearly unknown in Germany.... The director (of the gymnase) informs parents where families can be found willing to receive boarders and he must satisfy himself that their hospitality is unobjectionable.... In the new gymnases there is no room for boarders."—Demogeot et Montucci, "Rapport sur l'enseignement secondaire en Angleterre et en Ecosse," 1865.—(I venture also to refer the reader to my "Notes sur l'Angleterre," for a description of Harrow-on-the-Hill and another school at Oxford, made on the spot.)]

6349 (return)
[ Taine, "Notes sur l'Angleterre," P.139. The pupils of the superior class (sixth form), especially the first fifteen of the class (monitors), the first pupil in particular, have to maintain order, insure respect for the rules and, taking it all together, take the place of our maitres d'étude.]

6350 (return)
[ Bréal, "Quelques mots, etc.," pp.281, 282. The same in France, "before the Revolution,... except in two or three large establishments in Paris, the number of pupils was generally sufficiently limited.... At Port-Royal the number of boarders was never over fifty at one time."—"Before 1764, most of the colleges were day-schools with from 15 to 80 pupils," besides the scholarships. and peasant boarders, not very numerous.—"An army of boarders, comprising more than one half of our bourgeois class, under a drill regulated and overlooked by the State, buildings holding from seven to eight hundred boarders—such is what one would vainly try to find anywhere else, and which is essentially peculiar to contemporary France."]

6351 (return)
[ Bréal, ibid., 287, id., "Excursions pedagogiques," p. 10. "I took part (with these pupils) in a supper full of gayety in the room of the celebrated Latinist, Corssen, and I remember the thought that passed through my mind when recurring to the meal we silently partook of at Metz, two hundred of us, under the eye of the censor and general superintendent, and menaced with punishment, in our cold, monastic refectory."]

6352 (return)
[ Even though Taine had visited Eton and other English schools, he appears to have a somewhat rosy picture of life inside these institutions. I have been 9 years to a similar school and can assure the reader that the headmaster's wife is no suitable substitute for a real mother and her table does not replace one's own home. The rector of my school once stated that boarding schools should only be resorted to when one could not remain at home. It was my impression that this school had two effects upon me: the first that I wanted, in spite of good grades, to stop my studies and get a job and the second that I became, like Taine, an opponent to the system. Later on in life I should come to appreciate all the useful things like languages, literature, math and physics which I had learned in this well-organized school. I also came to understand that much worse than harsh discipline is no discipline and no learning at all, something which happened to my children when they attended, for one year only, the American School in Bangkok. (SR.)]

6353 (return)
[ Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoleon au Conseil d'État," p.172. (Session of April 7, 1807:) "The professors are to be transferred from place to place in the Empire according to necessity." —Decree of May 1, 1802, article 21: "The three functionaries in charge of the administration and the professors of the lycées may be transferred from the weakest to the strongest lycées and from inferior to superior places according to the talent and zeal they show in their functions."]

6354 (return)
[ A splendid description which also fits the international civil servants working for the United Nations. I know this because I was one for 32 years of my life. I suspect it also fits members of the police forces, secret or not. (SR.)]

6355 (return)
[ Act of Jan. 11, 1811.—Decree of March 17, 1808, articles 101 and 102.]

6356 (return)
[ Boissier ("Revue du Deux Mondes," Aug. 15, 1869, p. 919): "The externe lycées cost and the interne lycées bring in."]

6357 (return)
[ "Statistique de l'enseigncnient secondaire" (46,816 pupils, of which 33,092 internes and 13,724 externes).—Abbé Bougaud, "Le Grand Péril de l'Eglise du France," p. 135.—"Moniteur," March 14, 1865, Speech of Cardinal Bonnechose in the Senate.]

6358 (return)
[ Name of the navy school-ship at Brest.—TR.]

6359 (return)
[ Bréal, "Quelques mots, etc.," p. 308: "We need not be surprised that our children, once out of the college, resemble horses just let loose, kicking at every barrier and committing all sorts of capers. The age of reason has been artificially retarded for them five or six years."]

