elds to opportunity, to example; he goes with the
current, he floats without a rudder, he lets himself drift. As far as
hygiene, or money, or sex, is concerned, his mistakes and his follies,
great or small, are almost inevitable, while it is an average chance if,
during his three, four or five years of full license, he does not become
entirely corrupt.

IV. Cramming and Exams Compared to Apprenticeship

Another vice of the system.--Starting-point of superior
instruction in France.--Substitution of special State
schools for free encyclopedic universities.--Effect of this
substitution.--Examinations and competitions.--Intense,
forced and artificial culture.--How it reaches an extreme.
--Excess and prolongation of theoretical studies.
--Insufficiency and tardiness of practical apprenticeship.
--Comparison of this system with others, between France before
1789 and England and the United States.--Lost forces.
--Mistaken use and excessive expenditure of mental energy.--
--The entire body of youth condemned to it after 1889.

Let us now consider another effect of the primitive institution, not
less pernicious. On leaving the lycee after the philosophy class, the
system supposes that a general education is fully obtained; there is not
question of a second one, ulterior and superior, that of universities.
In place of these encyclopedic universities, of which the object is
free teaching and the free progress of knowledge, it establishes special
State schools, separate from each other, each confined to a distinct
branch, each with a view to create, verify and proclaim a useful
capacity, each devoted to leading a young man along, step by step,
through a series of studies and tests up to the title or final diploma
which qualifies him for his profession, a diploma that is indispensable
or, at least, very useful since, without it, in many cases, one has no
right to practice his profession and which, thanks to it, in all cases,
enables one to enter on a career with favor and credit, in fair rank,
and considerably promoted.--On entering most careers called liberal,
a first diploma is exacted, that of bachelor of arts, or bachelor of
sciences, sometimes both, the acquisition of which is now a serious
matter for all French youth, a daily and painful preoccupation. To this
end, when about sixteen, the young man works, or, rather, is worked
upon. For one or two years, he submit