exercises an honorable profession; let him be competent and expert, that concerns society. But that alone is all that society cares about; it is not essential that it should find in him additionally an erudite or a philosopher. * Let him be competent and worthy of confidence in his particular profession, * let him know how to teach classes or frame a course of lectures, how to build a bridge, a bastion, an edifice, how to cure a disease, perform an amputation, draw up a contract, manage a case in court, and give judgment; * let the State, for greater public convenience, organize, check, and certify this special capacity, * let it verify this by examinations and diploma, * let it make of this a sort of coin of current value, duly minted and of proper standard; * let this be protected against counterfeits, not only by its preferences but again by its prohibitions, by the penalties it enacts against the illegal practice of pharmacy and of medicine, by the obligations it imposes on magistrates, lawyers and ministerial officials not to act until obtaining this or that grade,-- such is what the interest of society demands and what it may exact. According to this principle, the State creates special schools, (today in 1998 called Grande Ecoles[6221]), and, through the indirect monopoly which it possesses, it fills them with listeners; henceforth, these are to furnish the youth of France with superior education.[6222] From the start, Napoleon, as logician, with his usual lucidity and precision, lays it down that they shall be strictly practical and professional. "Make professors (régents) for me," said he one day in connection with the Ecole normale, "and not littérateurs, wits or seekers or inventors in any branch of knowledge." In like manner says he again,[6223] "I do not approve of the regulation requiring a man to be bachelor (bachelier) in the sciences before he can be a bachelor in the medical faculty; medicine is not an exact and positive science, but a science of guess and observation. I should place more confidence in a doctor who had not studied the exact sciences than in one who possessed them. I preferred M. Corvisart to M. Hallé, because M. Hallé belongs to the Institute. M. Corvisart does not even know what two equal triangles are. The medical student should not be diverted from hospital practice, from dissections and studies relating to his trade."