To this end, when about sixteen, the young man works, or, rather, is worked upon.

For one or two years, he submits to a forced culture, not in view of learning and of knowing, but to answer questions well at an examination, or tolerably well, and to obtain a certificate, on proof or on semblance of proof, that he has received a complete classical education .-- Next after this, at the medical or law school, during the four prescribed years, sixteen graduated inscriptions, four or five superposed examinations, two or three terminal verifications, oblige him to furnish the same proof, or semblance of proof, to verify, as each year comes round, his assimilation of the lessons of the year, and thus attest that, at the end of his studies, he possesses about the entire scope and diversity of knowledge to which he is restricted.
In the schools where the number of pupils is limited, this culture, carried still farther, becomes intense and constant.

In the Ecole Centrale and in the commercial or agronomic schools, in the Polytechnique or Normale, he is there all day and all night,--he is housed in a barracks .-- And the pressure on him is twofold--the pressure of examinations and that of competition.

On entering, on leaving, and during his stay there, not only at the end of each year but every six or three months, often every six weeks, and even every fortnight, he is rated according to his compositions, exercises and interrogatories, getting so many marks for his partial value, so many for his total value and according to these figures, classed at a certain rank among his comrades who are his rivals.

To descend on the scale would be disadvantageous and humiliating; to ascend on the scale is advantageous and glorious.