In the new-born University there was not one half of the demand for attainments as is now exacted.

There is nothing like our over-loaded baccalaureat, and yet there issued from it Villemain, Cousin, Hugo, Lamartine, etc.

No Ecole Polytechnique existed, and yet at the end of the eighteenth century in France, we find the richest constellation of savants, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge, Fourcroy, Lavoisier, Berthollet, Hauey, and others.

(Since the date of these souvenirs (1843) the defects in the French system have gotten worse.] [Footnote 6382: In England and in the United States the architect and engineer produce more than we do with greater pliancy, fertility, originality and boldness of invention, with a practical capacity at least equal and without having passed six, eight or ten years in purely theoretical studies .-- Cf.

Des Rousiers, "La Vie Americaine," p.