icars-general to visit them," the
faculty "of suggesting to the royal council of public instruction the
measures which he deems necessary." At the top of the hierarchy sits
a Grand-Master with the powers and title of M. de Fontanes and with
an additional title, member of the cabinet and minister of public
instruction, M. de Freyssinous, bishop of Hermopolis,[6312] and, in
difficult cases, this bishop, placed between his Catholic conscience and
the positive articles of the legal statute, "sacrifices the law" to his
conscience.[6313]--This is the advantage which can be taken from the
tool of public education. After 1850, it is to be used in the same way
and in the same sense; after 1796, and later after 1875, it was made to
work as vigorously in the opposite direction. Whatever the rulers may
be, whether monarchists, imperialists or republicans, they are the
masters who use it for their own advantage; for this reason, even when
resolved not to abuse the instrument, they keep it intact; they reserve
the use of it for themselves,[6314] and pretty hard blows are necessary
to sever or relax the firm hold which they have on the central lever.

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'hote, they are told,

"Come in and take a seat. We offer you the dishes you like