601. Organization of the Imperial University.—The Imperial University comprised, like the present University, Colleges, Lycées, and Faculties. The Colleges furnished secondary instruction, like the Lycées, but less complete. There were a Faculty of Letters and a Faculty of Sciences for each academic centre; but these Faculties were very poorly equipped, with their endowment of from five to ten thousand francs at most, and with their few professors. The professors of the neighboring Lycée (professors of rhetoric and mathematics) formed a part of the establishment, and each Faculty included at most but two or three other chairs.
Latin and mathematics formed the basis of the instruction in the Lycées. The Revolution had not come in vain, since that which it had vigorously demanded was now realized; the sciences and the classical languages were put on a footing of equality.
602. Dynastic Prepossessions.—That which absorbed the attention of the founder of the Imperial University was less the schemes of study than the general principles on which the rising generations were to be nourished. In this respect the thought of the Emperor is not obscure. He does not dissemble it. God and the Emperor are the two words which must be graven into the depths of the soul.
“All the schools of the Imperial University will make as the basis of their instruction: 1. the precepts of the Catholic religion; 2. fidelity to the Emperor, to the imperial monarchy, the depository of the happiness of the people, and to the Napoleonic dynasty, the conservator of the unity of France, and of all the ideas proclaimed by the Constitution.”
“Napoleon,” as Guizot says, “attempted to convert into an instrument of despotism an institution which tended to be only a centre of light.”
603. Primary Instruction neglected.—Primary instruction never occupied the attention of Napoleon I. The decree of 1805 contented itself with promising measures intended to assure the recruitment of teachers, especially the creation of one or more normal classes within the colleges and lycées. Moreover, the Grand Master was to encourage and to license the Brethren of the Christian Schools, while supervising their establishments. Finally, the right to establish schools was left to families or to religious corporations, the budget of the Empire containing no item of appropriation for the cause of popular instruction.
The Restoration was scarcely more generous towards the instruction of the people. By the ordinance of February 29, 1815, it granted fifty thousand francs as encouragement to the primary schools. Was this derisive liberality any better than complete silence and neglect? A more important measure was the establishment of cantonal committees charged with the supervision of primary schools. These committees were placed, sometimes under the direction of the rector, and at others under the authority of the bishop, at the pleasure of the vicissitudes of politics. Certificates of qualification were delivered to the members of the authorized congregations, on the simple presentation of their letters of permission. We can imagine what a body of teachers could be assured by such a mode of recruitment.
In anticipation of the monarchy of July, which in its liberal dispositions was to appear more regardful of popular education, private initiative signalized itself under the Restoration by the foundation of the Society for Elementary Instruction, and also by the encouragement it gave to the first attempts at mutual instruction.