One other day does Talleyrand fill the Salle de Manège with ringing applause before the Constituent Assembly breaks up. We rarely catch sight of him in these long and angry debates that fill whole sessions, when the victory is to the strong-lunged. But nearly on every single occasion when his low-pitched, deliberate voice is heard, putting judicious views in temperate, lucid, convincing language, he obtains his point. On September 10th he has his last declaration to make in the name of the constitution-committee, a report of their views on education. It is, of course, disputed whether Talleyrand wrote the speech. Some attribute it to Chamfort, others to Condorcet, others to des Renaudes. Talleyrand distinctly claims it, acknowledging his debt to the chief savants of the time—Lagrange, Lavoisier, Laplace, Monge, Condorcet, Vicq d’Azir, la Harpe, and others. It is, in fact, a most remarkable presentation of the best opinions of the time, united in a brilliant scheme of national education. We know that Talleyrand had a habit of writing a heap of scrappy notes and leaving it to his secretary to unite them: just as M. de Bacourt has done with the memoirs. In this sense the finished manuscript is possibly the work of des Renaudes, but the vast and striking scheme is a construction of Talleyrand’s. Long before, Morris had said that education was “the bee in Talleyrand’s bonnet.” He begins with a ruthless account of the pre-Revolutionary education, and makes an appeal to the Assembly to complete its work with a worthy system of national instruction. Education must be universal, free, the same for both sexes (this he modifies presently), and must regard adults as well as children. It must include lessons on religion, but its lessons in morality and civism must be completely separated from these, and purely humanitarian. Thinkers must be invited to draw up manuals for this most important section of the code. The organisation must correspond to the civic organisation. The primary schools must be under the control of the elementary political division. Secondary schools must be set up by the District, technical schools by the Department, and there must be a great central Institute at Paris. The State must provide all primary education, and it must found and assist higher schools, but in these the pupil must contribute; though the State will see that poverty does not exclude able youths. Girls will have equal instruction with boys in the primary schools, and a few higher schools will be provided for them, but the home must be their chief school (this is put in rather awkwardly towards the close). The construction of the scheme must proceed slowly and cautiously. No children under seven shall attend school. The work of the technical or special schools is very fully discussed. First amongst them he puts “schools of theology,” and in these the subtleties of the older theology shall be avoided, and a solid, rational Christian doctrine expounded.