6360 (return)
[ On the tone and turn of conversation among boys in school on this subject in the upper classes and even earlier, I can do no more than appeal to the souvenirs of the reader.—Likewise, on another danger of the internat, not less serious, which cannot be mentioned. (Here Taine undoubtedly refers to homosexuality. (SR.))]

6361 (return)
[ Bréal, "Excursions pédagogiques," pp. 326, 327. (Testimony of two university graduates.) "The great college virtue is comradeship, which comprises a bond of union among the pupils and hatred of the master." (Bessot:) "Punishment irritates those who undergo it and engenders punishment. The pupils become wearied: they fall into a state of mute irritability coupled with contempt for the system itself and for those who apply it. Unruliness furnishes them with the means of avenging themselves or at least to relax their nerves; they commit disorders whenever they can commit them with impunity.... The interdiction of an act by authority is sufficient to excite the glory of committing it." (A. Adam, "Notes sur l'administration du'un lycée.")—Two independent and original minds have recounted their impressions on this subject, one, Maxime Du Camp, who passed through the lycée system, and the other, George Sand, who would not tolerate if for her son. (Maxime Du Camp, "Souvenirs littéraires," and George Sand, "Histoire de ma vie.")]

6362 (return)
[ All this was in 1890, a long time ago, and if there was much to learn then, how much do we not have to learn now? It helped, however, to reduce the curriculum, that Latin and Greek was removed from middle and senior high school programs and that international Socialism through the Politically Correct movement, either forbade or rewrote history, art and literature. In science, however, the young engineers and scientists have a lot more to learn today and that in all branches of science and especially in electronics. (SR.)]

6363 (return)
[ The so-called "Grandes Ecoles" which exist today and which continue to form the French administrative, commercial and scientific elite. They cannot be done away with since the French universities have become accessible for an ever increasing number of students since nearly 50% of the population pass their "bac" or final high school exam. The level of this exam has decreased year after year and only the preparatory schools for the Grande Ecoles continue to insist on verifying diligence and attention. (SR.)]

6364 (return)
[ Taine expresses this in the following manner: "elle a imaginé quantité de cours surérogatoires et de luxe,.." (SR.)]

6365 (return)
[ This year (1892) 1750 candidates were entered or 240 vacancies in the École Polytechnique, 230 for 30 places in the École des Beaux-Arts (section of Architecture) and 266 for 24 places in the École Normale (section of Literature).]

6366 (return)
[ 1890.]

6367 (return)
[ In France today, in 2000, there are still preparatory schools which, in two or three years after their baccalaureat, prepare the young applicants for the various competetive entrance examinations to the "Grande Ecoles". 4000 specially selected students vie annually with each other for the 400 places in the École Polytechnique. (SR.)]

6368 (return)
[ I was once, writes Taine, an examiner for admission to a large special school and speak from experience.. Taine was well placed to know about the system since he was first in the competetive entrance exam (concours) to the École Normale Superior, and had also passed all his other studies with great brilliance. (SR.)]

6369 (return)
[ A practical apprenticeship in the Faculty of Medicine is less retarded; the future doctors, after the third year of their studies, enter a hospital for two years, ten months of each year or 284 days of service, including an "obstetrical stage" of one months. Later, on competing for the title of physician or surgeon in the hospitals and for the aggrégation of the Faculty, the theoretical preparation is as onerous as that of other careers.]

6370 (return)
[ "Souvenirs" by Chancellor Pasquier. (Written in 1843). (Étienne Dennis Pasquier (Paris 1767—id. 1862) was a high official under Napoleon, and President of the upper house under Louis-Phillippe and author of "L'Histoire de mon temps", published posthumously in 1893. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. On page 16 and 17 in volume I he fully confirms Taine's views. (SR.)]

6371 (return)
[ Idem., Nobody attended the Lectures of the Law faculty of Paris, except sworn writers who took down the professor's dictation and sold copies of it. "These were nearly all supported by arguments communicated beforehand... At Bourges, everything was got through within five or six months at most."]

