This establishment had a triple object; namely, to form engineers for
the different services; to spread in civil society enlightened men,
and to excite talents which might promote the sciences. Nothing was
neglected that could tend to the accomplishment of a destination so
important.
It was, in fact, time to reorganize the instruction of corps destined
for public services, the greater part of which were wholly deficient
in this respect. Some of them, it is true, had particular schools;
but instruction there was feeble and incomplete. That for military
engineers at _Mézieres_, the best conducted of all, and which
admitted twenty pupils only, had suspended its exercises, in
consequence of the revolution. Necessity had occasioned the formation
of a provisionary school, where the pupils received rapidly the first
notions of the attack and defence of places, after which they were
sent to the armies.
Such institutions neither answered the exigencies of the State, nor
conduced to its glory. Their weakness was, above all, likely to be
felt by men habituated to general ideas, and whose minds were still
more exalted, and views enlarged, by the revolution. Those men wished
that the new _School for Public Works_ should be worthy of the
nation. Their plan was extensive in its object, but simple in its
execution, and certain in its results.
The first law concerning the _Central School for Public Works_, since
called the _Polytechnic School_, was made on the 20th of Ventôse year
II. (10th of March 1794). From that moment, much zeal was manifested
in making the necessary arrangements for its formation. On the report
made to the National Convention respecting the measures taken on this
subject, on the 7th of Vendémiaire year III (28th of September 1794)
a decree was passed, directing a competition to be opened for the
admission of four hundred pupils into this school. The examination
was appointed to take place in twenty-two of the principal towns. The
candidates were to answer in arithmetic and the elements of algebra
and geometry. Those admitted received the allowance of military
officers for their travelling expenses to Paris. They were to have
annually twelve hundred francs, and to remain in the school three
years, after which they were to be called to the different Public
Services, when they were judged capable of performing them; and
priority was to depend on merit. These services were the duty of
military engineers, naval engineers, or ship-builders, artillerists,
both military and naval, engineers of bridges and highways,
geographical engineers, and engineers of mines, and to them were
added the service of the pupils of the school of aërostation, which
GUYTON MORVEAU had caused to be established at Meudon, for the
purpose of forming the aërostatic company destined for manoeuvring
air-balloons, applied to the art of war, as was seen at _Maubeuge_,
_Fleurus_, _Aix-la-Chapelle_, &c.
However, the conception of this project was far more easy than its
execution. It was doing little to choose professors from among the
first men of science in Europe, if their lessons were not fixed in
the mind of the pupils. Being unable to communicate them to each
pupil in private, they stood in need of agents who should transmit
them to this numerous assemblage of youth, and be, as it were, the
nerves of the body. To form these was the first object.
Among the young men who had presented themselves at the competition,
twenty of the most distinguished were selected. Philosophical
instruments and a chemical laboratory were provided for them, and
they were unremittingly exercised in every part of the plan which it
was resolved to execute. These pupils, the greater part of whom had
come from the schools for Public Service, felt the insufficiency of
the instruction which they had there received. Eager to learn, their
mind became inflamed by the presence of the celebrated men who were
incessantly with them. The days sufficed not for their zeal; and in
three months they were capable of discharging the functions for which
they were intended.
Nor was this all. At a time when opinion and power might change from
one moment to another, much risk was incurred if a definitive form
was not at once given to the _Polytechnic School_. The authors of
this vast project had seen the revolution too near not to be sensible
of that truth. But they wished first, by a trial made on a grand
scale, to insure their method, class the pupils, and shew what might
be expected from them. They therefore developed to them, in rapid
lectures, the general plan of instruction.
This plan had been drawn up agreeably to the views of men the best
informed, amongst whom MONGE must be particularly mentioned. He had
been professor at _Mezières_, and had there given the first lessons
of descriptive geometry, that science so useful to the engineer. The
enumeration of the various parts of instruction was reduced to a
table, printed by order of the Committee of Public Safety. It
comprehends mathematics, analysis applied to descriptive geometry and
to the mechanism of solids and fluids, stereotomy, drawing, civil
architecture, fortification, general physics, chymistry, mineralogy,
and their application to the arts.
