To Marc it seemed that the only worthy _rôle_ for France was that of completing the Revolution and becoming the great emancipator. The narrow doctrine that one's sole purpose should be to make soldiers of Frenchmen filled him with grief and anger. On the morrow of the disasters of 1870 such a programme may have had its excuse; and yet all the unrest of years and years, the whole abominable crisis of the present times has proceeded from that programme, from having placed one's supreme hope in the army, from having abandoned the democracy to military leaders. If it be still necessary to guard oneself, surrounded as one is by neighbours in arms, it is yet more necessary to become workers, free and just citizens, such as those to whom to-morrow will belong. On the day when France knows it and wills it, on the day when she becomes a nation freed from error, the armour-plated empires around her will crumble beneath the breath of truth and justice emanating from her lips--a breath which will achieve that which can never be accomplished by all her armies and her guns. Nations awaken nations, and on the day when, one by one, the nations rise, enlightened, instructed by example, the world will witness the victory of peace, the end of war. Marc could imagine for his country no more splendid _rôle_ than that of hastening the day when all countries would mingle in one. Thus he kept a strict watch over his pupils' books, replacing as far as possible all pictures and descriptions of spurious miracles and bloody battles by others which dealt with the truths of science and the fruitful labours of mankind. The one true source of energy lies in work for happiness' sake. In the course of the second year some good results were already manifest. Dividing his school into two classes, Marc took charge of the first, composed of boys from nine to thirteen years of age, while Mignot attended to the second, in which the lads were from six to nine years old. The young principal also adopted the system of appointing monitors, whence he derived certain advantages, a saving of time in some matters, and an increase of emulation among his boys. Not a moment was lost during school hours, yet he allowed the lads as much independence as possible, chatting with them, provoking objections from them, and imposing nothing on them by dint of authority, desirous as he was that all feeling of certainty should come from their own minds. Thus gaiety prevailed, and the lessons in which those young minds passed from discovery to discovery were full of attractiveness.