Page:Coubertin - The evolution of France under the third republic, 1897.djvu/350

278 anxious that the reform should not be applied as rapidly as it had been conceived, but progressively, in such a way as to respect as far as possible rights already acquired.

On the field of secondary education the battle, though more underhand, was none the less fierce. There, in fact, one was no longer confronted by the secular clergy, democratic in origin and more easily won over to republican views; one found oneself face to face with the religious bodies, rich and powerful, proud of the important part which they had played in the past, and in advance, in many points of detail, of the University in the line of pedagogical reforms. No doubt they might be reduced to a state of impotency by a direct or indirect prohibition to teach; not only all favors, but all positions, might be reserved for young men, who would justify this by their presence for a minimum number of years in the State lyceums and colleges; and, finally, the system of university establishments might be improved in such a manner as to render them capable of entering into serious competition with the ecclesiastical establishments. It is infinitely honorable to the republican party that it adopted this last solution of the difficulty, which was the slowest and most laborious, but also the most just and the most liberal of the three. The second, advocated at different times by the radicals, was never considered; the first seems to have haunted for a moment the mind of Jules Ferry, but he was not slow to perceive how contrary such a policy was to the traditions and the foundations of the republican government. Moreover, how was a distinction to be established and maintained between the authorized and the unauthorized religious bodies? "Authorization is a formality which has fallen