This throws on the scrap heap the democratic concept which considered a state school as an institution for every one—a basket into which treasure and waste were piled together. The middle class had regarded the school as at its service and therefore did not respect it. They demanded only the greatest possible indulgence in order to achieve as quickly as they could their purely utilitarian aims, such as a degree or a perfunctory passing to promotions.
2nd—The students of the state schools and of the independent schools find themselves under equal conditions when taking the state examinations, before committees appointed by the government.
Thus is encouraged the régime of independent schools analogous to those of England. This régime is advantageous for the Catholics, owners of many schools, but displeases the anti-clericals of the old style. It allows me a free development of scholastic initiative outside of the conventional lines.
3rd—The state watches over the independent schools and promotes a rivalry between independent and state schools which raises the cultural level and the general atmosphere of all schools.
The state does not see its jurisdiction diminished because of the independent schools; on the contrary, it extends its watchfulness over all schools.
4th—Admission to the intermediate schools is now possible only through examinations. The schools are directed toward a broad humanistic culture, but with a standard of scholarship which has eliminated forever the disorder and the easy-going ways of the old democratic schools.
By means of these and other reforms the elementary school comes to have two distinct but co-ordinated purposes. One is that of preparation for the intermediate schools, and the other is a high type of broad popular education complete in itself.
The intermediate schools were broadened by means of the following institutions:
(a) Complementary schools. The abolished technical school, complete in itself, was revived along new lines.
(b) Technical institutes of higher specialization.