5. The complaint of General Paixhans has been quoted. He urges that a considerable proportion of the army pupils are mere queues de promotion, and quite insufficient to form le corps et surtout la tête of troops d’élite.

Other not inconsistent complaints we heard ourselves, of the mental exhaustion and the excessively abstract tendencies of many of the military pupils of the school.

6. Such are the complaints. There is certainly reason to think that, with regard to the twenty or thirty lowest pupils on the list, those of General Paixhans are well founded. These are the breaks down, and we are at first surprised that, entering as they must do,[11] with high attainments, they should fall so low as the marks in the tables (with which we are most liberally supplied) prove to be the case.

At the same time, we believe that no teaching ever has provided or will provide against many failures out of one hundred and seventy pupils, even among those who promised well at first: and if the standard of the majority of pupils is high at the Polytechnique, and the point reached by the first few very high, it is no reproach that the descent amongst the last few should be very rapid.

With regard to the assertion, that the teaching is excessive and leads too much to abstract pursuits for soldiers, it may be partially true. Perhaps the general passion for science has led to an overstrained teaching for the army, even for its scientific corps; and yet would it be allowed by officers of the highest scientific ability, either in the French or the English army, that less science is required for the greatest emergencies of military than for those of civil engineering, or for the theory of projectiles than for working the department of saltpetre?

It may, however, be true that an attempt is made at the Polytechnic to exact from all attainments which can only be reached by a few.

7. With this deduction, we must express our opinion strongly in favor of the influence of the Polytechnic on the French army. We admit that in some instances pupils who have failed in their attempt at civil prizes enter the army unwillingly, but they are generally soon penetrated with its esprit de corps, and they carry into it talent which it would not otherwise have obtained. Cases of overwork no doubt occur, as in the early training for every profession, but (following the evidence we have received) we have no reason to think them so numerous as to balance the advantage of vigorous, thoughtful study directed early towards a profession which, however practical, is eminently benefited by it. “It can not be said,” was the verdict of one well fitted to express an opinion, “that there is too much science in the French army.”

8. Assuming, however, the value of the scientific results produced in the French army by the Polytechnic, it by no means follows that a similar institution would be desirable in another country. Without much discussion it may be safely said that the whole history and nature of the institution—the offspring of a national passion for system and of revolutionary excitement—make it thoroughly peculiar to France.

9. Some obvious defects must be noticed. The curious rule of forbidding the use of all books whatever is a very exaggerated attempt to make the pupil to rely entirely on the professors and répétiteurs. The exclusive practice of oral examination also seems to us a defect. Certainly every examination should give a pupil an opportunity of showing such valuable qualities as readiness and power of expression; but an examination solely oral appears to us an uncertain test of depth or accuracy of knowledge; and however impartial or practiced an examiner may be, it is impossible that questions put orally can present exactly the same amount of difficulty, and so be equally fair, to the several competitors.

At the same time, although in all great competing examinations the chief part of the work (in our opinion) should be written, the constant oral cross-questioning of the minor examinations at the Polytechnic, appeared to be one of the most stimulating and effective parts of their system,