German must be known sufficiently for it to be translated, spoken a little, and written in its own characters.
Drawing, besides the épures of descriptive geometry, must have been acquired sufficiently for copying an academic study, and shading in pencil and in India ink.
Will not our readers agree with M. Coriolis, that “There are very few learned mathematicians who could answer perfectly well at an examination for admission to the Polytechnic School”?
[SCHOOLS OF PREPARATION FOR THE POLYTECHNIC SCHOOL]
There are strictly speaking no Junior Military Schools preparatory to the Polytechnic School, or to the Special Military School at St. Cyr. These schools are recruited in general from the Lycées and other schools for secondary instruction, upon which they exert a most powerful influence. Until 1852 there was no special provision made in the courses of instruction in the Lycées for the mathematical preparation required for admission into the Polytechnic, and the Bachelor’s degree in science could not be obtained without being able to meet the requirements in Latin, rhetoric, and logic for graduation in the arts, which was necessary to the profession of law, medicine, and theology. In consequence, young men who prepared to be candidates for the preliminary examinations at the Polytechnic and the St. Cyr, left the Lycées before graduation in order to acquire more geometry and less literature in the private schools, or under private tuition.
A new arrangement, popularly called the Bifurcation, was introduced by the Decrees of the 10th of April, 1852; and has now come into operation. The conditions demanded for the degree in science were adapted to the requirements of the Military Schools; and in return for this concession it is henceforth to be exacted from candidates for the Military Schools. The diploma of arts is no longer required before the diploma of science can be given. The instruction, which in the upper classes of the Lycées had hitherto been mainly preparatory for the former, takes henceforth at a certain point (called that of Bifurcation) two different routes, conducting separately, the one to the baccalaureate of arts, the other to that of science. The whole system of teaching has accordingly been altered. Boys wanting to study algebra are no longer carried through a long course of Latin; mathematics are raised to an equality with literature; and thus military pupils—pupils desirous of admission at the Polytechnic and St. Cyr, may henceforth, it is hoped, obtain in the Lycées all the preparation which they had latterly sought elsewhere.
Under this new system the usual course for a boy seems to be the following:—
He enters the Lycée, in the Elementary Classes; or, a little later, in the Grammar Classes, where he learns Latin and begins Greek. At the age of about fourteen, he is called upon to pass an examination for admission into the Upper Division, and here, in accordance with the new regulations, he makes his choice for mathematics or for literature, the studies henceforth being divided, one course leading to the bachelorship of science, the other to that of arts.