[ARCHIBALD] MATHEMATICAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE 107 
written examinations are conducted at the seats of the various acad- 
emies and the oral at Paris. Since 1904 the concours passed by the 
Ecole Normalians has been that for the bourses de licence, open to 
candidates of at least 18 years of age and not more than 24. Certain 
dispensations in the matter of age are sometimes granted. The value 
of the bourse, for the section of science, is from 600-1,200 francs a year 
and is intended to help the student to prepare for the licence and other 
examinations required of prospective professors in the lycées and 
universities. The candidates leading the list in the concours are sent 
to the Ecole Normale Supérieure for from three to four years. It is 
necessary for the six or seven other boursiers to prepare for future ex- 
aminations at the various universities of the provinces. Their bourses 
last regularly for two, and exceptionally for three, years. 
But to return to our éléves of the Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales. 
At the end of the first year, when 18 years old, they usually present 
themselves for the concours of both the bourse de licence and the Ecole 
Polytechnique, the examinations in the former being more strenuous 
and searching. Only from 2 to 5 per cent. succeed on the first trial. 
The others then go back to the lycée and take another year in the 
Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales. Many points not fully understood 
before are now clear, and at the end of the second year from 25 to 28 
per cent. are successful. The persevering again return to their Classe 
and try yet a third time (the last permitted for the bourse de licence) ; 
but it is a matter of record that less than one-half of those who enter 
the Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales succeed even with this trial. 
This is usually the last trial possible for entry into the Ecole Polytech- 
nique, as the young man who has passed the age of 21 on the first of 
January preceding the concours may not present himself. The re- 
mainder of the students either seek for entrance into government schools 
with less severe admission requirements, and thus give up their as- 
pirations to become mathematicians, or else continue their studies at 
the Sorbonne. The candidate who heads the list in each of these 
concours has his name widely published. In the case of the bourse de 
licence he is called the cacique, and he very frequently tops also the 
Ecole Polytechnique list. 
If the work of the Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales is so enormously 
difficult that only 2 to 5 per cent of its members can, at the end of one 
year, meet the standard of requirements of the examinations for which 
it prepares, why is not the instruction spread over two? Since nearly 
all the mathematical savants who now shed lustre on France’s fair 
fame have passed from this remarkable class on the first trial, there 
can be no doubt that the answer to this question may be found}in 
the fact that the government ever seeks her servants among the élite 
of the nation’s intellectuals. 
