Lighten this gloomy picture one degree and it is true.[6202] As to primary instruction, there was no State appropriation, no credit inscribed on the budget, no aid in money, save 25,000 francs, allotted in 1812, to the novices of the Frères Ignorantins and of which they received but 4,500 francs;[6203] the sole mark of favor accorded to the small schools is an exemption from the dues of the University.[6204] His councillors, with their habits of fiscal logic, proposed to exact this tax here as elsewhere; a shrewd politician, he thinks that its collection would prove odious and he is bound not to let his popularity suffer among villagers and common people; it is 200,000 francs a year which he abstains from taking from them; but here his liberalities in behalf of primary instruction stop. Let parents and the communes take this burden on themselves, pay its expenses, seek out and hire the teacher, and provide for a necessity which is local and almost domestic. The government, which invites them to do this, will simply furnish the plan, that is to say, a set of rules, prescriptions and restrictions.
At first, there is the authorization of the prefect, guardian of the commune, who, having invited the commune to found a school, has himself, through a circular, given instructions to this end, and who now interferes in the contract between the municipal council and the teacher, to approve of or to rectify its clauses—the name of the employee, duration of his engagement, hours and seasons for his classes, subjects to be taught, the sum total and conditions of his pay in money or in kind; the school grant must be paid by the commune, the school tax by the pupils, the petty fees which help pay the teacher's living expenses and which he gets from accessory offices such as mayor's clerk, clock-winder, sexton, bell-ringer and chorister in the church[6205]—At the same time, and in addition, there is the authorization of the rector; for the small as well as the average or larger schools are included in the University;[6206] the new master becomes a member of the teaching body, binds himself and belongs to it by oath, takes upon himself its obligations and submissions, comes under the special jurisdiction of the university authorities, and is inspected, directed and controlled by them in his class and outside of his class.—The last supervision, still more searching and active, which close by, incessantly and on the spot, hovers over all small schools by order and spontaneously, is the ecclesiastical supervision. A circular of the Grand-Master, M. de Fontanes,[6207] requests the bishops to instruct "messieurs les curés of their diocese to send in detailed notes on their parish schoolmasters;" "when these notes are returned," he says, "please address them to me with your remarks on them; according to these indications I will approve of the instructor who merits your suffrage and he will receive the diploma authorizing him to continue in his functions. Whoever fails to present these guarantees will not receive a diploma and I shall take care to replace him with another man whom you may judge to be the most capable."[6208]
If Napoleon thus places his small schools under ecclesiastical oversight, it is not merely to conciliate the clergy by giving it the lead of the majority of souls, all the uncultivated souls, but because, for his own interests, he does not want the mass of the people to think and reason too much for themselves.
"The Academy inspectors,"[6209] says the decree of 1811, "will see that the masters of the primary schools do not carry their teaching beyond reading, writing and arithmetic."
Beyond this limit, should the instructor teach a few of the children the first elements of Latin or geometry, geography or history, his school becomes secondary; it is then ranked as a boarding-school, while its pupils are subjected to the university recompense, military drill, uniform, and all the above specified exigencies; and yet more—it must no longer exist and is officially closed. A peasant who reads, writes and ciphers and who remains a peasant need know no more, and, to be a good soldier, he need not know as much; moreover, that is enough, and more too, to enable him to become an under and even a superior officer. Take, for instance, Captain Coignet, whose memoirs we have, who, to be appointed a second-lieutenant, had to learn to write and who could never write other than a large hand, like young beginners.—The best masters for such limited instruction are the Brethren of the Christian Schools and these, against the advice of his counselors, Napoleon supports:
"If they are obliged," he says, by their vows to refrain from other knowledge than reading, writing and the elements of arithmetic,... it is that they may be better adapted to their destiny."[6210] "In comprising them in the University, they become connected with the civil order of things and the danger of their independence is anticipated."
Henceforth, "they no longer have a stranger or a foreigner for their chief." "The superior-general at Rome has renounced all inspection over them; it is understood that in France their superior-general will reside at Lyons."[6211] The latter, with his monks, fall into the hands of the government and come under the authority of the Grand-Master. Such a corporation, with the head of it in one's power, is a perfect instrument, the surest, the most exact, always to be relied on and which never acts on one side of, or beyond, the limits marked out for it. Nothing pleases Napoleon more, who,
* in the civil order of things, wants to be Pope;
* who builds up his State, as the Pope his Church, on old Roman tradition;
* who, to govern from above, allies himself with ecclesiastical authority;