THE LATEST REFORM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 383 



Student wore them any more, and they are hardly ever seen at 

 present. The student of the French university dresses Hke every- 

 body else and wears no gown, nor any insignia. There exists, it 

 is true, an Association generale des etudiants, but it seems that 

 this society devotes itself almost entirely to the economic in- 

 terests of its members. At any rate it is little heard of. There 

 and no professional masquerades either, no university pageants, 

 no speeches and harangues in Latin or in Greek, no romantic 

 and mediaeval ceremonies, the fresh breeze of modernism, which 

 is constantly sweeping Paris, has blown away all these ancient 

 customs, which, in England, for instance, are being preserved 

 with so much piety and in such striking accordance with the 

 '* nolumus leges Angliae tnutari." 



The University of Paris, which is the youngest and at the 

 same time the oldest of the great universities, has also this pecu- 

 liarity, that her manners and customs show in everv respect the 

 character of modern simplicity. Nowhere indeed have university 

 manners attained a higher degree of correctness and dignity than 

 they have at Paris. 



Summing up, and leaving all external features for what they 

 are worth, we are coming to the main point : the spirit which 

 animates at present the entire University of Paris. It is em- 

 phatically, what the reformers wished it to be at the outset of the 

 reorganization, a purely scientific spirit. It is impossible to speak 

 here, even in outlines, of the enormous amount of work done in 

 these 25 years in her laboratories, hospitals and lecture-rooms, o' 

 to mention all the energetic research work that has been accom- 

 plished there along with the applications that have accrued from it, 

 or to enumerate all *^he errors that have been discovered and recti- 

 fied ; in short to give any adequate idea of the whole of the pro- 

 ductive progress and evolution of theories and ideas. Neither is 

 it desirable, nor is it necessary, to compare the Paris University ir 

 these respects with others. In our days all the universit'es in the 

 world are working fraternally and in close alliance at the accom- 

 plishment of one immense, collective task, in which each of them 

 individually has only a limited share. The main and essential 

 thing is to have a share in it, a share proportionate and consistent 

 with our resources and powers as to staffs and finance. As far as 

 this goes, nobody will contest the fact, that in prooortion with 

 her resources, the University of Paris has done exceeding-lv well 

 on behalf of science. None of the facultSs has eiven un the work 

 of professional training ; of course such a thing could not be 

 done ; but alongside of the State examinations — the syllabuses 

 of which have been carefully revised — real university degrees have 

 been established, which are obtainable only and exclusivelv on the 

 streneth of successfully accomplished, scientific work. The great 

 principle of the reform of higher education, such as a few select 

 minds conceived it in 1880, is now unanimously admitted and 

 fully understood by the masters of this renovated branch of 

 education. 



All the rapporteurs uniformly repeat, almost year after year, 

 what one of them, M. Croiset, doyen of the faculte des leifres, 

 worded so admirably, when in 1896 he said : — 



