Part 226

"The Jesuits invaded the province long ruled by the University alone. By that adroit management of men for which they have always been eminent, and by the more liberal spirit of their methods, they outdid in popularity their superannuated rival. Their first school at Paris was established in 1565, and in 1762, two years before their dissolution, they had eighty-six colleges in France. They were followed by the Port Royalists, the Benedictines, the Oratorians. The Port Royal schools [see PORT ROYAL], from which perhaps a powerful influence upon education might have been looked for, restricted this influence by limiting very closely the number of their pupils. Meanwhile the main funds and endowments for public education in France were in the University's hands, and its administration of these was as ineffective as its teaching. … The University had originally, as sources of revenue, the Post Office and the Messageries, or Office of Public Conveyance; it had long since been obliged to abandon the Post Office to Government, when in 1719 it gave up to the same authority the privilege of the Messageries, receiving in return from the State a yearly revenue of 150,000 livres. For this payment, moreover, it undertook the obligation of making the instruction in all its principal colleges gratuitous. Paid or gratuitous, however, its instruction was quite inadequate to the wants of the time, and when the Jesuits were expelled from France in 1764, their establishments closed, and their services as teachers lost, the void that was left was strikingly apparent, and public attention began to be drawn to it. It is well known how Rousseau among writers, and Turgot among statesmen, busied themselves with schemes of education; but the interest in the subject must have reached the whole body of the community, for the instructions of all three orders of the States General in 1789 are unanimous in demanding the reform of education, and its establishment on a proper footing. Then came the Revolution, and the work of reform soon went swimmingly enough, so far as the abolition of the old schools was concerned. In 1791 the colleges were all placed under the control of the administrative authorities; in 1792 the jurisdiction of the University was abolished; in 1793 the property of the colleges was ordered to be sold, the proceeds to be taken by the State; in September of the same year the suppression of all the great public schools and of all the University faculties was pronounced. For the work of reconstruction Condorcet's memorable plan had in 1792 been submitted to the Committee of Public Instruction appointed by the Legislative Assembly. This plan proposed a secondary school for every 4,000 inhabitants; for each department, a departmental institute, or higher school; nine lycées, schools carrying their studies yet higher than the departmental institute, for the whole of France; and to crown the edifice, a National Society of Sciences and Arts, corresponding in the main with the present institute of France. The whole expense of national instruction was to be borne by the State, and this expense was estimated at 29,000,000 of francs. But 1792 and 1793 were years of furious agitation, when it was easier to destroy than to build. Condorcet perished with the Girondists, and the reconstruction of public education did not begin till after the fall of Robespierre. The decrees of the Convention for establishing the Normal School, the Polytechnic, the School of Mines, and the écoles centrales, and then Daunou's law in 1795, bore, however, many traces of Condorcet's design. Daunou's law established primary schools, central schools, special schools, and at the head of all the Institute of France, this last a memorable and enduring creation, with which the old French Academy became incorporated. By Daunou's law, also, freedom was given to private persons to open schools. The new legislation had many defects. … The country, too, was not yet settled enough for its education to organise itself successfully. The Normal School speedily broke down; the central schools were established slowly and with difficulty; in the course of the four years of the Directory there were nominally instituted ninety·one of these schools, but they never really worked. More was accomplished by private schools, to which full freedom was given by the new legislation, at the same time that an ample and open field lay before them. They could not, however, suffice for the work, and education was one of the matters for which Napoleon, when he became Consul, had to provide. Foureroy's law, in 1802, took as the basis of its school-system secondary schools, whether established by the communes or by private individuals; the Government undertook to aid these schools by grants for buildings, for scholarships, and for gratuities to the masters; it prescribed Latin, French, geography, history, and mathematics as the instruction to be given in them. They were placed under the superintendence of the prefects. To continue and complete the secondary schools were instituted the lyceums; here the instruction was to be Greek and Latin, rhetoric, logic, literature, moral philosophy, and the elements of the mathematical and physical sciences. The pupils were to be of four kinds: boursiers nationaux, scholars nominated to scholarships by the State; pupils from the secondary schools, admitted as free scholars by competition; paying boarders, and paying day-scholars."

_M. Arnold, Schools and Universities on the Continent, chapter 1._

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1833-1889. The present System of Public Instruction.

