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第35章

the village rector-第35章

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  greater proof of the uselessness of the present institution? Can't
  they see that when they have stimulated a man of talent by all
  those preparations he will make a fierce struggle before he allows
  himself to become a nonentity? Is this good policy on the part of
  the State? On the contrary; is not the State lighting the fire of
  ardent ambitions; which must find fuel somewhere。

  Among the six hundred young men whom they put forth every year
  there are exceptions;men who resist what may be called their
  demonetization。 I know some myself; and if I could tell you their
  struggles with men and things when armed with useful projects and
  conceptions which might bring life and prosperity to the half…dead
  provinces where the State has sent them; you would feel that a man
  of power; a man of talent; a man whose nature is a miracle; is a
  hundredfold more unfortunate and more to be pitied than the man
  whose lower nature lets him submit to the shrinkage of his
  faculties。

  I have made up my mind; therefore; that I would rather direct some
  commercial or industrial enterprise; and live on small means while
  trying to solve some of the great problems still unknown to
  industry and to society; than remain at my present post。

  You will tell me; perhaps; that nothing hinders me from employing
  the leisure that I certainly have in using my intellectual powers
  and seeking in the stillness of this commonplace life the solution
  of some problem useful to humanity。 Ah! monsieur; don't you know
  the influence of the provinces;the relaxing effect of a life
  just busy enough to waste time on futile labor; and not enough to
  use the rich resources our education has given us? Don't think me;
  my dear protector; eaten up by the desire to make a fortune; nor
  even by an insensate desire for fame。 I am too much of a
  calculator not to know the nothingness of glory。 Neither do I want
  to marry; seeing the fate now before me; I think my existence a
  melancholy gift to offer any woman。 As for money; though I regard
  it as one of the most powerful means given to social man to act
  with; it is; after all; but a means。

  I place my whole desire and happiness on the hope of being useful
  to my country。 My greatest pleasure would be to work in some
  situation suited to my faculties。 If in your region; or in the
  circle of your acquaintances; you should hear of any enterprise
  that needed the capacities you know me to possess; think of me; I
  will wait six months for your answer before taking any step。

  What I have written here; dear sir and friend; others think。 I
  have seen many of my classmates or older graduates caught like me
  in the toils of some specialty;geographical engineers; captain…
  professors; captains of engineers; who will remain captains all
  their lives; and now bitterly regret they did not enter active
  service with the army。 Reflecting on these miserable results; I
  ask myself the following questions; and I would like your opinion
  on them; assuring you that they are the fruit of long meditation;
  clarified in the fires of suffering:

  What is the real object of the State? Does it truly seek to obtain
  fine capacities? The system now pursued directly defeats that end;
  it has crated the most thorough mediocrities that any government
  hostile to superiority could desire。 Does it wish to give a career
  to its choice minds? As a matter of fact; it affords them the
  meanest opportunities; there is not a man who has issued from the
  Ecoles who does not bitterly regret; when he gets to be fifty or
  sixty years of age; that he ever fell into the trap set for him by
  the promises of the State。 Does it seek to obtain men of genius?
  What man of genius; what great talent have the schools produced
  since 1790? If it had not been for Napoleon would Cachin; the man
  of genius to whom France owes Cherbourg; have existed? Imperial
  despotism brought him forward; the constitutional regime would
  have smothered him。 How many men from the Ecoles are to be found
  in the Academy of Sciences? Possibly two or three。 The man of
  genius develops always outside of the technical schools。 In the
  sciences which those schools teach genius obeys only its own laws;
  it will not develop except under conditions which man cannot
  control; neither the State nor the science of mankind;
  anthropology; understands them。 Riquet; Perronet; Leonardo da
  Vinci; Cachin; Palladio; Brunelleschi; Michel…Angelo; Bramante;
  Vauban; Vicat; derive their genius from causes unobserved and
  preparatory; which we call chance;the pet word of fools。 Never;
  with or without schools; are mighty workmen such as these wanting
  to their epoch。

  Now comes the question; Does the State gain through these
  institutions the better doing of its works of public utility; or
  the cheaper doing of them? As for that; I answer that private
  enterprises of a like kind get on very well without the help of
  our engineers; and next; the government works are the most
  extravagant in the world; and the additional cost of the vast
  administrative staff of the /Ponts et Chaussees/ is immense。 In
  all other countries; in Germany; England; Italy; where
  institutions like ours do not exist; works of this character are
  better done and far less costly than in France。 Those three
  nations are remarkable for new and useful inventions in this line。
  I know it is the fashion to say; in speaking of our Ecoles; that
  all Europe envies them; but for the last fifteen years Europe;
  which closely observes us; has not established others like them。
  England; that clever calculator; has better schools among her
  working population; from which come practical men who show their
  genius the moment they rise from practice to theory。 Stephenson
  and MacAdam did not come from schools like ours。

