With respect to these, the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended for the maintenance of a college scholarship,[31124] or for a village schoolhouse.

And to whom should these be returned since the college and the schoolhouse no longer exist ?--Fortunately, instruction is an article of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality and, therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp or label.

If you want him to buy it do not drive the purveyors of it from the market who enjoy his confidence and who sell it cheaply; on the contrary, welcome them and allow them to display their wares.

This is the first step, an act of toleration; the conseils-generaux demand it and the government yields.[31125] It permits the return of the Ignorantin brethren, allows them to teach and authorizes the towns to employ them; later on, it graduates them at its University: in 1810, they already possess 41 schoolhouses and 8400 pupils.[31126] Still more liberally, it authorizes and favors female educational congregations; down to the end of the empire and afterwards, nuns are about the only instructors of young girls, especially in primary education .-- Owing to the same toleration, the upper schools are likewise reorganized, and not less spontaneously, through the initiative of private individuals, communes, bishops, colleges or pensionnats, at Reims, Fontainebleau, Metz, Evreux, Sorreze, Juilly, La Fleche and elsewhere small seminaries in all the dioceses.

Offer and demand have come together; instructors meet the children half-way, and education begins on all sides.[31127] Thought can now be given to its endowment, and the State invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to the undertaking.
It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favor of new establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the most invariable respect."[31128] Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it assigns to each its eventual duty;[31129] if the commune establishes a primary school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging and the parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts a lycee, it must pay for the annual support of the building,[31130] while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.