"The question of the education of youth is one of those in which the struggle between the Catholic Church and the civil power has been, and still is, hottest. It is also one of those in which France, which for a long time had remained far in the rear, has made most efforts, and achieved most progress in these latter years. … Napoleon I. conceived education as a means of disciplining minds and wills and moulding them into conformity with the political system which he had put in force; accordingly he gave the University the monopoly of public education. Apart from the official system of teaching, no competition was allowed except that specially authorised, regulated, and controlled by the State itself. Religious instruction found a place in the official programmes, and members of the clergy were even called on to supply it, but this instruction itself, and these priests themselves, were under the authority of the State. Hence two results: on the one hand the speedy impoverishment of University education, … on the other hand, the incessant agitation of all those who were prevented by the special organisation given to the University from expounding their ideas or the faith that was in them from the professorial chair. This agitation was begun and carried on by the Catholic Church itself, as soon as it felt more at liberty to let its ambitions be discerned. {717} On this point the Church met with the support of a good number of Liberals, and it is in a great measure to its initiative that are due the three important laws of 1833, 1850, and 1875, which have respectively given to France freedom of primary education, of secondary education, and finally that of higher education; which have given, that is to say, the right to everyone, under certain conditions of capacity and character, to open private schools in competition with the three orders of public schools. But the Church did not stop there. Hardly had it insured liberty to its educational institutions—a liberty by which all citizens might profit alike, but of which its own strong organisation and powerful resources enabled it more easily to take advantage—hardly was this result obtained than the Church tried to lay hands on the University itself, and to make its doctrines paramount there. … Thence arose a movement hostile to the enterprises of the Church, which has found expression since 1880 in a series of laws which Excluded her little by little from the positions she had won, and only left to her, as to all other citizens, the liberty to teach apart from, and concurrently with, the State. The right to confer degrees has been given back to the State alone; the privilege of the 'letter of obedience' has been abolished; religious teaching has been excluded from the primary schools; and after having 'laicized,' as the French phrase is, the curriculum, the effort was persistently made to 'laicize' the staff. …. From the University point of view, the territory of France is divided into seventeen academies, the chief towns of which are Paris, Douai, Caen, Rennes, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Aix, Grenoble, Chambéry, Lyons, Besançon, Nancy, Dijon, Clermont, and Algiers. Each academy has a rector at its head, who, under the authority of the Minister of Public Instruction, is charged with the material administration of higher and secondary education, and with the methods of primary instruction in his district. The administration of this last belongs to the prefect of each department, assisted by an academy-inspector. In each of these three successive stages—department, academy, and central administration—is placed a council, possessing administrative and disciplinary powers. The Departmental Council of Public Instruction, which comprises six officials … forms a disciplinary council for primary education, either public or free (i. e., State or private). This council sees to the application of programmes, lays down rules, and appoints one or more delegates in each canton to superintend primary schools. The Academic Council … performs similar functions with regard to secondary and higher education. The Higher Council of Public Instruction sits at Paris. It comprises forty-four elected representatives of the three educational orders, nine University officials, and four 'free' schoolmasters appointed by the Minister, and is the disciplinary court of appeal for the two preceding councils. … Such is the framework, administrative as well as judicial, in which education, whether public or free, lives and moves. … Since 1882 Primary Education has been compulsory for all children of both sexes, from the age of six to the end of the thirteenth year, unless before reaching the latter age they have been able to pass an examination, and to gain the certificate of primary studies. To satisfy the law, the child's name must be entered at a public or private school; he may, however, continue to receive instruction at home, but in this case, after he has reached the age of eight, he must be examined every year before a State board. … At the age of thirteen the child is set free from further teaching, whatever may be the results of the education he has received. … In public schools the course of instruction does not include, as we have said, religious teaching; but one day in the week the school must take a holiday, to allow parents to provide such teaching for their children, if they wish to do so. The school building cannot be used for that purpose. In private schools religious instruction may be given, but this is optional. The programme of primary education includes: moral and civic instruction; reading, writing, French, geography and history (particularly those of France); general notions of law and science; the elements of drawing, modelling, and music; and gymnastics. No person of either sex can become a teacher, either public or private, unless he possesses the 'certificate of capacity for primary instruction' given by a State board. For the future—putting aside certain temporary arrangements—no member of a religious community will be eligible for the post of master in a public school. … As a general rule, every commune is compelled to maintain a public school, and, if it has more than 500 inhabitants, a second school for girls only. … The sum total of the State's expenses for primary education in 1887 is as high as eighty-five million francs (£3,400,000), and that without mentioning grants for school buildings, whereas in 1877 the sum total was only twelve millions (£480,000). … From 1877 to 1886, the number of public schools rose from 61,000 to 66,500; that of the pupils from 4,200,000 to 4,500,000, with 96,600 masters and mistresses; that of training schools for male teachers from 79 to 89, of training schools for female teachers from 18 to 77, with 5,400 pupils (3,500 of them women), and 1,200 masters. As to the results a single fact will suffice. In these ten years, before the generations newly called to military service have been able to profit fully by the new state of things, the proportion of illiterate recruits (which is annually made out directly after the lots are drawn) has already fallen from 15 to 11 per cent."

