120 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
a constant means of intercourse. The fine old building, its studious 
atmosphere, three to five years of friendly rivalry with almost equally 
brilliant companions, daily intercourse with the professors, could hardly 
fail to have developed a young man’s latent talents or to have inspired 
him to his best effort. Rarely does one find in France a professor such 
as Tannery' who is so generally beloved and respected by his éléves 
past and present. 
All the great privileges of the Ecole are occasionally open to foreign- 
ers either as internes or externes. It is now however, somewhat difficult 
to make arrangements to enter as interne because of the increasing 
demands made on limited space by the needs of the state. The charge 
of 1,200 francs per year made for pension complete is exactly the value 
of the bourse which France gives to students of her own nationality 
and which she expects to be refunded if after leaving the Ecole, the éléve 
decides not to take up the career of a teacher in her schools. All élèves 
are assured positions in lycées—those who have become agrégés, as 
professeurs titulaires, the others as professeurs chargés de cours. 
Tue ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE. 
This École founded by Monge at the close of the Revolution and the 
most popular of the great schools of France, is under the direct control 
of the minister of war and not of the minister of public instruction. 
Its pupils are recruited from the most diverse orders of society solely 
because of merit determined by concours on leaving the Classe de Mathé- 
matiques Spéciales. Its object is to prepare them as military and naval 
engineers, artillery officers, civil engineers in government employ, tele- 
graphists and officials of the government tobacco manufactories. 
‘All élèves are internes. The cost of the pension is about 1,100 francs 
per year, of the trousseau, 600-700 francs, but there are an unlimited 
number of bursaries covering both pension and trousseau so that no 
poor boy of brilliant attainment is shut out. 
As to the past of the school, until the latter part of the nine- 
teenth century it was famous not only by reason of the great engineers 
it produced but also for its distinguished mathematicians. Poinsot, 
Poisson, Cauchey, Poncelet, Chasles, Lamé, Leverrier, Bertrand, 
Duhamel, Liouville, A. Serrett, Laguerre, Halphen, Hermite, Poincaré, 
not to mention a host of others, were all trained here. But now, the 
demands made on the engineer are so great, the éléves are only given 
the merest glimpses of the vistas which open up in modern mathematics. 

‘Tannery occupies one of the 12 chaires magistrales in mathematics at the 
Université de Paris, and as sous-directeur of the école normale supérieure is directeur 
des études scientifiques. [Later note added in the proof: Tannery died November 11, 
1910, and Borel was appointed to his position.] 