  But what is the good of talking? When a few young and able
  engineers; full of ardor; solve; at the outset of their career;
  the problem of maintaining the roads of France; which need some
  hundred millions spent upon them every quarter of a century (and
  which are now in a pitiable state); they gain nothing by making
  known in reports and memoranda their intelligent knowledge; it is
  immediately engulfed in the archives of the general Direction;
  that Parisian centre where everything enters and nothing issues;
  where old men are jealous of young ones; and all the posts of
  management are used to shelve old officers or men who have
  blundered。

  This is why; with a body of scientific men spread all over the
  face of France and constituting a part of the administration;a
  body which ought to enlighten every region on the subject of its
  resources;this is why we are still discussing the practicability
  of railroads while other countries are making theirs。 If ever
  France was to show the excellence of her institution of technical
  schools; it should have been in this magnificent phase of public
  works; which is destined to change the face of States and nations;
  to double human life; and modify the laws of space and time。
  Belgium; the United States of America; England; none of whom have
  an Ecole Polytechnique; will be honeycombed with railroads when
  French engineers are still surveying ours; and selfish interests;
  hidden behind all projects; are hindering their execution。

  Thus I say that as for the State; it derives no benefit from its
  technical schools; as for the individual pupil of those schools;
  his earnings are poor; his ambition crushed; and his life a cruel
  deception。 Most assuredly the powers he has displayed between
  sixteen and twenty…six years of age would; if he had been cast
  upon his own resources; have brought him more fame and more wealth
  than the government in whom he trusted will ever give him。 As a
  commercial man; a learned man; a military man; this choice
  intellect would have worked in a vast centre where his precious
  faculties and his ardent ambition would not be idiotically and
  prematurely repressed。

  Where; then; is progress? Man and State are both kept backward by
  this system。 Does not the experience of a whole generation demand
  a reform in the practical working of these institutions? The duty
  of culling from all France during each generation the choice minds
  destined to become the learned and the scientific of the nation is
  a sacred office; the priests of which; the arbiters of so many
  fates; should be trained by special study。 Mathematical knowledge
  is perhaps less necessary to them than physiological knowledge。
  And do you not think that they need a little of that second…sight
  which is the witchcraft of great men? As it is; the examiners are
  former professors; honorable men grown old in harness; who limit
  their work to selecting the best themes。 They are unable to do
  what is really demanded of them; and yet their functions are the
  noblest in the State and demand extraordinary men。

  Do not think; dear sir and friend; that I blame only the Ecole
  itself; no; I blame the system by which it is recruited。 This
  system is the /concours/; competition;a modern invention;
  essentially bad; bad not only in science; but wherever it is
  employed; in arts; in all selections of men; of projects; of
  things。 If it is a reproach to our great Ecoles that they have not
  produced men superior to other educational establishments; it is
  still more shameful that the /grand prix/ of the Institute has not
  as yet furnished a single great painter; great musician; great
  architect; great sculptor; just as the suffrage for the last
  twenty years has not elected out of its tide of mediocrities a
  single great statesman。 My observation makes me detect; as I
  think; an error which vitiates in France both education and
  politics。 It is a cruel error; and it rests on the following
  principle; which organizers have misconceived:

  /Nothing; either in experience or in the nature of things; can
  give a certainty that the intellectual qualities of the adult
  youth will be those of the mature man。/

  At this moment I am intimate with a number of distinguished men
  who concern themselves with all the moral maladies which are now
  afflicting France。 They see; as I do; that our highest education
  is manufacturing temporary capacities;temporary because they
  are without exercise and without future; that such education is
  without profit to the State because it is devoid of the vigor of
  belief and feeling。 Our whole system of public education needs
  overhauling; and the work should be presided over by some man of
  great knowledge; powerful will; and gifted with that legislative
  genius which has never been met with among moderns; except perhaps
  in Jean…Jacques Rousseau。

  Possibly our superfluous numbers might be employed in giving
  elementary instruction so much needed by the people。 The
  deplorable amount of crime and misdemeanors shows a social disease
  directly arising from the half…education given the masses; which
  tends to the destruction of social ties by making the people
  refl

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