understands them.  Riquet, Perronet, Leonardo da Vinci, Cachin, Palladio, Brunelleschi, Michel-Angelo, Bramante, Vauban, Vicat, derive their genius from causes unobserved and preparatory, which we call chance,—­the pet word of fools.  Never, with or without schools, are mighty workmen such as these wanting to their epoch.

Now comes the question, Does the State gain through these institutions the better doing of its works of public utility, or the cheaper doing of them?  As for that, I answer that private enterprises of a like kind get on very well without the help of our engineers; and next, the government works are the most extravagant in the world, and the additional cost of the vast administrative staff of the Ponts et Chaussees is immense.  In all other countries, in Germany, England, Italy, where institutions like ours do not exist, works of this character are better done and far less costly than in France.  Those three nations are remarkable for new and useful inventions in this line.  I know it is the fashion to say, in speaking of our Ecoles, that all Europe envies them; but for the last fifteen years Europe, which closely observes us, has not established others like them.  England, that clever calculator, has better schools among her working population, from which come practical men who show their genius the moment they rise from practice to theory.  Stephenson and MacAdam did not come from schools like ours.

But what is the good of talking?  When a few young and able engineers, full of ardor, solve, at the outset of their career, the problem of maintaining the roads of France, which need some hundred millions spent upon them every quarter of a century (and which are now in a pitiable state), they gain nothing by making known in reports and memoranda their intelligent knowledge; it is immediately engulfed in the archives of the general Direction,—­ that Parisian centre where everything enters and nothing issues; where old men are jealous of young ones, and all the posts of management are used to shelve old officers or men who have blundered.

This is why, with a body of scientific men spread all over the face of France and constituting a part of the administration,—­a body which ought to enlighten every region on the subject of its resources,—­this is why we are still discussing the practicability of railroads while other countries are making theirs.  If ever France was to show the excellence of her institution of technical schools, it should have been in this magnificent phase of public works, which is destined to change the face of States and nations, to double human life, and modify the laws of space and time.  Belgium, the United States of America, England, none of whom have an Ecole Polytechnique, will be honeycombed with railroads when French engineers are still surveying ours, and selfish interests, hidden behind all projects, are hindering their execution.