The Cult of Incompetence

Professor Auguste Emile Faguet (1847-1916) was the French writer and critic who wrote Initiation into Philosophy. He was born at La Roche sur Yon, and educated at the normal school in Paris. After teaching for some time in La Rochelle and Bordeaux, he returned to Paris to act as assistant professor of poetry in the university and became professor in 1897. Faguet was elected to the Academie francaise in 1900, and received the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in the next year. In 1896 he took the place of Jules Lemaitre on the Journal des Debats. Among his other works are monographs on Gustave Flaubert (1899), Andre Chenier (1902) and Emile Zola (1903).