6372 (return)
[ "Souvenirs" by Chancellor Pasquier, vol. I. p. 17. Nowadays, "the young man who enters the world at twenty-two, twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, thinks that he has nothing more to learn; he commonly starts with absolute confidence in himself and profound disdain for whoever does not share in the ideas and opinions that he has adopted. Full of confidence in his own force, taking himself at his own value, he is governed by one single thought, that of displaying this force and this estimate himself immediately so as to demonstrate what he is worth." This must have been written around 1830. (SR.)]

6373 (return)
[ This last quality is given by Sainte-Beuve.]

6374 (return)
[ Dunoyer, "De la liberté du travail" (1845), II.,119. The extraordinary progress of England in the mechanical arts, according to English engineers, "depends much less on the theoretical knowledge of scholars than on the practical skill of the workmen who always succeed better in overcoming difficulties than cultivated minds." For example, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, Crampton and, in France, Jacquart.]

6375 (return)
[ Today, in year 2000, the socialist revolutionaries have, through the Human Rights activities broken the chain between the generations, forbidden the parents, the teachers and the supervisors to correct and discipline their children and apprentices. The French educational system, perfectly equal, still survives and is probably the best in existence since it insists on teaching the students even if a lot of the curriculum is a dead loss. The final product is still a useful citizen and functionary, something which make France tick. (SR.)]

6376 (return)
[ Bréal, "Quelques mots," etc.,, p. 336. (He quotes M. Cournot, a former rector, inspector-general, etc.:) "The Faculties know that they would be subject to warnings on the part of the authorities as well as to comparisons and regrettable desertions on the part of the pupils if the proportion between candidates and admissions did not vary between 45 and 50%... When the proportion of postponements reaches between 50 and 555 the examiners admit with groans, considering the hard times, candidates of which they would reject at least one half their hands were not tied." (This was 100 years ago, today less than 30% on the average, but more than 70% in certain bad areas, fail their Baccalauréat. The curriculum has, however, been lightened so that about 50% of the population may end up passing their baccalauréat. Democracy oblige. (SR.))]

6377 (return)
[ A machine for the forced feeding of ducks and geese to make their liver grow to excessive proportions.]

6378 (return)
[ An old professor, after thirty years of service, observed to me by way of summing up: "One half, at least, of our pupils are not fitted to receive the instruction we give them."]

6379 (return)
[ Lately, the director of one of these schools remarked with great satisfaction and still greater naïveté: "This school is superior to all others of its kind in Europe, for nowhere else is what we teach taught in the same number of years."]

6380 (return)
[ But what if Taine was mistaken? What if he, like so many other highly talented and intelligent men, took his own superb intelligence and imagination for granted? What if the talent of such men is inherited? We know from identical twins how many of our particularities have been given to us at birth. What if most men are lazy and especially intellectually so, what if we can only be made to learn and think when under great stress, the stress introduced by fear of dismissal or hope of promotion or riches? Then the French system is perhaps hard, perhaps expensive but certainly useful in producing the great number of hardworking and competent and passively obedient supervisors and civil servants that any large organization needs. (SR.)]

6381 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Although pupils were admitted in the preparatory Schools very early, "our navy, engineer and artillery officers were justly esteemed the best instructed in Europe, as able practically as theoretically; the position occupied by artillery and engineer officers from 1792 in the French army sufficiently attests this truth. And yet they did not know one tenth of those who now issue from the preparatory schools. Vauban himself would have been unable to undergo the examination for admission into the Polytechnic School." There is then in our system "a luxury of science, very fine in itself, but which is not necessary to insure good service on land or at sea." The same in civil careers, with the bar, in the magistracy, in the administration and even in literature and the sciences. The proof of this is found in the men of great talent who, after 1789, were prominent in the Constituent Assembly. In the new-born University there was not one half of the demand for attainments as is now exacted. There is nothing like our over-loaded baccalauréat, and yet there issued from it Villemain, Cousin, Hugo, Lamartine, etc. No École Polytechnique existed, and yet at the end of the eighteenth century in France, we find the richest constellation of savants, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge, Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Berthollet, Haüy, and others. (Since the date of these souvenirs (1843) the defects in the French system have gotten worse.]

