ve or
six little girls around a disguised Ursuline nun spell out the alphabet
in a back room;[3165] a priest without tonsure or cassock secretly
receives in the evening two or three youths whom he makes translate the
De Viris.--During the intervals, indeed, of the Reign of Terror, before
the 13th of Vendemiaire and the 18th of Fructidor, sundry schools spring
up again like tufts of grass in a mowed pasture-ground, but only in
certain spots and meagerly; moreover, as soon as the Jacobin returns to
power he stubbornly stamps them out;[3166] he wants to have teaching all
to himself.--Now the institution by which the State pretends to replace
the old and free establishments makes a figure only on paper. One ecole
centrale in each department is installed or decreed, making eighty eight
on the territory of ancient France; this hardly supplies the place of
the eight or nine hundred high-schools (colleges), especially as these
new schools are hardly viable, being in ruin at the very start,[3167]
poorly maintained, badly furnished, with no preparatory schools nor
adjacent boarding-houses,[3168] the programme of studies being badly
arranged and parents suspicious of the spirit of the studies.[3169]
Thus, there is little or no attendance at most of the courses of
lectures; only those on mathematics are followed, particularly on
drawing, and especially mechanical and geometrical drawing, probably
by the future surveyors and engineers of roads and bridges, by building
contractors and a few aspirants to the Ecole Polytechnique. As to
the other courses, on literature, history, and the moral sciences, as
comprehended by the Republic and imposed by it, these obtain not over a
thousand auditors in all France; instead of 72,000 pupils, only 7000 or
8000 seek superior education, while six out of seven, instead of
seeking self-culture, simply prepare themselves for some practical
pursuit.[3170]

It is much worse with primary instruction. This task is given to the
local authorities. But, as they have no money, they generally shirk this
duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain it.[3171]
On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, "almost
everywhere,"[3172] the teacher is an outcast layman, a fallen Jacobin,
some old, starving party member, unemployed, foul-mouthed and of
ill-repute. Families, naturally, refuse to trust their children with
him; even when honorable, they avoid him; and the reason is that, in