_System of Education introduced into France by Napoleon--National
University--its nature and objects--Lyceums--Proposed Establishment
at Meudon._
The reputation of Buonaparte as a soldier, was the means which raised
him to the Imperial dignity; and, unfortunately for himself, his ideas
were so constantly associated with war and victory, that peaceful
regulations of every kind were postponed, as of inferior importance; and
thus war, which in the eye of reason ought always, even when most
necessary and justifiable, to be regarded as an extraordinary state into
which a nation is plunged by compulsion, was certainly regarded by
Napoleon as almost the natural and ordinary condition of humanity. He
had been bred on the battle-field, from which his glory first arose.
"The earthquake voice of victory," according to the expression of
Britain's noble and lost bard, "was to him the breath of life."[329] And
although his powerful mind was capable of applying itself to all the
various relations of human affairs, it was with war and desolation that
he was most familiar, and the tendency of his government accordingly
bore an aspect decidedly military.
[Sidenote: PUBLIC EDUCATION.]
The instruction of the youth of France had been the subject of several
projects during the Republic; which was the more necessary, as the
Revolution had entirely destroyed all the colleges and seminaries of
public instruction, most of which were more or less connected with the
Church, and had left the nation almost destitute of any public means of
education. These schemes were of course marked with the wild sophistry
of the period. In many cases they failed in execution from want of
public encouragement; in others, from want of funds. Still, however,
though no fixed scheme of education had been adopted, and though the
increasing vice and ignorance of the rising generation was sufficiently
shocking, there existed in France two or three classes of schools for
different purposes; as indeed it is not to be supposed that so great and
civilized a nation could, under any circumstances, tolerate a total want
of the means of educating their youth.
The schemes to which we allude had agreed in arranging, that each
commune (answering, perhaps, to our parish) should provide a school and
teacher, for the purpose of communicating the primary and most
indispensable principles of education. This plan had in a great measure
failed, owing to the poverty of the communes on whom the expense was
thrown. In some cases, however, the communes had found funds for this
necessary purpose; and, in others, the expense had been divided betwixt
the public body, and the pupils who received the benefit of the
establishment. So that these primary schools existed in many instances,
though certainly in a precarious and languishing state.
The secondary schools were such as qualified persons, or those who held
themselves out as such, had established upon speculation, or by the aid
of private contributions, for teaching the learned and modern languages,
geography, and mathematics.
There was besides evinced on the part of the Catholic clergy, so soon as
the Concordat had restored them to some rank and influence, a desire to
resume the task of public education, which, before the Revolution, had
been chiefly vested in their hands. Their seminaries had been supported
by the public with considerable liberality, and being under the control
of the bishop, and destined chiefly to bring up young persons intended
for the Church, they had obtained the name of Ecclesiastical Schools.
[Sidenote: LYCEUMS.]
Matters were upon this footing when Buonaparte brought forward his grand
project of a National University, composed of a Grand Master, a
Chancellor, a treasurer, ten counsellors for life, twenty counsellors in
ordinary, and thirty inspectors-general; the whole forming a sort of
Imperial council, whose supremacy was to be absolute on matters
respecting education. All teachers, and all seminaries of education,
were subjected to the supreme authority of the National University, nor
could any school be opened without a brevet or diploma from the Grand
Master, upon which a considerable tax was imposed. It was indeed the
policy of the government to diminish as far as possible the number of
Secondary and of Ecclesiastical Schools, in order that the public
education might be conducted at the public seminaries, called Lyceums,
or Academies.
In these Lyceums the discipline was partly military, partly monastic.
The masters, censors, and teachers, in the Lyceums and Colleges, were
bound to celibacy; the professors might marry, but in that case were not
permitted to reside within the precincts. The youth were entirely
separated from their families, and allowed to correspond with no one
save their parents, and then only through the medium, and under the
inspection, of the censors. The whole system was subjected to the strict
and frequent investigation of the University. The Grand Master might
dismiss any person he pleased, and such a sentence of dismission
disqualified the party receiving it from holding any civil employment.
