Against the encroachments of this institutional university there is no longer neither public nor private shelter, since even domestic education at home, is not respected. In 1808,[6124] "among the old and wealthy families which are not in the system," Napoleon selects ten from each department and fifty at Paris of which the sons from sixteen to eighteen must be compelled to go to Saint-Cyr and, on leaving it, into the army as second lieutenants.[6125] In 1813, he adds 10,000 more of them, many of whom are the sons of Conventionalists or Vendéans, who, under the title of guards of honor, are to form a corps apart and who are at once trained in the barracks. All the more necessary is the subjection to this Napoleonic education of the sons of important and refractory families, everywhere numerous in the annexed countries. Already in 1802, Fourcroy had explained in a report to the legislative corps the political and social utility of the future University.[6126] Napoleon, at his discretion, may recruit and select scholars among his recent subjects; only, it is not in a lycée that he places them, but in a still more military school, at La Fléche, of which the pupils are all sons of officers and, so to say, children of the army. Towards the end of 1812, he orders the Roman prince Patrizzi to send his two sons to this school, one seventeen years of age and the other thirteen[6127]; and, to be sure of them, he has them taken from their home and brought there by gendarmes. Along with these, 90 other Italians of high rank are counted at La Fléche, the Dorias, the Paliavicinis, the Alfieris, with 120 young men of the Illyrian provinces, others again furnished by the countries of the Rhine confederation, in all 360 inmates at 800 per annum. The parents might often accompany or follow their children and establish themselves within reach of them. This privilege was not granted to Prince Patrizzi; he was stopped on the road at Marseilles and kept there.—In this way, through the skilful combination of legislative prescriptions with arbitrary appointments, Napoleon becomes in fact, directly or indirectly, the sole head-schoolmaster of all Frenchmen old or newcomers, the unique and universal educator in his empire.
III. Napoleon's machinery.
His machinery.—The educating body.—How its members come
to realize their union.—Hierarchy of rank.—How ambition
and amour-propre are gratified.—The monastic principle of
celibacy.—The monastic and military principle of
obedience.—Obligations contracted and discipline enforced.
—The École Normale and recruits for the future university.
To effect this purpose, he requires a good instrument, some great human machine which designed, put together and set up by himself, henceforth works alone and of its own accord, without deviating or breaking down, conformably to his instructions and always under his eye, but without the necessity of his lending a hand and personally interfering in its predetermined and calculated movement. The finest engines of this sort are the religious orders, masterpieces of the Catholic, Roman and governmental mind, all managed from above according to fixed rules in view of a definite object, so many kinds of intelligent automatons, alone capable of working indefinitely without loss of energy, with persistency, uniformity and precision, at the minimum of cost and the maximum of effect, and this through the simple play of their internal mechanism which, fully regulated beforehand, adapts them completely and ready-made to this special service, to the social operations which a recognized authority and a superior intelligence have assigned to them as their function.—Nothing could be better suited to the social instinct of Napoleon, to his imagination, his taste, his political policy and his plans, and on this point he loftily proclaims his preferences.
"I know," says he to the Council of State, "that the Jesuits, as regards instruction, have left a very great void. I do not want to restore them, nor any other body that has its sovereign at Rome."[6128]
Nevertheless, one is necessary. "As for myself, I would rather confide public education to a religious order than leave it as it is to-day," which means free and abandoned to private individuals. "But I want neither one nor the other." Two conditions are requisite for the new establishment. First of all,
"I want a corporation because a corporation never dies"; it alone, through its perpetuity, maintains teaching in the way marked out for it, brings up "according to fixed principles" successive generations, thus assuring the stability of the political State, and "inspires youth with a spirit and opinions in conformity with the new laws of the empire." And this corporation must be secular. Its members are to be State and not Church "Jesuits";[6129] they must belong to the Emperor and not to the Pope, and will form, in the hands of the government, a civil militia composed of "ten thousand persons," administrators and professors of every degree, comprehending schoolmasters, an organized, coherent and lasting militia
As it must be secular, there must be no hold on it through dogma or faith, paradise or hell, no spiritual incitements; consequently, temporal means are to be employed, not less effective, when one knows how to manage them,—self-esteem, pride, (amour propre), competition, imagination, ambition, magnificent hopes and vague dreams of unlimited promotion, in short, the means and motives already maintaining the temper and zeal of the army. "The educational corps must copy the classification of military grades; "an order of promotion," a hierarchy of places is to be instituted; no one will attain superior rank without having passed through the inferior; "no one can become a principal without having been a teacher, nor professor in the higher classes without having taught in the lower ones."—And, on the other hand, the highest places will be within reach of all; "the young, who devoted themselves to teaching, will enjoy the perspective of rising from one grade to another, up to the highest dignities of the State." Authority, importance, titles, large salaries, pre-eminence, precedence,—these are to exist in the University as in other public careers and furnish the wherewithal for the most magnificent dreams.[6130] "The feet of this great body[6131] will be on the college benches and its head in the senate." Its chief, the Grand-Master, unique of his species, less restricted, with freer hands than the ministers themselves, is to be one of the principal personages of the empire; his greatness will exalt the condition and feeling of his subordinates. In the provinces, on every festive occasion or at every public ceremony, people will take pride in seeing their rector or principal in official costume seated alongside of the general or prefect in full uniform.[6132]
The consideration awarded to their chief will reflect on them; they will enjoy it along with him; they will say to themselves that they too, like him and those under him, all together, form an élite; by degrees, they will feel that they are all one body; they will acquire the spirit of the association and attach themselves to the University, the same as a soldier to his regiment or like a monk to his brethren in a monastery.