2-799-079 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Pupils of the Polytechnic School at Paris, 1844. The school '...was founded by a decree of the National Convention, in March, 1794. Its object was to diffuse the knowledge of the mathematical, physical, and chemical sciences, and likewise to prepare pupils for the different schools of engineering, military, civil, and naval; and for the artillery, and military geography...The French Government...has been long labouring to disorganize the Polytechnic School, in order to subject it to the arbitrary will of the Ministry...They wish to convert a school, possessing regular conditions of existence, into a barrack'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.