The Modern Regime Volume II Part 13

(Note of M. de Champagny, Minister of the Interior, written a few months later.) "A large half of the heads (of the lycee) or professors is, from a moral point of view, completely indifferent. One quarter, by their talk, their conduct, their reputation, exhibit the most dangerous character in the eyes of the youths... The greatest fault of the princ.i.p.als is their lack of religious spirit, religious zeal.... There are not more than two or three lycees in which this may be seen. Hence the removal of the children by the parents which is attributed to political prejudices; hence the rarity of paying pupils; hence the discredit of the lycees. In this respect opinion is unanimous."]

[Footnote 6115: "Histoire du College Louis le Grand," by Esmond, emeritus censor, 1845, p.267 "Who were the a.s.sistant-teachers? Retired subaltern officers who preserved the coa.r.s.eness of the camp and knew of no virtue but pa.s.sive obedience.... The age at which scholars.h.i.+ps were given was not fixed, the Emperor's choice often falling on boys of fifteen or sixteen, who presented themselves with habits already formed out of a bad education and so ignorant that one was obliged to a.s.sign them to the lowest cla.s.ses, along with children."--Fabry, "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de l'instruction publique depuis 1789," I., 391.

"The kernel of boarding-scholars, (holders of scholars.h.i.+ps) was furnished by the Prytanee. Profound corruption, to which the military regime gives an appearance of regularity, a cool impiety which conforms to the outward ceremonies of religion as to the movements of a drill,...

steady tradition has transmitted this spirit to all the pupils that have succeeded each other for twelve years."]

[Footnote 6116: Fabry, ibid., vol. II.,12, and vol. III., 399.]

[Footnote 6117: Decree of Nov.15, 1811, articles 15, 16, 22.]

[Footnote 6118: Quicherat, ibid., III.. 93 to 105.--Up to 1809, owing to M. de Fontane's toleration, M. de Lanneau could keep one half of his pupils in his house under the name of pupils in preparatory cla.s.ses, or for the lectures in French or on commerce; nevertheless, he was obliged to renounce teaching philosophy. In 1810, he is ordered to send all his scholars to the lycee within three months. There were at this date 400 scholars in Sainte-Barbe.]

[Footnote 6119: Decree of Nov.15, 1811, articles 1, 4, 5, 9, 17 to 19 and 24 to 32.--"Proces-verbaux des seances du conseil de l'Universite imperiale." (Ma.n.u.scripts in the archives of the Ministry of Public Instruction, furnished by M. A. de Beauchamp), session of March 12, 1811, note of the Emperor communicated by the Grand-Master. "His Majesty requires that the following arrangement be added to the decree presented to him: Wherever there is a lycee, the Grand-Master will order private inst.i.tutions to be closed until the lycee has all the boarders it can contain." The personal intervention of Napoleon is here evident; the decree starts with him; he wished it at once more rigorous, more decidedly arbitrary and prohibitive.]

[Footnote 6120: Quicherat, ibid., III.,95-105.--Ibid., 126. After the decree of November 15, 1811, threatening circulars follow each other for fifteen months and always to hold fast or annoy the heads of inst.i.tutions or private schools. Even in the smallest boarding-schools, the school exercises must be announced by the drum and the uniform worn under penalty of being shut up]

[Footnote 6121: Ibid., III., 42.--At Sainte-Barbe, before 1808, there were various sports favoring agility and flexibility of the body, such as running races, etc. All that is suppressed by the imperial University; it does not admit that anything can be done better or otherwise than by itself.]

[Footnote 6122: Decree of March 17, 1808, article 38. Among "the bases of teaching," the legislator prescribes "obedience to the statutes the object of which is the uniformity of instruction."]

[Footnote 6123: Quicherat, III., 128.]

[Footnote 6124: "The Modern Regime," I., 164.]

[Footnote 6125: See, for a comprehension of the full effect of this forced education, "Les Mecontens" by Merimee, the role of Lieutenant Marquis Edward de Naugis.]

[Footnote 6126: "Recueil," by A. de Beauchamp; Report by Fourcroy, April 20, 1802: "The populations which have become united with France and which, speaking a different language and accustomed to foreign inst.i.tutions, need to abandon old habits and refas.h.i.+on themselves on those of their new country, cannot find at home the essential means for giving their sons the instruction, the manners and the character which should amalgamate them with Frenchmen. What destiny could be more advantageous for them and, at the same time, what a resource for the government, which desires nothing so much as to attach new citizens to France!"]

