ard-of
efforts, he buffets the waves with hand and head, and shoulder, and
knee. You say: "He will succeed in going up." A moment after, you look,
and he has gone farther down. He is much farther down the river than he
was when he started. Without knowing, or even suspecting it, he loses
ground at every effort he makes; he fancies that he is ascending the
stream, and he is constantly descending it. He thinks he is advancing,
but he is falling hack. Falling credit, as you say, lowering of
interest, as you say; M. Bonaparte has already made several of those
decrees which you choose to qualify as socialistic, and he will make
more. M. Changarnier, had he triumphed instead of M. Bonaparte, would
have done as much. Henry V, should he return to-morrow, would do the
same. The Emperor of Austria does it in Galicia, and the Emperor
Nicholas in Lithuania. But after all, what does this prove? that the
torrent which is called Revolution is stronger than the swimmer who is
called Despotism.

But even this socialism of M. Bonaparte, what is it? This, socialism? I
deny it. Hatred of the middle class it may be, but not socialism. Look
at the socialist department _par excellence_, the Department of
Agriculture and of Commerce,--he has abolished it. What has he given
you as compensation? the Ministry of Police! The other socialist
department is the Department of Public Instruction, and that is in
danger: one of these days it will be suppressed. The starting-point of
socialism is education, gratuitous and obligatory teaching, knowledge.
To take the children and make men of them, to take the men and make
citizens of them--intelligent, honest, useful, and happy citizens.
Intellectual and moral progress first, and material progress after. The
two first, irresistibly and of themselves, bring on the last. What does
M. Bonaparte do? He persecutes and stifles instruction everywhere.
There is one pariah in our France of the present day, and that is the
schoolmaster.

Have you ever reflected on what a schoolmaster really is--on that
magistracy in which the tyrants of old took shelter, like criminals in
the temple, a certain refuge? Have you ever thought of what that man is
who teaches children? You enter the workshop of a wheelwright; he is
making wheels and shafts; you say, "this is a useful man;" you enter a
weaver's, who is making cloth; you say, "this is a valuable man;" you
enter the blacksmith's shop; he is making pick-axes, hammers, and