École Polytechnique

“ Only twenty-four students are received annually, and these must have passed severe examinations either at the École Agronomique of Paris, or at the École Polytechnique. The staff consists of a director and six professors, all paid by the State. Two or three years form the curriculum and successful students are sure of obtaining good Government appointments. ”

“ Finally, the great schools, such as the École polytechnique or the École Normale Supérieure, are not, properly speaking, anything but professional schools, whose first object, whose principal object, is to provide for the recruiting of certain great public employments, so that if their regulations should be heedlessly altered, the quality of this recruitment would be compromised and the entire category of great employments modified in its foundations. ”

“ In France today, in 2000, there are still preparatory schools which, in two or three years after their baccalaureat, prepare the young applicants for the various competetive entrance examinations to the "Grande Ecoles". 4000 specially selected students vie annually with each other for the 400 places in the École Polytechnique. ”

“ The École Polytechnique, and the other schools in which the vacancies are given to those who pass the best examinations, are filled by youths belonging to the middle classes, who, undistracted by society, or amusement, or by any literary or scientific pursuits, except those immediately bearing on their examinations, beat their better-born competitors, who will not degrade themselves into the mere slaves of success in the concours. ”

“ It was instituted as a school of public works, a school of mines, maritime construction, bridges and highways, the marine, the artillery, etc. It was established in the Palais Bourbon, under the direction of Lamblardie; the pupils were to be admitted between the ages of sixteen and twenty, this limitation being afterward extended to the age of twenty-five. Their number was fixed at four hundred. By a decree of September 1, 1795, the name of the institution was changed to École Polytechnique. ”

“ On the other hand, L'Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, which occupies a prominent place in the history of college mathematics, had very high admission requirements in mathematics from the start. According to a law enacted in 1795, the candidates for admission were required to pass an examination in arithmetic; in algebra, including the solution of equations of the first four degrees and the theory of series; and in geometry, including trigonometry, the applications of algebra to geometry, and conic sec [Pg 168] tions. ”

“ After studying at the École Polytechnique, he was in 1794 the first pupil admitted to the École des Mines. In 1804 he was appointed professor of geology and mineralogy in the École des Mines, which had been temporarily transferred to Pezay in Savoy, and he returned with the school to Paris in 1815. ”

“ He was educated at the École Polytechnique, and entered the government service as a mining engineer. In 1858 he was appointed traffic manager to the Compagnie de chemins de fer du Midi, a post in which he gave proof of his remarkable talent for organization, and in 1862 returned to the engineering service (in which he attained in 1886 the rank of inspector-general) . ”

“ This education is found, either in Ecole Centrale, mainly providing private enterprise with engineers, and Polytechnique, mainly providing the State with engineers. Specialist engineers, in construction, chemistry, electronics, electricity etc. are produced by a few dozens prestigious engineering or commercial schools which admit the students who have completed 2 or 3 years of preparatory school and successfully competed for the more popular schools. The special schools Taine talks about are the precursors of a great many of the schools available in France today. ”

“ His early progress in learning was slow, and when eight years old he was still unable to read. At the age of thirteen he entered the École Centrale in Caen, and at sixteen and a half the École Polytechnique, where he acquitted himself with distinction. ”

“ I will give ten thousand francs to our old Annette, and ask her to take care of them, and to look after Marie. Then, with the remaining two thousand francs, I will go to Brest, and go to sea as an apprentice. While Marie is at school, I will rise to be a lieutenant on board a man-of-war. There, after all, die in peace, my mother; I shall come back again a rich man, and our little one shall go to the Ecole polytechnique, and I will find a career to suit his bent."
A gleam of joy shone in the dying woman's eyes. Two tears brimmed over, and fell over her fevered cheeks ”

“ Technical Education and the University. It is at this highest point that technical education comes into connection with the University and polytechnic institutions. Whether the one or the other should be the culminating point is a problem which has been resolved in different ways by the thinking and practical minds of Europe. One thing, however, is certain, that whether a polytechnic institution or University should be the ultimate home of science education, a preparatory system laying the groundwork of general literature and science can do nothing but good. ”

“ The chief distinction consists in the arrangement of courses of instruction in the several departments, in the admission of students having a non-classical preliminary training, and in the absence of certain faculties found in the university and the addition of others. It is not correct to say that the technical high school is a professional school as distinguished from the university; for the faculties of law, medicine and theology give to the university as distinctly a professional character as the faculty of engineering gives to the technical high school. ”

“ Approximately one-third of students continuing in secondary education attend the polytechnic school. The stated purpose of this kind of school is "to provide pupils with wider scientific education and more intensive polytechnical training, through practical production experience closely linked with general education and technical subjects, and to prepare them for active working and intellectual life or for their continued studies at higher levels. ”

“ But where is the sub-structure of which a Polytechnic College is the upper story? The answer is that it does not exist. Our elementary and middle school course has no regard to technical instruction, nor is it linked with a system of special technical and art schools for handicraftsmen or for foremen and manager of works. Drawing is restricted to our high schools. ”

“ In the statutes of the university of London a separate faculty is assigned to engineering, and part of the work of the polytechnic institutes is correlated with that of the reconstituted university. A survey of the field of education shows that whilst the difference between technical and general education is well marked in the primary and secondary stages, it is the function of the university to liberalize professional teaching, and to afford opportunities for specialized study and research in the higher branches of knowledge applicable to the practical work of industrial life. ”

