France -- Civilization; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Still more precisely, he counts on the new institution to set up and
keep open for inspection a universal and complete police registry. "This
registry must be organized in such a way as to keep notes on each child
after age of nine years."[6103] Having seized adults he wants to seize
children also, watch and shape future Frenchmen in advance; brought up
by him, in his hands or in sight, they become ready-made a assistants,
docile subjects and more docile than their parents.[6104] Amongst the
latter, there are still to many unsubmissive and refractory spirits, too
many royalists and too many republicans; domestic traditions from family
to family contradict each other or vary, and children grow up in their
homes only to clash with each other in society afterwards. Let us
anticipate this conflict; let us prepare them for concord; all brought
up in the same fashion, they will some day or other find themselves
unanimous,[6105] not only apparently, as nowadays through fear or force,
but in fact and fundamentally, through inveterate habit and by previous
adaptation of imagination and affection. Otherwise, "there will be
no stable political state" in France;[6106] "so long as one grows up
without knowing whether to be a republican or monarchist, Catholic
or irreligious, the State will never form a nation; it will rest on
uncertain and vague foundations; it will be constantly exposed to
disorder and change."--Consequently, he assigns to himself the monopoly
of public instruction; he alone is to enjoy the right to manufacture and
sell this just like salt and tobacco; "public instruction, throughout
the Empire, is entrusted exclusively to the university. No school, no
establishment for instruction whatever," superior, secondary, primary,
special, general, collateral, secular or ecclesiastic, "may be organized
outside of the imperial university and without the authorization of its
chief."[6107]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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