890 JOSEPH FOURIER. 
with his audience, sees in their looks, in their gestures, 
in their countenance, sometimes the necessity for pro- 
ceeding at greater speed, sometimes, on the contrary, the 
_ necessity of retracing his steps, of awakening the atten- 
tion by some incidental observations, of clothing in a new 
form the thought which, when first expressed, had left 
some doubts in the minds of his audience. And do not 
suppose that the beautiful impromptu lectures with which 
the amphitheatre of the Normal School resounded, re- 
mained unknown to the public. Short-hand writers paid 
by the State reported them. The sheets, after being 
revised by the professors, were sent to the fifteen hun- 
dred pupils, to the members of Convention, to the con- 
suls and agents of the Republic in foreign countries, to 
all governors of districts. ‘There was in this something 
certainly of profusion compared with the parsimonious 
and mean habits of our time. Nobody, however, would 
concur in this reproach, however slight it may appear, if 
I were permitted to point out in this very apartment an 
illustrious Academician, whose mathematical genius was 
awakened by the lectures of the Normal School in an 
obscure district town ! 
The necessity of demonstrating the important services, 
ignored in the present day, for which the dissemination 
of the sciences is indebted to the first Normal School, has 
induced me to dwell at greater length on the subject than 
I intended. I hope to be pardoned ; the example in any 
case will not be contagious. Eulogiums of the past, you 
know, Gentlemen, are no longer fashionable. Every 
thing which is said, every thing which is printed, induces 
us to suppose that the world is the creation of yesterday. 
This opinion, which allows to each a part more or less 
brilliant in the cosmogonic drama, is under the safeguard 