“ If we look to the University, we find, besides the science course which comprehends most of the branches of natural science, the more special programme of studies and degree in Civil Engineering, and the affiliated College of Science where technical education is given of the kind suited to the higher and middle class of professional men. I do not say that either the College of Science or the allied institution for teaching decorative art and design is as complete or potent as it should be, and we are preparing to strengthen both of them. ”

“ In France, the institutions in which the highest technical instruction is given are concentrated in the capital. There are a large number of provincial colleges such as the École Centrale at Lyons, the École des Mineurs at St Étienne and the Institut du Nord at Lille, where the education is somewhat Higher technical training in France. more practical, but where the mathematical and scientific teaching is not carried to so high a point. ”

“ The Polytechnic College of Philadelphia, now in its ninth year, is a truly excellent institution, the practical results of which are shown in the fact that its students, immediately on graduating, have generally received appointments as civil and mechanical engineers, or otherwise stepped at once into active and remunerative employment. Its object, as we are told, is to afford to the young civil, mining, or mechanical engineer, chemist, architect, metallurgist, or student of applied science, every facility whereby he may perfect himself in his destined calling. ”

“ The work of the university is organized in seven undergraduate courses, partially elective, leading to the bachelor's degree in arts, science, pedagogy, philosophy, mining, and both civil and electrical engineering. ”

“ At the Polytechnic, for a maximum of 350 pupils, a body of fifteen professors and twenty-four répétiteurs, are employed, all solely in actual instruction, and in no way burdened with any part of the charge of the discipline or the finance, or even with the great yearly examinations for the passage from the first to the second division, and for the entrance to the public services. ”

“ It may be doubted whether Universities are the places for technical schools of Engineering, or Applied Chemistry, or Agriculture. But there can surely be little question, that instruction in the branches of Science which lie at the foundation of these Arts, of a far more advanced and special character than could, with any propriety, be included in the ordinary Arts Curriculum, ought to be obtainable by means of a duly organised Faculty of Science in every University. ”

“ The technical college will, moreover, be compelled to employ instructors who can so teach the technical subject that it shall not only give the knowledge and training desired, but shall also yield sound culture, become truly liberalizing and vision-giving. ”

“ The School of Naval Architects, which existed in Paris, has been removed to Brest, under the name of École des Ingénieurs des Vaisseaux. No pupils are admitted but such as have been students, at least two years, in the Polytechnic School. The examination of the candidates takes place every year, and the preference is given to those who excel in descriptive geometry, mechanics, and the other branches of knowledge appropriated to the first year's study at that school. ”

“ The presence here of an unusually large number of graduates in Arts, on whom Degrees have this day been conferred, testifies to the fact that the regulations of this University are no hindrance to higher education. Year by year, the tests become more efficient and practical, and a Degree in Arts, Law, Medicine, or Engineering is not granted until the candidate has shown a competent knowledge of the subjects in which he is examined. ”

“ Two schoolmates, leaving the preparatory school together, go for advanced study to the same institution; one enters the college on the scientific side, to take a course in cultural studies; the other enters the technical school to become an engineer. The boys meet on the same campus almost every day; for a time, they may meet occasionally in the same class-room; they speak in both cases of being at college. At the close of four years, each receives the degree of B.S., one in pure science, the other in engineering. ”

“ The error of restricting university studies to a certain limited range of subjects, which led in Germany to the establishment of technical high schools as institutions distinct from the universities, has been avoided. Engineering, in the broadest sense of the term, has been recognized as a branch of university education of the same order as medicine or law. Laboratories and workshops have for many years formed part of the equipment of the principal university colleges. ”

“ The great want of the age is the Polytechnic School, or more correctly speaking, of the Technological Institute, in which the labors of the Society of Arts, aided by the Museum and Library, may serve the two-fold object of informing the public on all matters of science and industry and of aiding the School of Industrial Science. Developed on its largest scale, such an institute should be devoted to the acquisition and dissemination of all knowledge, but under strictly scientific guidance and influences. ”

“ It is only in the university or tertiary grade of education that specialized or technological training for the higher industrial posts should commence. At this stage of education, general and professional teaching are more closely associated, and the names of the faculties of the new universities in the United Kingdom will in future indicate the several branches of professional work to which the different courses of university study are intended to lead. Of late there has been a marked development of distinctly technical instruction in connexion with the colleges of university rank. ”

“ Government has aided the efforts of the University by the appointment of a professor of Physical Science, whose lectures and laboratory are open to the students of all Colleges, and we already see the first fruits of the new system, as seven of those who have graduated to-day, have taken up Physical Science as their optional subject. ”

“ It undoubtedly is better for the High School boy to go to a technical school for his course in civil engineering; yet with a foundation of mathematics and a sufficient amount of determination, the High School boy may go direct to the engineer's office and pick up his profession. ”

“ The large university to-day represents all stages in the adjustment of intellectual activity to social demands, from the intensely practical schools of engineering, correlating with the technical progress of industry, back to the departments of literary scholarship—perhaps as pure an anachronism as we have in the intellectual world to-day. The demands for technical knowledge have pulled the university along, as it were, by the nose, and strung it through the ages, so that a “professor” to-day may be an electrical expert fresh from Westinghouse, or an archaic delver into forgotten poetry. ”