And better yet, it is often a paternal creditor, distributing, as it does, three or four thousand scholarships.

If their son obtains one of these, their annual debt is remitted to them and the entire university provision of instruction and support is given to them gratis.

In the Faculties, the payment of fees for entrance, examinations, grades and diplomas is not surprising, for the certificates or parchments they receive in exchange for their money are, for the young man, so many positive acquisitions which smooth the way to a career and serve as valuable stock which confers upon him social rank.
Besides, the entrance to these Faculties is free and gratuitous, as well as in all other establishments for superior instruction.

Whoever chooses and when he chooses may attend without paying a cent.
Thus constituted, the University seems to the public as a liberal, democratic, humanitarian institution and yet economical, expending very little.

Its administrators and professors, even the best of them, receive only a small salary--6000 francs at the Museum and the College de France,[6320] 7500 at the Sorbonne, 5000 in the provincial Faculties, 4000 or 3000 in the lycees, 2000, 1500 and 1200 in the communal colleges--just enough to live on.