Founded in 1794, the Ecole Normale Supérieure has as its mission to train «citizens who are already educated in the practical sciences, to learn from the most skilled professors in all disciplines, the art of teaching». The mission of the Ecole develops and opens the way to other professional perspectives: «through advanced cultural and scientific training for students oriented toward basic and applied scientific research, university and secondary school teaching and work in government and private enterprise. At the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the past and the present meet. Among the famous alumni of the school is Evariste Galois, the archetype of the mathematician and romantic hero. It is at ENS that aluminium was first isolated in 1854 by Sainte-Claire-Deville and where Pasteur made his great discoveries, including the process of fermentation in 1857 and viruses in 1881. Since then, the alumni of ENS have received several Nobel Prizes and Fields medals. The Ecole has also trained famous political figures: Jean Jaurès and Léon Blum, Presidents of the country, prime ministers and cabinet ministers some of whom are still in public service. Numerous writers and philosophers have graduated from the Ecole–among them, Henri Bergson, Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron, Marc Bloch, Jean Cavaillès, Simone Weil, and Jacques Canguilhem.