_A. Lebon and P. Pelet, France as it is, chapter 5._

"In 1872, after the dreadful disaster of the war, Monsieur Thiers, President of the Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale, and Monsieur Jules Simon, Minister of Public Instruction, felt that what was most important for the nation was a new system of public instruction, and they set themselves the task of determining the basis on which this new system was to be established. In September, 1882, Monsieur Jules Simon issued a memorable circular calling the attention of all the most distinguished leaders of thought to some proposed plans. He did not long remain in power, but in his retirement he wrote a book entitled: 'Réforme de l'Enseignement Secondaire.' Monsieur Bréal, who was commissioned to visit the schools of Germany, soon after published another book which aroused new enthusiasm in France. … From that day a complete educational reform was decided on. {718} In 1872 we had at the Ministeré de l'Instruction Publique three distinguished men: Monsieur Dumont for the Enseignement Supérieur, one from whom we hoped much and whose early death we had to mourn in 1884; Monsieur Zévort for the Enseignement Secondaire, who also died ere the good seed which he had sown had sprung up and borne fruit (1887); and Monsieur Buisson to whose wisdom, zeal, and energy we owe most of the work of the Enseignement Primaire. At their side, of maturer years than they, stood Monsieur Gréard, Recteur de l'Académie de Paris. … All the educationists of the first French Revolution had insisted on the solidarity of the three orders of education; maintaining that it was not possible to separate one from another, and that there ought to be a close correspondence between them. This principle lies at the root of the whole system of French national instruction. Having established this principle, the four leaders called upon all classes of teachers to work with them, and professors who had devoted their life to the promotion of superior instruction brought their experience and their powers of organization to bear upon schools for all classes, from the richest to the poorest. … But to reform and to reconstruct a system of instruction is not a small task. It is not easy to change at once the old methods, to give a new spirit to the masters, to teach those who think that what had been sufficient for them need not be altered and is sufficient forever. However, we must say that as soon as the French teachers heard of the great changes which were about to take place, they were all anxious to rise to the demands made on them, and were eager for advice and help. Lectures on pedagogy and psychology were given to them by the highest professors of philosophy, and these lessons were so much appreciated that the attention of the University of France was called to the necessity for creating at the Sorbonne a special course of lectures on pedagogy. Eleven hundred masters and mistresses attended them the first year that they were inaugurated; from that time till now their number has always been increasing. Now we have at the Sorbonne a Chaire Magistrale and Conférences for the training of masters and professors; and the faculties at Lyons, Bordeaux, Nancy, and Montpellier have followed the example given at the Sorbonne, Paris. … In 1878, the Musée Pedagogique was founded; in 1882, began the publication of the Revue Pedagogique and the Revue Internationale de l'Enseignement. Four large volumes of the Dictionnaire de Pédagogie, each containing about 3,000 closely printed pages, have also come out under the editorship of Monsieur Buisson, all the work of zealous teachers and educationists. In 1879 normal schools were opened. Then in 1880 primary schools, and in 1882 we may say that the Ecoles Maternelles and the Ecoles Enfantines were created, so different are they from the infant schools or the Salles d'Asile; in 1883 a new examination was established for the Professorat and the Direction des Ecoles Normales, as well as for the inspectors of primary instruction; and in July, 1889, the law about public and private teaching was promulgated, perhaps one of the most important that has ever been passed by the Republic."

_Mme. Th. Armagnac, The Educational Renaissance of France (Education, September, 1890)._

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1890-1891. Statistics.