[Footnote 6127: "Journal d'un detenu de 1807 a 1814" (I vol., 1828, in English), p.167. (An account given by Charles Choderlos de Laclos, who was then at La Fleche.]

[Footnote 6128: Pelet de la Lozere, ibid., pp.162, 163.167. (Speeches by Napoleon to the Council of State, sessions of Feb. 10, March 1, 11 and 20, April 7, and May 21 and 29, 1806.)]

[Footnote 6129: Napoleon himself said this: "I want a corporation, not of Jesuits whose sovereign is in Rome, but Jesuits who have no other ambition but to be useful and no other interest but the public interest."]

[Footnote 6130: This intention is formally expressed in the law. (Decree of March 17, 1808, art. 30.) "Immediately after the formation of the imperial university, the order of rank shall be followed in the appointment of functionaries, and no one can be a.s.signed a place who has not pa.s.sed through the lowest. The situations will then afford a career which offers to knowledge and good behavior the hope of reaching the highest position in the imperial university."]

[Footnote 6131: Pelet de la Lozere, ibid.]

[Footnote 6132: "Proces-verbaux des seances du conseil de l'Universite."

(In ma.n.u.script.) Memoir of February 1, 1811, on the means for developing the spirit of the corporation in the University. In this memoir, communicated to the Emperor, the above motive is alleged.]

[Footnote 6133: Pelet de la Lozere.]

[Footnote 6134: I can imagine the effect this description of Napoleon's genius and inventive spirit must have had on Lenin when he lived and studied in Paris and forged his plans for a communist state, a world revolution, an annihilation of the existing order and the creation of a new (and better) one. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6135: Decree of March 17, 1808, arts. 101, 102.]

[Footnote 6136: In any pre-revolutionary society, authority must be undermined, women introduced whenever it can lessen the efficiency of the organization. But once the revolution has won, then Lenin's dictum about entrusting men of administrative talent with the full authority of the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat is to be followed. As Taine was translated into German, Hitler is likely, directly or indirectly to have studied Napoleon. Hitler's "fuhrerprincip" a principle which gave the n.a.z.i society its terrible efficiency was probably the result. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6137: Decree of March 20, 1808, articles 40-46.]

[Footnote 6138: For example, act of March 31, 1812, On leaves of absence.--Cf. the regulations of April 8, 1810, for the "ecole de la Maternite," t.i.tres ix, x and xi). In this strict and special instance we see plainly what Napoleon meant by "the police" of a school.]

[Footnote 6139: Pelet de la Lozere, Ibid.]

[Footnote 6140: It seems to me probable that an aspiring revolutionary like Hitler, Lenin, Stalin or Trotsky) would attempt to copy Napoleon's once he had successfully taken power inside first the party and later the state. To enhance the dissolution of a democracy the opposite system, that is tenure irrespective of performance, the right to operate militant trade unions and to conduct strikes, would be demanded for all government employees. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6141: Decree of March 17, 1808, articles 47 and 48.]

[Footnote 6142: Decree of Nov. 15, 1811, articles 66 and 69.]

[Footnote 6143: Proces-verbaux et papiers du conseil superior de l'Universite (in ma.n.u.script).--(Two memoirs submitted to the Emperor, Feb. 1, 1811, on the means of strengthening the discipline and spirit of the body in the University.)--The memoir requests that the sentences of the university authorities be executable on the simple exequatur of the courts; it is important to diminish the intervention of tribunals and prefects, to cut short appeals and pleadings; the University must have full powers and full jurisdiction on its domain, collect taxes from its taxpayers, and repress all infractions of those amenable to its jurisdiction. (Please not the exequatur is a French ordnance by which the courts gives a decision by a third party or an umpire executory force. SR.)]

[Footnote 6144: "Statut sur l'administration, l'ensignement et la police de l'ecole normale," March 30, 1810, t.i.tle II, articles 20-23.]

[Footnote 6145: Taine entered in L'Ecole Normale in October 1848, first in his year, having written an essay in philosophy (in Latin) with the t.i.tle: Si animus c.u.m corpore extinguitur, quid sit Deus? Quid h.o.m.o? Quid societas? Quid philosophia? (If the soul dies with the body what happens to G.o.d? Man? Society? Philosophy?) And an essay in French imagining that he was Voltaire writing to his English friend Cedeville pretending to give his impressions on England. When he had arrived on 30 October 1848 Taine wrote to Cornelis de Witt: "Here I am in the convent and prisoner for three years." (SR.)]

