"If I am told that the establishment will not be very fashionable, I reply that this is what I desire, because it is my opinion that of all educations the best is that of mothers; because my intention is principally to assist those young girls who have lost their mothers, and whose relations are poor. To sum up all, if the members of the Legion of Honor who are rich disdain to put their daughters at Écouen, if those who are poor desire that they shall be received, and if these young persona; returning to their provinces, enjoy there the reputation of good women, I shall have completely attained my end, and I am certain that the establishment will acquire a high and genuine reputation. "In this matter we must go to the verge of ridicule. I do not bring up either dressmakers, or waiting-women, or housekeepers, but women for modest and poor households. The mother, in a poor household, is the housekeeper of the family." The spirit of the age and the fascinations of luxury in an agitated epoch were too strong for the determined and reasoned will of the legislator. The houses of the Legion of Honor were not destined to become the best schools for the mothers of families "in modest and poor households." Napoleon had well judged the superior influence of daily example when he said, "My opinion is, that the best education is that of mothers." The wisest and most far-seeing rules know not how to replace it. Religion cannot be taught by order, like sewing or cooking. The great lesson of daily virtue and devotion will ever remain the lot of mothers. The delicate question of female education carried the mark of the Emperor Napoleon's genius for organization. He had also sought to reduce to rules the encouragement that power owed to genius. Since the year 1805, he had instituted prizes every ten years, intended to recompense the authors of the best works on the physical sciences, mathematics, history, the author of the best theatrical piece, the best opera, the best poem, the best painters and sculptors; "so that," according to the preamble of the decree, "France may not only preserve the superiority she has acquired in science, literature, and the arts, but that the age which commences may surpass those which have preceded it."