The whole number of pupils registered in the primary, elementary and superior schools, public and private, of France and Algiers (excluding the "écoles maternelles") for the school-year 1890-91, was 5,593,883; of which 4,384,905 were in public schools (3,760,601, "laïque," and 624,304 "congréganiste"), and 1,208,978 in private schools (151,412 "laïques," and 1,057,566 "congréganiste"). Of 36,484 communes, 35,503 possessed a public school, and 875 were joined for school purposes with another commune. The male teachers employed in the elementary and superior public schools numbered 28,657; female teachers, 24,273; total 52,930.

_Ministère de l'Instruction publique, Résumé des états de situation de l'enseignement primaire pour l'année scolaire 1890-1891._

EDUCATION: Ireland.

"The present system of National Education in Ireland was founded in 1831. In this year grants of public money for the education of the poor were entrusted to the lord-lieutenant in order that they might be applied to the education of the people. This education was to be given to children of every religious belief, and to be superintended by commissioners appointed for the purpose. The great principle on which the system was founded was that of 'united secular and separate religious instruction.' No child should be required to attend any religious instruction which should be contrary to the wishes of his or her parents or guardians. Times were to be set apart during which children were to have such religious instruction as their parents might think proper. It was to be the duty of the Commissioners to see that these principles were carried out and not infringed on in any way. They had also power to give or refuse money to those who applied for aid to build schools. Schools are 'vested' and 'non-vested.' Vested schools are those built by the Board of National Education; non-vested schools are the ordinary schools, and are managed by those who built them. If a committee of persons build a school, it is looked on by the Board as the 'patron.' If a landowner or private person builds a school, he is regarded as the patron if he has no committee. The patron, whether landlord or committee, has power to appoint or dismiss a manager, who corresponds with the Board. The manager is also responsible for the due or thorough observance of the laws and rules. Teachers are paid by him after he certifies that the laws have been kept, and gives the attendance for each quarter. When an individual is patron, he may appoint himself manager and thus fill both offices. … The teachers are paid by salaries and by results fees. The Boards of Guardians have power to contribute to these results fees. Some unions do so and are called 'contributory.' School managers in Ireland are nearly always clerics of some denomination. There are sometimes, but very rarely, lay managers. … From the census returns of 1881 it appears that but fifty-nine per cent. of the people of Ireland are able to read and write, The greater number of national schools through Ireland are what are called 'unmixed,' that is, attended by children of one denomination only. The rest of the schools are called 'mixed,' that is, attended by children of different forms of religion. The percentage of schools that show a 'mixed' attendance tends to become smaller each year. … There are also twenty-nine 'model' schools in different parts of Ireland. These schools are managed directly by the Board of National Education. … {719} According to the report of the Commissioners of National Education for 1890, the 'percentage of average attendance to the average number of children on the rolls of the schools was but 59.0,' and the percentage of school attendance to the estimated population of school age in Ireland would be less than 50. Different reasons might be given for this small percentage of attendance. The chief reasons are, first, attendance at school not being compulsory, and next, education not being free. … The pence paid for school fees in Ireland may seem, to many people, a small matter. But in a country like Ireland, where little money circulates, and a number of the people are very poor, school pence are often not easily found every week. In 1890, £104,550 4s. and 8d. was paid in school fees, being an average of 4s. 32¾d. per unit of average attendance."

_The Irish Peasant; by a Guardian of the Poor, chapter 8._

EDUCATION: Norway.

"In 1739 the schools throughout the country were regulated by a royal ordinance, but this paid so little regard to the economical and physical condition of Norway that it had to be altered and modified as early as 1741. Compulsory instruction, however, had thus been adopted, securing to every child in the country instruction in the Christian doctrine and in reading, and this coercion was retained in all later laws. … Many portions of the country are intersected by high mountains and deep fiords, so that a small population is scattered over a surface of several miles. In such localities the law has established 'ambulatory schools,' whose teachers travel from one farm to another, living with the different peasants. Although this kind of instruction has often been most incomplete and the teachers very mediocre, still educational coercion has everywhere been in force, and Christian instruction everywhere provided for the children. These 'ambulatory schools' formerly existed in large numbers, but with the increase of wealth and population, and the growing interest taken in education, their number has gradually diminished, and that of fixed circle-schools augmented in the same proportion."