Thus, from Paris and 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.