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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: knew of the disaster which happened in the heart of Paris to the
first suspension bridge built by an engineer, a member of the
Academy of Sciences; a melancholy collapse caused by blunders such
as none of the ancient engineers--the man who cut the canal at
Briare in Henri IV.'s time, or the monk who built the Pont Royal--
would have made; but our administration consoled its engineer for
his blunder by making him a member of the Council-general.
Are the technical schools vast manufactories of incapables? That
subject requires careful investigation. If I am right they need
reforming, at any rate in their method of proceeding,--for I am
not, of course, doubting the utility of such schools. Only, when
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