ly
shaped and wrought out in a special school, which will be for the
University what Fontainebleau is for the army, what the grand seminaries
are for the clergy, a nursery of subjects carefully selected and
fashioned beforehand.

Such is the object of the "Ecole Normale."[6144] Young students enter it
at the age of seventeen and bind themselves to remain in the University
at least ten years.[6145] Young students enter it at the age of
seventeen (for a period of 3 years) and bind themselves afterwards to
remain in the University at least ten years. It is a boarding-school
and they are obliged to live in common: "individual exits are not
allowed," while "the exits in common... in uniform... can be made only
under the direction and conduct of superintendent masters.. .. These
superintendents inspect the pupils during their studies and recreations,
on rising and on going to bed and during the night... No pupil is
allowed to pass the hours set aside for recreation in his own room
without permission of the superintendent. No pupil is allowed to
enter the hall of another division without the permission of two
superintendents.... The director of studies must examine the books
of the pupils whenever he deems it necessary, and as often as once a
month." Every hour of the day has its prescribed task; all exercises,
including religious observances, are prescribed, each in time and place,
with a detail and meticulousness, as if purposely to close all possible
issues to personal initiation and everywhere substitute mechanical
uniformity for individual diversities. "The principal duties of the
pupils are respect for religion, attachment to the sovereign and the
government, steady application, constant regularity, docility and
submission to superiors; whoever fails in these duties is punished
according to the gravity of the offense."[6146]--In 1812,[6147] the
Normal School is still a small one, scarcely housed, lodged in the upper
stories of the lycee Louis le Grand, and composed of forty pupils and
four masters. But Napoleon has its eyes on it and is kept informed of
what goes on in it. He does not approve of the comments on the "Dialogue
de Sylla et d'Eucrate," by Montesquieu, on the "Eloge de Marc Aurele,"
by Thomas, on the "Annales" of Tacitus: "Let the young read Caesar's
commentaries... Corneille, Bossuet, are the masters worth having; these,
under the full sail of obedience, enter into the established order of
things of their t