LECTURES AT THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 389 



indicates the commencement of a veritable revolution in 

 the study of pure mathematics ; with it demonstrations, 

 methods, and important theories, buried in academical 

 collections, appeared for the first time before the pupils, 

 and encouraged them to recast upon new bases the works 

 destined for instruction. 



With some rare exceptions, the philosophers engaged 

 in the cultivation of science constituted formerly in 

 France a class totally distinct from that of the professors. 

 By appointing the first geometers, the first philosophers, 

 and the first naturalists of the world to be professors, 

 the Convention threw new lustre upon the profession of 

 teaching the advantageous influence of which is felt in 



C' 7 tZ? 



the present day. In the opinion of the public at large 

 a title which a Lagrange, a Laplace, a Monge, a Ber- 

 thollet, had borne, became a proper match to the finest 

 titles. If under the empire, the Polytechnic School 

 counted among its active professors councillors of state, 

 ministers, and the president of the senate, you must look 

 for the explanation of this fact in the impulse given by 

 the Normal School. 



You see in the ancient great colleges, professors con- 

 cealed in some degree behind their portfolios, reading as 

 from a pulpit, amid the indifference and inattention of 

 their pupils, discourses prepared beforehand with great 

 labour, and which reappear every year in the same form. 

 Nothino- of this kind existed at the Normal School ; oral 



O 



lessons alone were there permitted. The authorities 

 even went so far as to require of the illustrious savans 

 appointed to the task of instruction the formal promise 

 never to recite any lectures which they might have 

 learned by heart. From that time the chair has become 

 a tribune where the professor, identified, so to speak, 



