sixteen provincial Academies, instruction was strictly organized and
controlled; and within a short time of its institution (March, 1808),
instruction of all kinds, including that of the elementary schools,
showed some advance. But to all those who look on the unfolding of the
mental and moral faculties as the chief aim of true _education_, the
homely experiments of Pestalozzi offer a far more suggestive and
important field for observation than the barrack-like methods of the
French Emperor. The Swiss reformer sought to train the mind to
observe, reflect, and think; to assist the faculties in attaining
their fullest and freest expression; and thus to add to the richness
and variety of human thought. The French imperial system sought to
prune away all mental independence, and to train the young generation
in neat and serviceable _espalier_ methods: all aspiring shoots,
especially in the sphere of moral and political science, were sharply
cut down. Consequently French thought, which had been the most
ardently speculative in Europe, speedily became vapid and mechanical.

The same remark is proximately true of the literary life of the First
Empire. It soon began to feel the rigorous methods of the Emperor.
Poetry and all other modes of expression of lofty thought and rapt
feeling require not only a free outlet but natural and unrestrained
surroundings. The true poet is at home in the forest or on the
mountain rather than in prim _parterres_. The philosopher sees most
clearly and reasons most suggestively, when his faculties are not
cramped by the need of observing political rules and police
regulations. And the historian, when he is tied down to a mere
investigation and recital of facts, without reference to their
meaning, is but a sorry fowl flapping helplessly with unequal wings.

Yet such were the conditions under which the literature of France