4000 specially selected students vie annually with each other for the 400 places in the Ecole Polytechnique.

(SR.)] [Footnote 6368: I was once, writes Taine, an examiner for admission to a large special school and speak from experience..

Taine was well placed to know about the system since he was first in the competetive entrance exam (concours) to the Ecole Normale Superior, and had also passed all his other studies with great brilliance.

(SR.)] [Footnote 6369: A practical apprenticeship in the Faculty of Medicine is less retarded; the future doctors, after the third year of their studies, enter a hospital for two years, ten months of each year or 284 days of service, including an "obstetrical stage" of one months.

Later, on competing for the title of physician or surgeon in the hospitals and for the aggregation of the Faculty, the theoretical preparation is as onerous as that of other careers.] [Footnote 6370: "Souvenirs" by Chancellor Pasquier.