These praises excited no remarks and no
criticisms; though both might have been expected; for, during the
reading of a paper, the by-standers are allowed to discuss its merits
and its defects. This practice gives the sittings of a French literary
society a degree of life and spirit wanting to ours in England; but I
doubt if the advantage be not more than counter-balanced by the
frequent interruptions which it occasions, and which an ill-natured
person might in some cases suspect to proceed from a desire of
attracting notice, rather than from fair, and just reprehension. I
should be sorry to insinuate that any thing of this kind was evident at
the time, just alluded to, which was the Friday previous to the annual
meeting, the day appointed for taking into consideration the report
intended to be submitted to the full assembly of the inhabitants. The
president also read his projected speech, in the course of which he took
the opportunity of declaring in strong terms his dislike to Napoleon's
plan of education, directed almost exclusively to military affairs and
mathematics: he even stated that the present generation "etoit sans
morale.
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