His parents, thinking to divert his mind from abstractions to useful effort, sent him to the Polytechnic School at Paris, that excellent institution founded by Napoleon, which served America most nobly as a model for the Boston School of Technology, only the French "Polytechnique" was purely a government institution—a sample of the Twentieth Century sent for the benefit of the Nineteenth.
But institutions are never much beyond the people—they can not be, for the people dilute everything until it is palatable. Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced. No man who expresses himself is really much ahead of his time—if he is, the times snuff him out, and quickly.
In Eighteen Hundred Fourteen, the Polytechnic School was well saturated with the priestly idea of education, and the attempt was made to produce an alumni of cultured men, rather than a race of useful ones.
Revolt was rife in the ranks of the students. It is still debatable whether revolution and riot in colleges are actuated by a passion for truth or a love of excitement. Anyway, the "Techs" laid deep places to the effect that when a certain professor appeared at chapel, a unique reception would be in store for him.
He appeared, and a fusillade of books, rulers and ink-wells shot at his learned head from every quarter of the room. Other professors appeared and sought to restore order. Riot followed—seats were torn up, windows broken, and there was much loud talk and gesticulation peculiarly Gallic.
It was Ninety-three done in little.
Instead of expelling the delinquents, the National Assembly took the matter in hand and simply voted to close the school.
Auguste Comte went home a hero, proud as a Heidelberg student, with a sweeping scar on his chin and the end of his nose gone. "I have dealt the Old Education its deathblow," he solemnly said, mistaking a cane-rush for a revolution.
Against the direct command of his parents, he went back to Paris. He had now reached the mature age of eighteen. He resolved to write out truth as it occurred to him, and incidentally he would gain a livelihood by teaching mathematics.
At Paris, the mental audacity of the youth won him recognition; he picked up a precarious living, and was a frequenter at scientific lectures and discussions, and in gatherings where great themes were up for debate, he was always present.