nique, 230 for 30 places in the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts (section of Architecture) and 266 for 24 places in the Ecole
Normale (section of Literature).]

[Footnote 6366: 1890.]

[Footnote 6367: In France today, in 2000, there are still preparatory
schools which, in two or three years after their baccalaureat, prepare
the young applicants for the various competetive entrance examinations
to the "Grande Ecoles". 4000 specially selected students vie annually
with each other for the 400 places in the Ecole Polytechnique. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6368: I was once, writes Taine, an examiner for admission to
a large special school and speak from experience.. Taine was well placed
to know about the system since he was first in the competetive entrance
exam (concours) to the Ecole Normale Superior, and had also passed all
his other studies with great brilliance. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6369: A practical apprenticeship in the Faculty of Medicine
is less retarded; the future doctors, after the third year of their
studies, enter a hospital for two years, ten months of each year or 284
days of service, including an "obstetrical stage" of one months. Later,
on competing for the title of physician or surgeon in the hospitals and
for the aggregation of the Faculty, the theoretical preparation is as
onerous as that of other careers.]

[Footnote 6370: "Souvenirs" by Chancellor Pasquier. (Written in 1843).
(Etienne Dennis Pasquier (Paris 1767--id. 1862) was a high official
under Napoleon, and President of the upper house under Louis-Phillippe
and author of "L'Histoire de mon temps", published posthumously in
1893. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. On page 16 and 17 in volume I he fully
confirms Taine's views. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6371: Idem., Nobody attended the Lectures of the Law faculty
of Paris, except sworn writers who took down the professor's dictation
and sold copies of it. "These were nearly all supported by arguments
communicated beforehand... At Bourges, everything was got through within
five or six months at most."]

[Footnote 6372: "Souvenirs" by Chancellor Pasquier, vol. I. p.
17. Nowadays, "the young man who enters the world at twenty-two,
twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, thinks that he has nothing
more to learn; he commonly starts with absolute confidence in himself
and profound disdain for whoever does not share in the ideas and
opinions that he has adopted. Full of confidence in his own force,
taking himself at his own value, he is