Polytechnique, the highest-ranking graduates generally went on to the Ponts et Chaussées—an école d’application— from which they emerged as engineers in the service of the state, as builders of bridges, highways, harbors, or as officials with the state-run railroads. Early in the 1860’s, after a thorough study of the system, an American authority on education, Henry Barnard, declared it gave France the best-trained corps of civil and military
