In the provinces, on every festive occasion or at every public ceremony, people will take pride in seeing their rector or principal in official costume seated alongside of the general or prefect in full uniform.[6132] The consideration awarded to their chief will reflect on them; they will enjoy it along with him; they will say to themselves that they too, like him and those under him, all together, form an elite; by degrees, they will feel that they are all one body; they will acquire the spirit of the association and attach themselves to the University, the same as a soldier to his regiment or like a monk to his brethren in a monastery.
Thus, as in a monastic order, one must join the University by "going into the orders."[6133]--"I want," says Napoleon, "some solemnity attached to this act.

My purpose is that the members of the corps of instruction should contract, not as formerly, a religious engagement, but a civil engagement before a notary, or before the justice of the peace, or prefect, or other (officer)....

They will espouse education the same as their forerunners espoused the Church, with this difference, that the marriage will not be as sacred, as indissoluble.[6134]...

They will engage themselves for three, six, or nine years, and not resign without giving notice a certain number of years beforehand." To heighten the resemblance, "the principle of celibacy must be established, in this sense, that a man consecrated to teaching shall not marry until after having passed through the first stages of his career; "for example, "the schoolmasters shall not marry before the age of twenty-five or thirty years, after having obtained a salary of three or four thousand francs and economized something." But, at bottom, marriage, a family, private life, all natural and normal matters in the great world of society, are causes of trouble and weakness in a corps where individuals, to be good organs, must give themselves up wholly and without reserve.

"In future,[6135] not only must schoolmasters, but, again, the principals and censors of the lycees, and the principals and rulers of the colleges, be restricted to celibacy and a life in common."-- The last complementary and significant trait, which gives to the secular institution the aspect of a convent, is this: "No woman shall have a lodging in, or be admitted into, the lycees and colleges." Now, let us add to the monastic principle of celibacy the monastic and military principle of obedience; the latter, in Napoleon's eyes, is fundamental and the basis of the others; this principle being accepted, a veritable corporation exists; members are ruled by one head and command becomes effective.[6136] "There will be," says Napoleon, "a corps of instructors, if all the principals, censors and professors have one or several chiefs, the same as the Jesuits had their general and their provincial," like the soldiers of a regiment with their colonel and captain.