ir pupils,
and advantageous to science. The examination-system has therefore been
perseveringly reformed, not without difficulty, into conformity with a
certain ideal of what the higher teaching of history ought to be. The
result is that the Faculties have taken rank among the institutions
which contribute to the positive progress of the historical sciences. An
enumeration of the works which have appeared under their auspices during
the last few years would, if necessary, bear witness to the fact.

This evolution has already produced satisfactory results, and will
produce more if it goes on as well as it has begun. To begin with, the
transformation of historical instruction in the Faculties has brought
about a corresponding transformation at the Ecole normale superieure.
The Ecole normale has also, for two years, been awarding a "_Diplome
d'etudes_"; original researches, pedagogic exercises, and general
culture are encouraged there in the same degree as by the new Faculties.
It now differs from the Faculties only in being a close institution,
recruited under certain precautions; practically it is a Faculty like
the others, but with a small number of select students. Secondly, the
Ecole des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes, both of which will be
installed at the end of 1897, in the renovated Sorbonne, have still
their justification for existence; for many specialists are represented
at the Ecole des hautes etudes which are not, and doubtless never will
be, represented in the Faculties; and, in the case of the studies
bearing on mediaeval history, the body of converging instruction given at
the Ecole des chartes will always be incomparable. But the old
antagonism between the Ecole des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes
on the one hand, and the Faculties on the other, has disappeared. All
these institutions, lately so dissimilar, will henceforth co-operate for
the purpose of carrying on a common work in a common spirit. Each of
these retains its name, its autonomy, and its traditions; but together
they form a whole: the historical section of an ideal University of
Paris, much vaster than the one which was sanctioned by the law in 1896.
Of this "greater" University, the Ecole des chartes, the Ecole des
hautes etudes, the Ecole normale superieure, and the whole body of
historical instruction given by the Faculty of Letters, are now
practically so many independent "_instituts_."

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES