Here the young persons handled, adjusted, and knocked about more or less adroitly the formula on God, nature, the soul and science they had learned by rote.

Less scholastic, abridged, and made easy, this verbal exercise has been maintained in the lycees.[6219] Under the new regime, as well as under the old one, a string of abstract terms, which the professor thought he could explain and which the pupil thought he understood, involves young minds in a maze of high, speculative conceptions, beyond their reach and far beyond their experience, education and years.

Because pupils play with words, they suppose that they grasp and master ideas, which fancy deprives them of any desire to obtain them.

Consequently, in the great French establishment, young people hardly remark the lack of veritable Universities; a liberal, broad spirit of inquiry is not aroused in them; they do not regret their inability to have covered the cycle of varied research and critical investigation, the long and painful road which alone surely leads to profound general conceptions, those grand ideas which are verifiable and solidly based .-- And, on the other hand, their quick, summary mode of preparation suffices for the positive and appreciable needs of the new society.

The problem is to fill the gaps made in it by the Revolution and to provide the annual and indispensable quota of educated youth.