The evils of both absolute royalty and feudalism were thus removed from a vast population in western Europe which had groaned under their burdens long after they had ceased to have any meaning or historical vitality; and besides, the process of assimilation in life and thought was measurably assisted by the adoption of identical laws among millions of men differing in blood and language. The good work was further promoted by a series of complementary codes of criminal procedure and of commerce which are as potent and beneficent to-day as when they were enacted. It is useless in this connection to compare the respective merits of corresponding institutions among the Latin and Teutonic state systems of Europe, or to enter on the long and bitter controversy waged between French and English publicists. The essential thing is a comparison between what Napoleon found and what he left among the same peoples, and this proclaims him one of the great social reformers of the world.
In no respect was the work of the Revolution more complete than in regard to education. Royal France had a pompous list of academies, scientific and special schools, universities, colleges, and common schools. Their arrangements were haphazard, their origin and management for the most part were ecclesiastical, and their patronage was strictly ordered by social rank. Primary education, being dependent altogether on the parishes, was in the main contemptible. There were many great scholars and teachers, and a few choice institutions; but the dependence of all on either the royal favor or on the Roman hierarchy, or on both, rendered the measure of their efficiency proportionate to the interest taken in them by crown and church. There was consequently no general system efficacious either in all its parts or even in all branches of one division.
The passion for national unity manifested itself, among other things, in a demand for a system of national education. The great men of the Assembly and of the Convention bent their shoulders to the task. For the first time in the history of the nation it was recognized that after the leveling of classes, the only guarantee for social order in the future was to be found in the education of the masses. Accordingly, they outlined a grand scheme of graded instruction. The foundation was popular education by the primary school; then came a system of middle or secondary schools; and then instruction by professional faculties, including a magnificent normal school for the training of teachers, and a polytechnic institution of the first order. The whole was to be crowned by a museum, the College of France, and the Institute. Education was to be gratuitous and obligatory. The essential feature of the entire plan was the character of the primary school, which was not to teach merely the necessary rudiments of reading, writing, and ciphering, but the introductory elements of the complete encyclopedia of instruction. The whole structure was purely secular, and no account was taken of the education of females after the age of eight. It was declared that young girls should be trained by their parents, and entirely at home. Condorcet alone believed in the intellectual equality of the sexes. Lakanal secured a decree for mixed schools, under certain conditions, in which the daughters of the republic should have the same instruction as its sons "as far as their sex would permit"; but they were to be chiefly occupied with spinning, dressmaking, and the domestic arts then considered the chief ones proper to their sex. Some parts of the enormous design were put into operation, but it was found to transcend the abilities of an unsettled people. Talleyrand pared down its dimensions, but at the fall of the Directory nothing had been accomplished except the foundation of the polytechnic school.
NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL
Profile in sepia by Lemoine. Belonging to M. Petit
Napoleon Exposition, 1895.
It is well known that Bonaparte prepared himself for the rôle of lawgiver by devouring the books lent him by Cambacérès, and by studying the memorials already prepared by the Convention. Even then, however, he was in the main guided by his instinct, combined with his profound knowledge of men. The latter was his sole guide in elaborating his scheme of public instruction. Talleyrand's plan was before him, but the conclusion was his own. He was not at all concerned to make scholars or to increase knowledge. He was stubbornly determined to make citizens, as he understood the word. In a time of utter chaos he professed himself indifferent to ideals, and was animated by a purely practical spirit, doing nothing but what appeared immediately essential. For this reason, in carrying out his plan, he selected as an agent no expert with wide experience and settled convictions, but an excellent chemist who had been a member of the notorious Committee of Public Safety, and within a narrow horizon had good capacities. To Fourcroy alone was intrusted the formulation of a measure which, as Roederer said in its support, was a political institution intended to unite the present generation with the rising one, to bind the fathers to the government by their children and the children by their fathers—in short, to establish a sort of public paternity.
The religious societies which still retained their hold on such instruction as there was had no connection with the state, and very little with the new society. The new system was ingeniously devised to bind up the youth of the nation with both the political and social life of the new France. There was to be in every commune a primary school with teachers appointed by the mayor, under supervision of the subprefect. Next in order were secondary schools in the chief town of every department, under supervision of the prefect; and coördinate with these were such private schools as would submit to government regulations. The next stage was composed of a limited number of lyceums or colleges with both a classical and a modern side. These were open only to such students as had gained distinction in the grade below, and from them in turn a fifth were promoted to the professional schools. Of these there were nine categories: law; medicine; natural science; mechanical and chemical technology; higher mathematics; geography, history, and political economy; the arts of design; astronomy; music and the theory of composition. The First Consul would listen to no more comprehensive or enlightened plan until this should first be put into successful execution, as it soon was under his impulse and Fourcroy's guidance.
Thereupon his ultimate object was unveiled. A few years later came into existence the so-called University of France, whereby all instruction was as perfectly centralized as administration had been. There were three articulated degrees, primary, secondary, and superior, controlled by a complete and rigid system of central inspection. All institutions of each degree were divided by vertical lines of territorial division into academies, each of which had its own rector. These were in turn controlled by a superior council and a grand master. The normal school was revived, military uniform and discipline were introduced into the lyceums, and the instruction was carefully directed toward imbuing the mind with notions suited to the new conditions of French life, as Bonaparte meant to mold them. The corporate university, as a whole, was not a portion of the ministry, but while subordinate was distinct. This provision has probably been the cause of a permanence which no political revolution has been able to destroy. It is only since the Church secured permission for the erection of faculties supported and controlled by itself that there have been signs of any change of organization or any return to academic liberty in the state institutions.