Now an experimental science is simply the summing-up
of many diverse experiences, freely attempted, freely discussed and
verified. Through the forced results of the university monopoly there
are no actual universities: among other results of the Napoleonic
institution, one could after 1808 note, the decadence of pedagogy and
foresee its early demise. Neither parents, nor masters nor the young
cared anything about it; outside of the system in which they live they
imagine nothing; they are accustomed to it the same as to the house in
which they dwell. They may grumble sometimes at the arrangement of
the rooms, the low stories and narrow staircases, against bad
lighting, ventilation and want of cleanliness, against the exactions
of the proprietor and concierge; but, as for transforming the
building, arranging it otherwise, reconstructing it in whole or in
part, they never think of it. For, in the first place, they have no
plan; and next, the house is too large and its parts too well united;
through its mass and size it maintains itself and would still remain
indefinitely if, all at once, in 1848, an unforeseen earthquake had
not made breaches in its walls.
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