In the general case, it is the object of a place of learning to remove
from the eyes of youth that pomp and parade of war, by which at an
early age they are so easily withdrawn from severe attention to their
studies. The Lyceums of Buonaparte were conducted on a contrary
principle; every thing was done by beat of drum, all the interior
arrangements of the boys were upon a military footing. At a period when
the soldier's profession held out the most splendid prospects of
successful ambition, it was no wonder that young men soon learned to
look forward to it as the only line worthy of a man of spirit to pursue.
The devotion of the young students to the Emperor, carefully infused
into them by their teachers, was farther excited by the recollection,
that he was their benefactor for all the means of instruction afforded
them; and thus they learned from every circumstance around them, that
the first object of their lives was devotion to his service, and that
the service required of them was of a military character.
There were in each Lyceum one hundred and fifty exhibitions, or
scholarships, of which twenty were of value sufficient to cover the
student's full expenses, while the rest, of smaller amount, were called
half or three quarter bursaries, in which the parents or relations of
the lad supplied a portion of the charge. From these Lyceums, two
hundred and fifty of the most selected youth were yearly draughted into
the more professional and special military schools maintained by the
Emperor; and to be included in this chosen number, was the prime object
of every student. Thus, every thing induced the young men brought up at
these Lyceums, to look upon a military life as the most natural and
enviable course they had to pursue; and thus Buonaparte accomplished
that alteration on the existing generation, which he intimated, when he
said, "The clergy regard this world as a mere diligence which is to
convey us to the next--it must be my business to fill the public
carriage with good recruits for my army."
Of the whole range of national education, that which was conducted at
the Lyceums, or central schools, was alone supported by the state; and
the courses there taught were generally limited to Latin and
mathematics, the usual accomplishments of a military academy.
Undoubtedly Brienne was in Napoleon's recollection; nor might he perhaps
think a better, or a more enlarged course of education necessary for the
subjects of France, than that which had advanced their sovereign to the
supreme government. But there was a deeper reason in the limitation.
Those who, under another system of education, might have advanced
themselves to that degree of knowledge which becomes influential upon
the mind of the public, or the fortunes of a state, by other means than
those of violence, were disqualified for the task by that which they
received in the Lyceums; and the gentle, studious, and peaceful youth,
was formed, like all the rest of the generation, to the trade of war, to
which he was probably soon to be called by the conscription. If the
father chose to place his son at one of the Secondary Schools, where a
larger sphere of instruction was opened, it was still at the risk of
seeing the youth withdrawn from thence and transferred to the nearest
Lyceum, if the Directors of the Academy should judge it necessary for
the encouragement of the schools which appertained more properly to
Government.
Yet Napoleon appears to have been blind to the errors of this system, or
rather to have been delighted with them, as tending directly to aid his
despotic views. "My university," he was accustomed to say to the very
last, "was a masterpiece of combination, and would have produced the
most material effect on the public mind." And he was wont on such
occasions to throw the blame of its failure on Monsieur Fontanes, the
Grand Master, who, he said, afterwards took merit with the Bourbons for
having encumbered its operation in some of its most material
particulars.
Buonaparte, it must be added, at a later period, resolved to complete
his system of national education, by a species of Corinthian capital. He
proposed the establishment of an institution at Meudon, for the
education of his son, the King of Rome, where he was to be trained to
the arts becoming a ruler, in the society of other young princes of the
Imperial family, or the descendants of the allies of Napoleon. This
would have been reversing the plan of tuition imposed on Cyrus, and on
Henry IV., who were bred up among the common children of the peasants,
that their future grandeur might not too much or too early obscure the
real views of human nature and character. But it is unnecessary to
speculate on a system which never was doomed to be brought to
experiment; only, we may presume it was intended to teach the young
Napoleon more respect to the right of property which his princely
companions held in their toys and playthings, than his father evinced
towards the crowns and sceptres of his brothers and allies.
FOOTNOTES:
[329]
"The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife--
The earthquake voice of victory,
To thee the breath of life."
BYRON, vol. x., p. 7.