6382 (return)
[ In England and in the United States the architect and engineer produce more than we do with greater pliancy, fertility, originality and boldness of invention, with a practical capacity at least equal and without having passed six, eight or ten years in purely theoretical studies.—Cf. Des Rousiers, "La Vie Américaine," p. 619: "Our polytechnicians are scientific erudites.... The American engineer is not omniscient as they were, he is special." "But, in his specialty he has profound knowledge; he is always trying to make it more perfect by additions, and he does more than the polytechnician to advance his science" or his art. (Since Taine noted this times have changed; I once put my 3 older sons into the American school in Bangkok (in 1972), and not only did they not learn anything during their year there, they actually lost some of their reading and writing skills and I had to remove them as soon as I could. (SR.)).]

6383 (return)
[ In 1889 a law called Freycinet, France introduced 3 years of military service for all young men. Students and married men were, subject to certain conditions, released after one year of service. (SR.)]

6384 (return)
[ To facilitate his or her comprehension the reader might replace the word Jacobin with the expression Socialist, Marxist, national-socialist or Communist since they are all heirs to the heritage left by the French Revolutionaries. (SR.)]

6385 (return)
[ IIIrd Republique lasted from 14-9-1870 until 13-7-1940. (SR.)]

6386 (return)
[ Instruction is good, not in itself, but through the good it does, and especially to those who possess or acquire it. If, simply by raising his finger, a man could enable every French man or woman to read Virgil readily and demonstrate Newton's binomial theory, this man would be dangerous and ought to have his hands tied; for, should he inadvertently raise his finger, manual labor would be repugnant and, in a year or two, become almost impossible in France.]

6387 (return)
[ And so it happened. After the second world war, when international Marxism became installed its agents throughout the Western world, compulsory, unified education was pushed from the age of 14 to 16 and a majority of young remained in school till after their 18th birthday, an education which successfully made them believe that the attitudes and values they were taught were the only valid ones. (SR.)]

6388 (return)
[ Liard, "Universités et Facultés," p. 39 and following pages.—"Rapport sur la statistique comparée de l'instruction," vol. II. (1888).—"Exposition universelle de 1889" ("Rapport du jury," groupe II., part I., p.492.)]

6389 (return)
[ In 1994 there were in France 1389 public and 841 private lycées (SR.)]

6390 (return)
[ Liard, ibid., p. 77.]

6391 (return)
[ Also called the preparatory classes, the so-called math-sup and math-spe of the preparatory schools attached to the state lycées and attended by selected 18-20 year-old students. (SR.)]

6392 (return)
[ These figures were obtained in the bureaux of the direction of primary instruction.—The sum-total of 582,000,000 francs is composed of 241,000,000, furnished directly by the State, 28,000,000 furnished by the departments, and 312,000, 000 furnished by the communes. The communes and departments being, in France, appendices of the State, subscribe only with its permission and under its impulsion. Hence the three contributions furnish only one.—Cf. Turlin, "Organisation financière et budget de l'Instruction primaire," p. 61. (In this study, the accounts are otherwise made up. Certain expenses being provided for by annuities are carried into the annual expenditure:) "From June 1, 1878, to Dec. 31, 1887, expenses of first installation, 528 millions; ordinary expenses in 1887, 173 millions."]

6393 (return)
[ Law of June 16, 1881 (on gratuitous education).]

6394 (return)
[ Law of March 28, 1882 (on obligatory education).]

6395 (return)
[ National temperament must here be taken into consideration as well as social outlets. Instruction out of proportion with and superior to condition works differently with different nations. For the German adult it is rather soothing and a derivative; with the adult Frenchman it is especially an irritant or even an explosive.]

