this would, perhaps, be less dangerous for the cause of learning than the "mixed examination-boards," which have done so much harm in Belgium, and which happily as yet exist in France on paper only. On these boards the representatives of the two hostile corporations-the State and the Church-either come to terms (in which case all the candidates are sure to pass), or else they do nothing but oppose each other, and then the unfortunate students are sacrificed to a rivalry with which they are totally unconcerned. But the worst result of all is that the mechanical methods of the higher education in France are rendered still more mechanical by this competition.

The question asked is, "Who can prepare us best for the examination ?" not, "Who can teach us most?" It is not against the country, or the republican constitution, or the social institutions of the Revolution and Napoleon, that the clerical party uses its influence in secondary and higher education (in the popular education it has and can have no special aims); what it does combat is liberty of thought and scientific research. But its object can be attained quite as well and better in modern than in feudal France, and the studies of the French youth may soon be such that we shall be obliged to say with Faust

"Du hast wohl Recht; ich finde nicht die Spur

Von einem Geist und Alles ist Dressur.*

All the really eminent minds in France perceive this danger, and even believers like Tocqueville hold "it as certain that lay education is the only guarantee of liberty of thought."

Few, in fact, remain who have any idea that men study except to gain their livelihood, or that knowledge can be an end in itself; that a scholar is not a schoolmaster who swears by his text-book, and has simply to make others learn by heart what he has learned by heart himself; that "Thou'rt right! I find not of a spirit here One single trace; 'tis training all, that's clear."

-Faust i. 3, translated by THEODORE MARTIN.

criticism is not the sin against the Holy Ghost; that Niebuhr or Wolf are not guilty of sacrilege; and that science is something living and progressive, and really has made some progress since the days of Bossuet and of Buffon. True, noble exceptions are still to be found in France; but these are bold breaknecks, who have escaped from the yoke of the Université or never bowed beneath it. The Université has not produced one true man of science in seventy years. Fortunately, though the Revolution would fain have codified all human knowledge and compressed it into manuals, if that had only been possible, the rules and regulations made on the Jesuit pattern have still left some holes through which the living spirit can make its way; there are still some places of refuge to which liberal knowledge can flee and be in safety. It makes us tremble to think what would have become of France if the Ecoles normale and polytechnique had been the only nurseries of classical and mathematical knowledge; and yet this was the original plan. But the brutal axe of the Revolution luckily left some few of the old trunks standing, in which enough life remained to send forth fresh branches. Round the Académie française and the Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres were grouped, under the collective name of Institut, three new academies which those grand old foundations endowed with life and fruitfulness. 'Time sanctifies" and men reverence "what is hoary with age." Thus the Faculté des lettres of Paris has retained a certain importance simply by having its seat in the ancient and venerable Sorbonne; and the three institutions which enjoy the greatest reputation in France are the three which alone have been preserved from the ancien régime— Francis L's Collège de France, Richelieu's Académie française, and the Académie des inscriptions. Perhaps their autonomy may contribute as much as their antiquity to the consideration in which they are held; for they are the only corporations in France which elect their own members and enjoy any degree of self-government.

In

them alone does a true scientific spirit reign; for the professors of the Université, if they are not members of the Institut-and no professor in the provinces is—are schoolmasters or rhetorical feuilletonistes; in them alone one may look for scholars and men of science; nor does anything prove their scientific eminence better than the tact with which they choose their corresponding members abroad and their actual members in Paris. Even the much-abused Académie française performs its difficult duty as guardian of the traditional French taste in writing and speaking with wonderful delicacy. It was only doing its duty when it closed its doors to a scholar of the German type like Littré, and offered a seat to the Duc de Broglie, a grandseigneur in the style of the grand-siècle. The College de France, it is true, which was founded for the advancement of knowledge and not for purposes of education, has been less successful in retaining its high position. The publicity which is always found to be incompatible with serious work and research has destroyed its original character, and it is painful for any one who reverences the study of history to see a man like Laboulaye, who has achieved so much for the history of jurisprudence, now doing his best to give entertaining popular lectures to an audience of pretty American girls within the walls where Budé once taught.

A few years ago, however, a worthy successor to the Collège de France arose in the Ecoles des hautes études. It is the greatest, as it will prove, let us hope, the most successful of Duruy's creations—a man who has met with much blame, but often did excellent work. Publicity is entirely excluded from this school; a personal relationship is formed between teacher and pupil; the instruction given resembles that of the German philological and historical seminaries and chemical and physiological laboratories. Here, at least, are found youth, life, and resolution. No doubt it is a bad thing for disinterested science and interested study to be so entirely separated. It is a bad

1

thing to have to say to one teacher, "It is your business to teach what is already known and beyond all doubt; to the other, "It is for you to scale the untrodden peaks of science;" to the one, "Turn out skilled and useful workmen," and to the other, "Go forth and bring us tidings of yet unknown regions." No doubt the living spark of a pure love of knowledge has more chance of falling on what will catch fire among the hundreds who have chosen a definite career than among the few solitary students who sit in their garret far away from all excitement. No doubt it is an incalculable misfortune for a nation if its educated classes are destitute of any scientific foundation to their knowledge. Yet, for all that, it is a blessing for which the French people can never be grateful enough to the Second Empire that at least one flame has been kindled, round which the true disciples of knowledge can gather, and by which they can be lighted on their way. The College de France has not been true to its traditions; the Institut only receives the talent which has no more power of growth; the vast machine of the Université, of the Ecoles spéciales, of the Catholic faculties, seizes almost all those who are still capable of development, presses almost every drop of originality out of them, forces them into its stereotyped forms, and hands them over to the state and to society as so many welldrilled, skilful, mechanical workmen. Well for France if but some few are able to escape to those humble rooms in the old Sorbonne, where, perhaps, the spirit of a Henricus Stephanus or a Scaliger may even now be inspiring unknown the honest work of untrammelled genius.

(72)

CHAPTER III.

PARIS AND THE PROVINCES.

WE have endeavoured to give an account of the family and of education in France, and of the moral and social conditions of the country. It remains for us shortly to characterise the intellectual and political life of the nation, as it has been developed under these influences during the present century. Even if less slight, these sketches would still be inadequate to explain these two aspects of French life. To do so, it would be necessary for the economist, the geographer, and the statist to contribute the results of their researches on the productiveness of the soil, on climate, extent of coast, on commerce, industry, and agriculture; we should require histories of literature and politics, in order to trace back for centuries the intellectual and political development of the nation, to show what tendencies in the "modern state" and in contemporary literature are due to this development. Above all, it would be necessary for the student of jurisprudence thoroughly to investigate the civil and criminal laws of the land, and to offer a clear and full account of their form and their spirit. Only then could an attempt to give a detailed description of modern France make any claim to completeness. In one sense, it is true, this work has been done, not by a student of law or history, but by a singularly gifted novelist. For although Balzac lived and wrote in the first half of the century, yet with a seer's eye, to which past and future are as the present, he