Imperial University

The lycées of 1802 had given the state establishments; it lacked a corps. Teachers were still recruited locally, private schools and minor seminaries taught without supervision, and nothing guaranteed uniform curricula or the loyalty of masters.

The decree of 17 March 1808 created the Imperial University: not an establishment, but a single state teaching corps, alone entitled to teach publicly throughout the Empire. No one could open a school or teach without belonging to it and without authorisation.

At its head was a grand master appointed by the Emperor — it would be Fontanes — assisted by a council. The territory was divided into academies, mapped onto the appeal court districts, each headed by a rector and supervised by inspectors. The chain of command was that of the prefectoral administration, applied to schools.

The monopoly bore above all on the conferring of degrees: bachelor, licentiate, doctor. The baccalauréat, created by the same text, became the keystone of the system — the only recognised passage from secondary school to the faculties and the careers.

The monopoly was contested from the Restoration onwards by the Church and by the partisans of freedom of education; it gave way with the Falloux law of 1850, which reopened secondary education to private establishments.

The rest remained. The academies, the rectors, the inspectors, the national baccalauréat, the idea of a teaching corps recruited and paid by the state: the framework of the French school of today dates from this decree more than from any later reform.