cation. "Would you obtain an idea of public education? Read
Plato's 'Republic.'[3426].... The best social institutions are those the
best qualified to change man's nature, to destroy his absolute being, to
give him a relative being, and to convert self into the common unity,
so that each individual may not regard himself as one by himself, but
a part of the unity, and no longer sensitive but through the whole. An
infant, on opening its eyes, must behold the common patrimony and, to
the day of its death, behold that only.... He should be disciplined so
as never to contemplate the individual except in his relations with the
body of the State."

Such was the practice of Sparta, and the sole aim of the "great
Lycurgus." "All being equal through the law, they must be brought up
together and in the same manner." "The law must regulate the subjects,
the order and the form of their studies." They must, at the very least,
take part in public exercises, in horse-races, in the games of
strength and of agility instituted "to accustom them to law, equality,
fraternity, and competition;" to teach them how "to live under the eyes
of their fellow-citizens and to crave public applause."

Through these games they become democrats from their early youth, since,
the prizes being awarded, not through the arbitrariness of masters,
but through the cheers of spectators, they accustom themselves to
recognizing as sovereign the legitimate sovereignty, consisting of the
verdict of the assembled people. The foremost interest of the State is,
always, to form the wills of those by which it lasts, to prepare the
votes that are to maintain it, to uproot passions in the soul that might
be opposed to it, to implant passions that will prove favorable to it,
to fix firmly with the breasts of its future citizens the sentiments and
prejudices it will at some time need.[3427] If it does not secure the
children it will not possess the adults, Novices in a convent must be as
monks, otherwise, when they grow up, the convent will no longer exist.

Finally, our lay convent has its own religion, a lay religion. If
I possess any other it is through its condescension and under
restrictions. It is, by nature, hostile to other associations than its
own; they are rivals, they annoy it, they absorb the will and pervert
the votes of its members.

"To ensure a full declaration of the general will it is an important
matter not to allow any special society in the State,