“The separation of the ecclesiastical department from the ministry of public instruction, I consider as much an act of piety as of sound judgment. But too much has yet been left to the infringements of the Catholic clergy. It is not only a religion of the state, but also a very prevailing one still to be found in those ordinances which ought to have secluded its special dogmas within the walls of the church, and confined its distinction of creeds to the circle of private families. “National instruction, gentlemen, and especially elementary education, that main-spring of public reason, of practical morality, of public peace and comfort, is at present the first want of the French population, as it is the first duty of government. You all know, gentlemen, how this duty is to be discharged. Methods of instruction have heretofore been protected in an inverse ratio to their being perfect and easy. Neither your paltry vote of 50,000 francs, nor 500,000 francs, can be adequate to the redemption of that most important of all social obligations. Under a competent and legal system of public instruction, I would consider five millions as the most desirable appropriation of a budget. “Many statesmen appear to have forgotten,—some perhaps have never been aware,—that by the law of the 3d _Brumaire_, year IV., France was provided with the best system of instruction that ever existed in any country. It could not be consistent with that power which severed from the institute the class of moral and political sciences. Napoleon created the university, the monopoly and exigencies of which wounded the feelings of private families and displeased the true friends of liberty, but which was afterwards indebted to the invasion of Jesuitism, a privilege of another kind, for the credit of being looked upon as a liberal institution. In order to satisfy all parties it would be necessary, at the next session, to offer a plan for the organization of public instruction, wherein all the national duties of teaching should be strictly laid down, and all individual liberties respected; but every plan of education, particularly in its elementary bearings, would require the co-operation of true civil administrations.