There are to be maintained at the expense of the Republic six
thousand four hundred pupils, as boarders in the Lyceums and Special
Schools.
Out of these six thousand four hundred boarders, two thousand four
hundred are to be chosen by the government from among the sons of
officers and public functionaries of the judicial, administrative, or
municipal order, who shall have served the Republic with fidelity,
and for ten years only from among the children of citizens belonging
to the departments united to France, although they have neither been
military men nor public functionaries.
These two thousand four hundred pupils are to be at least nine years
of age, and able to read and write.
The other four thousand are to be taken from double the number of
pupils of the Secondary Schools, who, according to an examination
where their talents are put in competition, are to be presented to
the government.
The pupils, maintained in the Lyceums, are not to remain there more
than six years at the expense of the nation. At the end of their
studies, they are to undergo an examination, after which a fifth of
them are to be placed in the different Special Schools according to
their disposition, in order to be maintained there from two to four
years at the expense of the Republic.
The annual cost of all these establishments is estimated at near
eight millions of francs, (_circa_ £336,000 sterling) which exceeds
by at least two millions the amount of the charges of the public
instruction for the few preceding years; but this augmentation, which
will only take place by degrees, and at soonest in eighteen months,
appears trifling, compared to the advantages likely to result from
the new system.
Whenever this plan is carried into execution, what hopes may not
France conceive from the youth of the rising generation, who, chosen
from among those inclined to study, will, in all probability, rise to
every degree of fame! The surest pledge of the success of the measure
seems to consist in the spirit of emulation which is to be
maintained, not only among the pupils, but even among the professors
in the different schools; for emulation, in the career of literature,
arts and sciences, leads to fame, and never fails to turn to the
benefit of society; whereas jealousy, in the road of ambition and
fortune, produces nothing but hatred and discord.
"Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave,
Is emulation in the learn'd and brave."
So much for the plan.[2] In your last letter, you desire that I will
afford you some means of appreciating the essential difference
between the old system of education pursued in France, and the basis
on which public instruction is now on the point of being reorganised
and established. You must be sensible that the comparison of the two
modes, were I to enter deeply into the question, would far exceed the
limits of a letter. But, though I have already extended this to a
certain length, I can, in a few more lines, enable you to compare and
judge, by informing you, from the best authority, what has been the
spirit which has dictated the new organization.
There are very few men who know how to confine themselves within just
bounds. Some yield to the mania of innovation, and imagine that they
create only because they destroy and change. Others bend under the
yoke of old habits. Some, solely because they have remained strangers
to the sciences, would wish that youth should be employed only in the
study of languages and literature. Others who, no doubt, forget that
every learned man, who aims at a solid reputation, ought to sacrifice
to the Muses, before he penetrates into the sanctuary of science,
would wish education to be confined to the study of the exact
sciences, and that youth should be occupied on things, before they
are acquainted with words.
For the sole reason that the old system of instruction bore too
exclusively on the study of the learned languages, it was to be
feared that the new one, through a contrary excess, would proscribe
the Greek and Latin. The study of these two languages, as FOURCROY
has observed to me, is not merely useful to those who wish to acquire
a thorough knowledge of the French, which has borrowed from them no
small number of words, but it is only from the perusal of the great
writers of antiquity, on whom the best among the moderns have formed
themselves, that we can imbibe the sentiment of the beautiful, the
taste, and the rectitude of mind equally necessary, whether we feel
ourselves attracted towards eloquence or poetry, or raise ourselves
to the highest conceptions of the physical or mathematical sciences.
At no time can the instruction given to a youth be otherwise
considered than as a preparatory mean, whose object is to anticipate
his taste and disposition, and enable him to enter with more firmness
into the career which he is intended to follow.
From an attentive perusal of the plan, of which I have traced you the
leading features, you will be convinced that the study of the
sciences will gain by the new system, without that of literature
being in danger of losing. The number of professors is increased, and
yet the period of education is not prolonged. A pupil will always be
at liberty to apply himself more intensely to the branch to which he
is impelled by his particular inclination. He may confine himself to
one course of lectures, or attend to several, according to his
intellectual means. He will not be compelled to stop in his career,
merely because the pupils of his class do not advance. In short,
neither limits nor check have been put to the progress that may be
made by talent.
I here give you only a principal idea, but the application of it,
improved by your sagacity and knowledge, will be sufficient to answer
all the objections which may be started against the new plan of
instruction, and which, when carefully investigated, may be reduced
to a single one; namely, that literature is sacrificed to the
sciences.
[Footnote 1: Counsellor of State, now charged with the direction and
superintendance of public instruction.]
[Footnote 2: The new organization of public instruction was decreed
by the government on the 11th of Floréal, year X.]