ld be wrong for him to allow several establishments within reach of
students in which they would be directed by science alone; it is certain
that, in many points, the direction here given to youth would poorly
square with the rigid, uniform, narrow lines in which Napoleon wishes
to confine them. Schools of this kind would get to be centers of
opposition; young men thus fashioned would become dissenters; they would
gladly hold personal, independent opinions alongside, or outside, of
"the national doctrine," outside of Napoleonic and civil orthodoxy;
and worse still, they would believe in their opinions. Having studied
seriously and at first sources, the jurist, the theologian, the
philosopher, the historian, the philologist, the economist might perhaps
cherish the dangerous pretension of considering himself competent even
in social matters; being a Frenchman, he would talk with assurance and
indiscretion; he would be much more troublesome than a German; it would
soon be necessary to send him to Bicetre or to the Temple.[6218]--In
the present state of things, with the exigencies of the reign, and even
in the interests of the young themselves, it is essential that superior
instruction should be neither encyclopedic nor very profound.

Were this a defect, Frenchmen would not perceive it; they are accustomed
to it. Already, before 1789, the classes in the humanities were
generally completed by the lesson in philosophy. In this course logic,
morals and metaphysics were taught. Here the young persons handled,
adjusted, and knocked about more or less adroitly the formula on God,
nature, the soul and science they had learned by rote. Less scholastic,
abridged, and made easy, this verbal exercise has been maintained in
the lycees.[6219] Under the new regime, as well as under the old one, a
string of abstract terms, which the professor thought he could explain
and which the pupil thought he understood, involves young minds in a
maze of high, speculative conceptions, beyond their reach and far beyond
their experience, education and years. Because pupils play with words,
they suppose that they grasp and master ideas, which fancy deprives
them of any desire to obtain them. Consequently, in the great French
establishment, young people hardly remark the lack of veritable
Universities; a liberal, broad spirit of inquiry is not aroused in them;
they do not regret their inability to have covered the cycle of varied
research and critical in