In the former institutions, which are to be replaced by these new ones, a vigilant eye was not constantly kept on the state of the schools themselves, nor on that of the studies pursued in them. According to the new plan, three inspectors-general, appointed by the First Consul, are to visit them carefully, and report to the government their situation, success, and defects. This new supervisorship is to be, as it were, the key-stone of the arch, and to keep all the parts connected.
The fourth and highest degree of public instruction is to be acquired in the
SPECIAL SCHOOLS.
This is the name to be applied to those of the upper schools, where are particularly taught, and in the most profound manner, the useful sciences, jurisprudence, medicine, natural history, &c. But schools of this kind must not be confounded with the Schools for Engineers, Artillery, Bridges and Highways, Hydrography, &c. which, special as they are essentially, in proportion to the sciences particularly taught in them, are better described, however, by the name of Schools for Public Services, on account of the immediate utility derived from them by the government.
In addition to the Special Schools now in existence, which are to be kept up, new ones are to be established in the following proportion:
Ten Schools of Jurisprudence. These useful institutions, which have been abolished during the last ten years, are, by a new organization, to resume the importance that they had lost long before the revolution. The pupils are to be examined in a manner more certain for determining their capacity, and better calculated for securing the degree of confidence to be reposed in those men to whose knowledge and integrity individuals are sometimes forced to intrust their character and fortune.
Three new Schools of Medicine, in addition to the three at present in being. These also are to be newly organized in the most perfect manner.
The mathematical and physical sciences have made too great a progress in France, their application to the useful arts, to the public service, and to the general prosperity, has been too direct, says FOURCROY, for it not to be necessary to diffuse the taste for them, and to open new asylums where the advantages resulting from them may be extended, and their progress promoted. There are therefore to be four new Special Schools of Natural History, Physics, and Chymistry, and also a Special School devoted to transcendent Mathematics.
The mechanical and chymical arts, so long taught in several universities in Germany under the name of technology, are to have two Special Schools, placed in the cities most rich in industry and manufactures. These schools, generally wished for, are intended to contribute to the national prosperity by the new methods which they will make known, the new instruments and processes which they will bring into use, the good models of machines which they will introduce, in a word, by every means that mechanics and chymistry can furnish to the arts.
A School of Public Economy, enlightened by Geography and History, is to be opened for those who may be desirous to investigate the principles of governments, and the art of ascertaining their respective interests. In this school it is proposed to unite such an assemblage of knowledge as has not yet existed in France.