France -- Civilization; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Except for these excesses and especially after they finish, when the
government, from 1828 to 1848, ceases to be sectarian, and the
normal play of the institution is no longer corrupted by political
interference, the governed accept the University in block, just as their
rulers maintain it: they also have motives of their own, the same as for
submitting to other tools of Napoleonic centralization.--And first
of all, as a departmental and communal institution, the university
institution operates wholly alone; it exacts little or no collaboration
on the part of those interested; it relieves them of any effort, dispute
or care, which is pleasant. Like the local administration, which,
without their help or with scarcely any, provides them with bridges,
roads, canals, cleanliness, salubrity and precautions against contagious
diseases, the scholastic administration, without making any demand on
their indolence, puts its full service, the local and central apparatus
of primary, secondary, superior and special instruction, its staff and
material, furniture and buildings, masters and schedules, examinations
and grades, rules and discipline, expenditure and receipts, all at its
disposition. As at the door of a table d'hôte, they are told,
"Come in and take a seat. We offer you the dishes you like best and in
the most convenient order. Don't trouble yourself about the waiters
or the kitchen; a grand central society, an intelligent and beneficent
agency, presiding at Paris takes charge of this and relieves you of it.
Pass your plate, and eat; that is all you need care about. Besides, the
charge is very small."[6315]
In effect, here as elsewhere, Napoleon has introduced his rigid
economical habits, exact accounts and timely or disguised
tax-levies.[6316] A few additional centimes among a good many others
inserted by his own order in the local budget, a few imperceptible
millions among several hundreds of other millions in the enormous sum of
the central budget, constitute the resources which defray the expenses
of public education. Not only does the quota of each taxpayer for this
purpose remain insignificant, but it disappears in the sum total of
which it is only an item that he does not notice.--The parents, for the
instruction of a child, do not pay out of their pockets directly, with
the consciousness of a distinct service rendered them and which they
indemnify,[6317] but 12, 10, 3, or even 2 francs a year; again,
through the increasing extension of gratis instruction, a fifth, then a
third,[6318] and later one half of them are exempt from this charge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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