enumeration of the works which have appeared under their auspices during the last few years would, if necessary, bear witness to the fact.
This evolution has already produced satisfactory results, and will produce more if it goes on as well as it has begun. To begin with, the transformation of historical instruction in the Faculties has brought about a corresponding transformation at the École normale supérieure. The École normale has also, for two years, been awarding a "Diplôme d'études"; original researches, pedagogic exercises, and general culture are encouraged there in the same degree as by the new Faculties. It now differs from the Faculties only in being a close institution, recruited under certain precautions; practically it is a Faculty like the others, but with a small number of select students. Secondly, the École des hautes études and the École des chartes, both of which will be installed at the end of 1897, in the renovated Sorbonne, have still their justification for existence; for many specialists are represented at the École des hautes études which are not, and doubtless never will be, represented in the Faculties; and, in the case of the studies bearing on mediæval history, the body of converging instruction given at the École des chartes will always be incomparable. But the old antagonism between the École des hautes études and the École des chartes on the one hand, and the Faculties on the other, has disappeared. All these institutions, lately so dissimilar, will henceforth co-operate for the purpose of carrying on a common work in a common spirit. Each of these retains its name, its autonomy, and its traditions; but together they form a whole: the historical section of an ideal University of