The training of technicians: French & British outlook & action

‘Everybody now realises that henceforward social progress depends entirely upon economic progress. Without economic expansion there simply is no possible advance in the social field. Economic expansion cannot be brought about by the discovery of new natural riches: we cannot build up any illusions for ourselves because our land has been searched and sounded and pierced with bore holes from one end to the other and we shall not find the caves of Ali Baba however deep we go. The only caves of Ali Baba which we can now find lie in ourselves, in our minds, in our creativity, in our capacity to innovate and invent, ie in our technical progress. It is this technical advance that, henceforward, conditions all economic advance from which can come social progress. There is no possibility whatever of human progress within the frontiers of France without progress in the field of all things technical, and, consequently without progress in technical education.’