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54 2 MODERN TIMES.
Grand Master stood at the head of the University of France.
This dignity passed or was changed into that of Minister of
Instruction. A council was appointed to assist him, in the
capacity of consulting authority in educational matters,
while a considerable number of General Inspectors supervised
and controlled the particular schools. The whole
country was divided into 26 university districts, everyone
•of which formed the seat of an academy (or higher
educational establishment), with a Rector, Academic
Council, and Inspectors. This strictly uniform method of
organizing instruction had the great advantage of helping
to strike a balance among the various educational levels in
the different parts of France, and of applying, in educational
matters, the principles of order and equity throughout
the country.
This arrangement was maintained after the overthrow of
the empire, and in the. course of time experienced only
those improvements suggested by the needs of culture or of
the State. Each faculty, from this time forth, conferred
three degrees, those, namely, of Bachelor, Licentiate, and
Doctor. Only the two last, when acquired in the department
of medicine, gave the right to practise. The hospital
schools were only allowed to grant the title of Officier de
Sante. The professorships were obtained by competition,
but in the year 1810 in the case of candidates of known
literary and scientific merit the process of subjecting them
to the prescribed examination, or of making them compose
a thesis, was dispensed with.
The hostile attitude afterwards assumed against LOUIS
XVIII. by the medical faculty of Paris, and the riotous
scenes which ensued thereupon, led to the doors of the
schools being closed in 1822. When thrown open once
more in the following year the faculty was reorganized.
The staff of teachers consisted of 23 professors in ordinary
and 36 agreges, of whom 24 were en exercise and 12 en
stage. In 1824 the Ministry of Public Instruction was
established, and to this the medical faculties and schools