Such is the object of the "École Normale."[6144] Young students enter it at the age of seventeen and bind themselves to remain in the University at least ten years.[6145] Young students enter it at the age of seventeen (for a period of 3 years) and bind themselves afterwards to remain in the University at least ten years. It is a boarding-school and they are obliged to live in common: "individual exits are not allowed," while "the exits in common... in uniform... can be made only under the direction and conduct of superintendent masters.. .. These superintendents inspect the pupils during their studies and recreations, on rising and on going to bed and during the night... No pupil is allowed to pass the hours set aside for recreation in his own room without permission of the superintendent. No pupil is allowed to enter the hall of another division without the permission of two superintendents.... The director of studies must examine the books of the pupils whenever he deems it necessary, and as often as once a month." Every hour of the day has its prescribed task; all exercises, including religious observances, are prescribed, each in time and place, with a detail and meticulousness, as if purposely to close all possible issues to personal initiation and everywhere substitute mechanical uniformity for individual diversities. "The principal duties of the pupils are respect for religion, attachment to the sovereign and the government, steady application, constant regularity, docility and submission to superiors; whoever fails in these duties is punished according to the gravity of the offense."[6146]--In 1812,[6147] the Normal School is still a small one, scarcely housed, lodged in the upper stories of the lycée Louis le Grand, and composed of forty pupils and four masters. But Napoleon has its eyes on it and is kept informed of what goes on in it. He does not approve of the comments on the "Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate," by Montesquieu, on the "Éloge de Marc Aurèle," by Thomas, on the "Annales" of Tacitus: "Let the young read Cæsar's commentaries... Corneille, Bossuet, are the masters worth having; these, under the full sail of obedience, enter into the established order of things of their time; they strengthen it, they illustrate it," they are the literary coadjutors of public authority. Let the spirit of the Normal School conform to that of these great men. The University establishment is the original, central workshop which forges, finishes and supplies the finest pieces, the best wheels. Just now the workshop is incomplete, poorly fitted out, poorly directed and still rudimentary; but it is to be enlarged and completed and made to turn out more and better work. For the time being, it produces only what is needed to fill the annual vacancies in the lycées and in the colleges. Nevertheless, the first decree states that it is "intended to receive as many as three hundred youths."[6148] The production of this number will fill