ABSTRACT
THE educational system, like much else in France, dates back to Napoleon. Before the Revolution education was the province of the teaching orders of the Church and the largely independent universities. The religious orders were dispersed by the Revolution and the universities abolished. Education was declared to be a public service. Napoleon created a new corporation which he called the Imperial University and to which he gave a monopoly of all education (this, at the time, meant secondary and higher education; primary education was little developed). A uniform hierarchic system was established, strongly centralized in terms of authority but with considerable administrative decentralization. In this it followed the pattern set by Napoleon for other branches of the administration. At the head of the University stood the Grand Master. Regional administration was based on areas known as Academies, each headed by a Rector. A feature of this system was the unification of secondary and higher education: the centre of the Academy was in effect a university town (though universities as such did not exist) and the Rector was responsible for both levels of education.
