When, however, we pass to elementary education we see everything is changed. The elementary teacher is not appointed by his natural chief, the _recteur_ or Minister of Public Education, he is appointed by the _prefet_, that is by the Minister of the Interior, the political head of the Government. In other words, this is the same process as the appointment of officials by the people, described a few pages back, but with one intermediary the less. It is pre-eminently the Minister of the Interior who represents the political will of the nation at any given date. And it is the Minister of the Interior who through his _prefets_ appoints the elementary school teacher. It is then the political will of the nation which chooses the school teachers. It would be impossible to convey to them more clearly (which is only fair, for people should be made to understand their duties) that they are chosen for considerations of politics and that they ought to consider themselves as political agents. And indeed they are nothing else, or perhaps we should say they are something else but above all they are politicians. The schoolteachers depend on the _prefets_ and the _prefets_ depend much on the deputies, yet it is not the deputies who appoint them, but it is they who can remove them, who can get them promoted or disgraced, who by constant removals can reduce them to destitution. Surely, every candid person will exclaim, given the difficult and scandalous situation in which they are put by the hand which appoints them, they ought at least to have the guarantee and assurance, very relative and ineffectual though it be, of irremovability. But they have not got it. The professors of higher education who do not require it have got it, the professors of secondary education have it to all intents and purposes. The elementary school teacher has it not. He is, therefore, delivered over to the politicians who make of him an electioneering agent, who reckon him as such, and who would never pardon him if he failed them. The result is that the majority of school teachers are demagogues because they like it, and with magnificent enthusiasm and passion. The minority who have no turn for demagogy are demagogues though they do not like it, and because they are forced by necessity.