6396 (return)
[ It might be interesting to note what Mark Twain wrote on India education about the same period when Taine wrote this text: "apparently, then, the colleges of India were doing what our high schools have long been doing—richly over-supplying the market for highly educated service; and thereby doing a damage to the scholar, and through him to the country. At home I once made a speech deploring the injuries inflicted by the High School in making handicrafts distasteful to boys who would have been willing to make a living at trades and agriculture if they had but had the good luck to stop with the common school. But I made no converts. Not one, in a community overrun with educated idlers who were above following their fathers' mechanical trades, yet could find no market for their book-knowledge."]

6397 (return)
[ Among the pupils who receive this primary instruction the most intelligent, who study hardest, push on and pass an examination by which they obtain the certificate that qualifies them for elementary teaching. The consequences are as follows. Comparative table of annual vacancies in the various services of the prefecture of the Seine and of the candidates registered for these places. ("Débats," Sep. 16, 1890:) Vacancies for teachers, 42; number of registered candidates, 1,847. Vacancies for female teachers, 54; number of candidates, 7,139.—7,085 of these young women, educated and with certificates, and who cannot get these places, must be content to marry some workman, or become housemaids, and are tempted to become lorettes. (From the church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris in the neighborhood of which many young, pretty women of easy virtue were to be found. (SR.))]

6398 (return)
[ Taine wrote this when compulsory education in France kept the children in school until their 13th year. Today in year 2000 they must stay until they are 16 years old but more often continue until they are 19—23 years old. (SR.)]

6399 (return)
[ In certain cases, the school commission may grant exemptions. But there art two or three parties in each commune, and the father of a family must stand well with the dominant party to obtain them.]

63100 (return)
[ After the second world war the world, helped by the United Nations, have pushed obligatory education further and further, and the number of dissatisfied youth have consequently increased and increased. (SR.)]

63101 (return)
[ Law of March 28, 1882, and Oct. 30, 1886.]

63102 (return)
[ "Journal des Débats," Sep. 1, 1891. Report of the Commission on Statistics: "In 1878-9 the number of congregationist schools was 23,625 with 2,301,943 pupils."]

63103 (return)
[ Bureaux of the direction of public instruction, budget of 1892.]

63104 (return)
[ "Exposition universelle" of 1889. "Rapport général," by M. Alfred Picard, p. 367. At the same date, the number of pupils in the public schools was 4,500,119.—"Journal des Débats," Sep. 12, 1891, Report of the commission of statistics. "From 1878-79 to 1889-90, 5,063 public congregationist schools are transformed into secular schools or suppressed; at the time of their transformation they enumerated in all 648,824 pupils.—Following upon this secularization, 2,839 private congregationist schools are opened as competitors and count in 1889-90, 354,473 pupils."—In ten years public secular instruction gains 12,229 schools and 973,380 pupils; public congregationist instruction loses 5,218 schools and 550,639 pupils. On the other hand, private congregationist instruction gains 3,790 schools and 413,979 pupils."]

63105 (return)
[ Turlin, ibid, p. 61. (M. Turlin enumerates "104,765 functionaries," to which must be added the teaching, administrative and auxiliary staff of teachers of the 173 normal schools and their 3000 pupils, all gratuitous). (In 1994 there were 247 000 primary school teachers (instituteurs) in public schools in France. Taine could not foresee that the French schools and universities should become an enormous industry, the number of teachers and universities multiplied by ten and the number of government functionaries multiplied by 20 and that the annual 50 000 vacancies should find more than a million candidates, the young overeducated persons dreaming of becoming functionaries and hence "safe" for life. (SR.))]

63106 (return)
[ In this respect, very instructive indications may be found in the autobiography of Jules Valès, "l'Enfant," "le Bachelier," and "l'Insurge." Since 1871, not only in literature do the successful works of men of talent but, again, the abortive attempts of impotent innovators and blasted half-talents, converge to this point."]

End of The Modern Regime, Volume 2
End of The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6