They would like to see them respectful and intelligent, and nothing more.
But neither of the two rival institutions thus limits itself; each works beyond and aside,[6342] and when the father, at the end of July,[6343] goes for his son at the ecclesiastical college or secular institution, he risks finding in the young man of seventeen the militant prejudices, the hasty and violent conclusions and the uncompromising rigidity of either a "laicisant" or a "clerical." III.

Internal Vices The internal vices of the system .-- Barrack or convent discipline of the boarding-school .-- Number and proportions of scholars in State and Church establishments .-- Starting point of the French boarding-school .-- The school community viewed not as a distinct organ of the State but as a mechanism wielded by the State .-- Effects of these two conceptions .-- Why the boarding-school entered into and strengthened ecclesiastical establishments .-- Effects of the boarding-school on the young man .-- Gaps in his experience, errors of judgment, no education of his will .-- The evil aggravated by the French system of special and higher schools.
Meanwhile, the innate vices of the primitive system have lasted and, and, among others, the worst of all, the internat[6344] under the discipline of barracks or convent, while the university, through its priority and supremacy, in contact with or contiguously, has communicated this discipline at first to its subordinates, and afterward to its rivals .-- In 1887,[6345] in the State lycees and colleges, there are more than 39,000 boarding-schools (internes) while, in the ecclesiastic establishments, it is worse: out of 50,000 pupils there, over 27,000 are internes, to which must be added the 23,000 pupils of the small seminaries, properly so called, nearly all of them boarders; in a total of 163,000 pupils we find 89,000 internes.[6346] Thus, to secure secondary instruction, more than one-half of the youth of France undergo the internat, ecclesiastic or secular.

This is peculiar to France, and is due to the way in which Napoleon, in 1806, seized on and perverted all school enterprises.[6347] Before 1789, in France, this enterprise, although largely trammeled and impeded by the State and the Church, was not violated in principle nor perverted in essence; still at the present day, in Germany, in England, in the United States, it exists and is developed in accordance with its nature.

It is admitted to be a private enterprise,[6348] the collective and spontaneous work of several associates voluntarily bound together, old founders, actual and future benefactors, masters and parents and even scholars,[6349] each in his place and function, under a statute and according to tradition, in such a way as to continue functioning indefinitely, in order to provide, like a gas company on its own responsibility, at its own risk and expense, a provider of services for those who want it; in other terms, the school enterprise must, like any other undertaking, render acceptable what it offers thereby satisfying the needs of its clients .-- Naturally, it adapts itself to these needs; its directors and those concerned do what is necessary.

With hands free, and grouped around an important interest evidently for a common purpose, mutually bound and veritable associates not only legally but in feeling, devoted to a local enterprise and local residents for many years, often even for life, they strive not to offend the profound repugnance of the young and of families.