[Footnote 6146: I note, however, that the ecole Normale Superior produced Taine, and it seemed to have had the same effect upon him as by boarding school and its similar regime upon me, namely of making me informed and rebellious. I have also noted that the most uninteresting and smug young people I have met have followed school systems like that of the United States where no great effort is demanded but the peer pressure helps to produce ignorant, self-satisfied students. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6147: Villemain, "Souvenirs contemporaines," vol. I., 137-156.

("Une visite a l'ecole normale en 1812," Napoleon's own words to M. de Narbonne.) "Tacitus is a dissatisfied senator, an Auteuil grumbler, who revenges himself, pen in hand, in his cabinet. His is the spite of the aristocrat and philosopher both at once.... Marcus Aurelius is a sort of Joseph II., and, in much larger proportions, a philanthropist and sectarian in commerce with the sophists and ideologues of his time, flattering them and imitating them.... I like Diocletian better."--"...

Public education lies in the future and in the duration of my work after I am gone."]

[Footnote 6148: Decree of March 17, 1808, art. 110 and the following.]

[Footnote 6149: Circular of Nov. 13, 1813.]

[Footnote 6150: Decree of March 17, 1808, article 38.]

[Footnote 6151: Pelet de la Lozere, ibid., 158.]

[Footnote 6152: Id., ibid., 168. (Session of March 20, 1806.)]

[Footnote 6153: Hermann Niemeyer, "Beobactungen auf einer Deportation-Reise nach Frankreich im J. 1807" (Halle, 1824), II.,353.--Fabry, "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de l'instruction publique," III., 120. (Doc.u.ments and testimony of pupils showing that religion in the lycees is only ceremonial practice.)--Id., Riancey, "Histoire de l'instruction publique," II.,378. (Reports of nine chaplains in the royal colleges in 1830 proving that the same spirit prevailed throughout the Restoration: "A boy sent to one of these establishments containing 400 pupils for the term of eight years has only eight or ten chances favoring the preservation of his faith; all the others are against him, that is to say, out of four hundred chances, three hundred and ninety risk his being a man with no religion."]

[Footnote 6154: Fabry, ibid., III., 175. (Napoleon's own words to a member of his council.)--Pelet de la Lozere, ibid., 161: "I do not want priests meddling with public education."--167: "The establishment of a teaching corps will be a guarantee against the re-establishment of monks. Without that they would some day come back."]

[Footnote 6155: Fabry, ibid, III., 120. (Abstract of the system of lycees by a pupil who pa.s.sed many years in two lycees.) Terms for board 900 francs, insufficiency of food and clothing, crowded lectures and dormitories, too many pupils in each cla.s.s, profits of the princ.i.p.al who lives well, gives one grand dinner a week to thirty persons, deprives the dormitory, already too narrow, of s.p.a.ce for a billiard-table, and takes for his own use a terrace planted with fine trees. The censor, the steward, the chaplain, the sub-director do the same, although to a less degree. The masters are likewise as poorly fed as the scholars. The punishments are severe, no paternal remonstrance or guidance, the under-masters maltreated on applying the rules, despised by their superiors and without any influence on their pupils.--"Libertinage, idleness self-interest animated all b.r.e.a.s.t.s, there being no tie of friends.h.i.+p uniting either the masters to the scholars nor the pupils amongst themselves."]

[Footnote 6156: Finding myself in charge of a numerous staff of technicians, artisans, operators and workers hired by the United Nations to serve a military mission in Lebanon I was faced with motivating everyone, not only when they would become eligible for promotion, but also during the daily humdrum existence. I one day coined the phrase that "everyone wants to be important" and tried to make them feel so by insisting that all tasks, even the most humble had to be done well. I gave preference to seniority by giving the most senior man the chance to prove himself once a higher post fell vacant. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6157: Hermann Niemeyer, "Beobachtungen," etc., II.,350. "A very worthy man, professor in one of the royal colleges, said to me: 'What backward steps we have been obliged to take! How all the pleasure of teaching, all the love for our art, has been taken away from us by this constraint!'"]

[Footnote 6158: Id., ibid., II.,339.--"Decree of November 15, 1811 art.

17."]

[Footnote 6159: Id., ibid., II.,353.]

[Footnote 6160: Hermann Niemeyer, ibid., 366, and following pages. On the character, advantages and defects of the system, this testimony of an eye-witness is very instructive and forms an almost complete picture.

The subjects taught are reduced to Latin and mathematics; there is scarcely any Greek, and none of the modern languages, hardly a tinge of history and the natural sciences, while philology is null; that which a pupil must know of the cla.s.sics is their "contents and their spirit"