“Your single purpose,” he said to the members, “is to give to man the use of all his faculties, to make him enjoy all his rights, to develop the corporate life out of all the individual lives freely developed, and the will of the whole out of all personal wills.”
417. Distribution of Studies.—In Mirabeau’s plan, public and national instruction depends, not on the executive power, but on “the magistrates who truly represent the people, that is to say, who are elected and often renewed by the people,”—in other terms, the officers of departments or districts. Establishments for instruction ought not to form a consolidated body.
Let us observe, finally, that by the side of the primary schools Mirabeau established a college of literature for each department, and at Paris, a single National Lycée, “designed to secure to a select number of French youth the means of finishing their education.” In this he established a chair of method, which, he said, ought to be the basis of instruction.
In conclusion, the work of Mirabeau is but a very imperfect sketch, and a sort of graduated transition between the old and the new régime.
We do not yet find in it the grand ideas which are to impassion men, and it is the Rapport of Talleyrand which constitutes the real introduction to the educational work of the Revolution.
418. The Constituent Assembly and Talleyrand.—The constitution of Sept. 4, 1791, announced the following provision:—
“There shall be created and organized a system of public instruction, common to all citizens, and gratuitous with respect to those branches of instruction which are indispensable for all men.”
It was to put in force the decree of the Constitution that Talleyrand drew up his Rapport and presented it to the Assembly at the sessions of September 10 and 11. The entire bill contained not less than 208 articles. Having reached the term of its troubled existence, the Assembly did not find the time to discuss it, and, while regretting “not having established the bases of the regeneration of education,” it referred the examination of Talleyrand’s work to the Legislative Assembly.
The Legislative Assembly showed but little anxiety to accept the legacy of its predecessor. Another report, that of Condorcet, was prepared, so that the bill of Talleyrand never had the honor of a parliamentary discussion.
419. Talleyrand (1758-1838).—The ex-bishop of Autun, having become a revolutionist of 1789, before being the chamberlain of Napoleon I. and the minister of Louis XVIII., scarcely deserves by his character the esteem of history; he too often gave a striking example of political versatility. But at least, by his supple and acute intelligence, and by the abundance of his ideas, he has always risen to the height of the various tasks that he has undertaken, and his Rapport is a remarkable work.