In three months, the work of three years was explained. A real
enthusiasm was excited in these youths on finding themselves occupied
by the sublimest ideas which had employed the mind of man. Amidst the
divisions and animosities of political party, it was an interesting
sight, to behold four hundred young men, full of confidence and
friendship, listening with profound attention to the lectures of the
celebrated _savans_ who had been spared by the guillotine.
The results of so great an experiment surpassed the most sanguine
expectations. After this preliminary instruction, the pupils were
divided into brigades, and education took the course it was intended
should follow.
What particularly distinguishes this establishment, is that the
pupils not only receive oral lessons, but they must give in written
solutions, present drawings, models, or plans for the different
parts, and themselves operate in the laboratories.
On the 1st of Germinal year III (22d of March 1795) the annual
courses were commenced. They were then distributed for three years,
but at this day they last two only. At the same time a decree was
passed, regulating the number of professors, adjuncts, ushers, the
holding of the meetings of the council of instruction and
administration, the functions of the director, administrator,
inspector of the studies, secretary of the council, librarian,
keepers of the collection of drawings, models, &c.
Since that epoch, the _Polytechnic School_, often attacked, even in
the discussions of the _Legislative Body_, has maintained its ground
by the impression of the reputation of the men who act there as
professors, of the depth of the knowledge which makes the object of
their lessons, and of the youths of superior talent who issue from it
every year. The law which after many adjournments, has fixed its
existence is dated the 25th of Frimaire year VIII (16th of December
1799.)
The most important changes introduced, are the determination of the
age to be received into this school, which is from sixteen to twenty,
the reduction of the pupils to the number of three hundred, the rank
which is given them of serjeant of artillery of the first class,
their pay fixed on the same footing, together with a fund of
assistance for those labouring under difficulties, the obligation to
wear a uniform, the establishment of a council of improvement,
composed of three members of the National Institute, of examiners, of
a general-officer or superior agent of each of the branches of the
Public Service, of the director, and four commissioners taken from
the council of instruction.
This council assembles every year, inquires into the state of the
school, proposes its views of amelioration, respecting every
department, and makes a report to the government. One of its
principal functions is to harmonise the instruction with that of the
Schools of Engineers, Artillery, &c. into which the pupils enter
after the final examination they undergo previously to their
departure.
After this, to judge of the advantages of the _Polytechnic School_,
it is sufficient to cast an eye on the printed reports, which present
an account of the persons it furnishes to the different services, of
those who have been taken from it for the expedition to Egypt, for
the corps of _aspirans de la marine_ or midshipmen, for entering into
the line vith the rank of officers, or into the department of
commissaries of war, (into which they are admitted after their
examination if no places are vacant in the Schools for Public
Service), of those who have been called on to profess the sciences in
the central schools (Lyceums) of the departments, some to fill the
first professors' chairs in Paris, such as at the _Collège de France_
and the _École Polytechnique_, of those, in short, who have quitted
this school to introduce into the manufactories the knowledge which
they had acquired. The last-mentioned circumstance has always been a
consideration for carrying the number of pupils beyond the presumable
wants of the different Public Services.
You see that this is no more than a summary of what might be said
and collected from the journals of the _Polytechnic School_, (which
already form four volumes in 4to. independently of the classic works
published by the professors), for giving a complete history of this
interesting establishment, which attracts the notice of foreigners of
all nations. BONAPARTE takes no small interest in the labours of the
_Polytechnic School_, and has often said that it would be difficult
to calculate the effects of the impulse which it has given towards
the mathematical sciences, and of the aggregate of the knowledge
imparted to the pupils.
The _Polytechnic School_, which is under the authority of the
Minister of the Interior, occupies an extensive range of building,
formerly known by the name of _Le petit Palais Bourbon, contiguous to
the _Palais du Corps Legislatif_. The different apartments contain
every thing necessary for the elucidation of the arts and sciences
here taught; but the pupils reside not at the school: they lodge and
board with their friends, on the salary allowed them by the nation,
and repair thither only for the prosecution of their studies.