378 THE LATEST REFORM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 



the Ecole de Pharmacie ; it isolated and considerably enlarged 

 the Facultes of medicine and of law. It multiplied, stocked and 

 equipped libraries and laboratories ; it increased the number of 

 chairs and worthily filled them. All the sciences are now splen- 

 didly housed owing to its liberality. The " Montague Sainte- 

 Genevieve " at Paris is nowadays one of the most expensive and 

 one of the finest university quarters in the world. Even the non- 

 university schools have not been forgotten. The Ecole des 

 Chartes and the Ecole des langues orientales " have been rebuilt ; 

 the Museum of the College de France has been enlarged regardless 

 of cost. 



While thus, by the generosity of the patres conscripti, the 

 necessary funds were gradually forthcoming, which were to 

 enable the University of Paris to honourably hold its own in future 

 among the universities of the old world and the new, the pro- 

 moters of the vast scheme of reform that was going on were 

 busily engaged in planning and mapping out the internal trans- 

 formation of the " ecoles " and "facultes." Four of these: 

 protestant theology, law, medicine, and pharmacy, prepare their 

 students ; but the two Sorhonne-f acuity s — sciences and letters — 

 had none. Naturally the question now arose how to draw 

 students to these latter two. It was of the utmost importance 

 that this should be contrived without either hurting the feelings 

 or infringing the established rights of others. The thinjr in itself 

 was simple enough. It would be almost sufficient to make known 

 that in future these two facultes, as in the case of the ^cole 

 normale sup^rieure, intended to prepare for the licenciate and 

 agregation examinations. These examinations, as is well known, 

 grant the jus docendi as a lecturer in the system of secondary 

 schools in France. The Ecole normale sup^rieure could not pos- 

 sibly take umbrage at this step, since it admitted only a strictly 

 limited number of students to its courses every year, and had as 

 yet never supplied the total number, nor even the majority of the 

 iicencies and agreges, wanted to staff the lycees and colleges of 

 the country. By admitting such applicants as had been refused 

 admission at the Ecole normale and the Ecole polytechnique, and 

 moreover by opening their doors to those who had either not been 

 willing or not been able to attempt the entrance examinations of 

 either of these two, the facultes of sciences and of letters were 

 certain to secure an excellent attendance of students, whose num- 

 bers were sure to increase vastly, if the military laws (as they 

 actually did later on) were to grant special and desirable preroga- 

 tives to recruits, who entered the service with the title of either 

 licenciS iis lettres or licencie es sciences. Thus it appears to be 

 comparatively easy to attract legions of students by the decoy of 

 professional training and preparatory schooling for State degrees. 

 However, the reformers had nobler and loftier aims than those 

 of mere piddling practicality. They deemed it indispensable that 

 in the very first place these ecoles should be scientific, without 

 therefore ceasing to be professional. To quote Liard once more : 

 " It was desirable, nay necessary, that a scientific character, 

 with all the sense of truth, and liberty of thought, all the faith in 

 ideas and submission to facts, all the idealism in conceptions and 



