The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

and arithmetic, and the legal authorities were enjoined “to watch that the teachers did not carry their instructions beyond these limits.” The teacher was to be paid entirely from tuition fees, though one fifth of the pupils were to be provided with free schooling. The State gave nothing toward the support of the primary schools.

 

The interest of Napoleon was not in primary or general education, but rather in training pupils for scientific and technical efficiency, and youths of superior ability for the professions and for executive work in the kind of government he had imposed upon France. To this end secondary and special education were made particular functions of the State, while primary education was left to the communes to provide as they saw fit.

They could provide schools and the parents could pay for the teacher, or not, as they might decide. There was no compulsion to enforce the requirement of a primary school, and no state aid to stimulate local effort to create one. In consequence not many state primary schools were established, and primary education remained, for another generation, in the hands of private teachers and the Church.

 

2. SECONDARY SCHOOLS. Chapters III and IV of the Law of 1802 made full provision for two types of secondary schools—the Communal Colleges and the Lyc�es [2]—to replace the Central Higher Schools established in 1795

(p. 518). These latter had lacked sadly in internal organization. They were merely day schools, lacking the dormitory and boarding arrangements which for over three centuries had characterized the French coll�ges. As a result they had not prospered. The Law of 1802 now replaced them with two types of residential secondary schools, in which the youth of the country, under careful supervision and discipline, might prepare for entrance to the higher special schools. These fixed the lines of future French development in secondary schools.

 

The standard secondary school now became known as the Lyc�e. These institutions corresponded to the Colleges under the old r�gime, of which the College of Guyenne (R. 136) was a type. The instruction was to include the ancient languages, rhetoric, logic, ethics, belles-lettres, mathematics, and physical science, with some provision for additional instruction in modern languages and drawing. Each was to have at least eight “professors,” an administrative head, a supervisor of studies, and a steward to manage the business affairs of the institution. The State usually provided the building, often using some former church school which had been suppressed, and the cities in which the Lyc�es were located were required to provide them with furniture and teaching equipment. The funds for maintenance came from tuition fees, boarding and rooming income, and state scholarships, of which six thousand four hundred were provided.

 

Besides the Lyc�es, every school established by a municipality, or kept by an individual, which gave instruction in Latin, French, geography, history, and mathematics was designated as a secondary school, or Communal College. These institutions usually offered but a partial Lyc�e course, and were tuition schools, being patronized by many parents whose tastes forbade the sending of their children to the lower-class primary schools.

A license from the Government to operate was necessary before masters could be employed. They were to be maintained by the municipality, without any state encouragement beyond some grants for capable teachers and scholarships in the Lyc�es for meritorious pupils.

 

Within two years after the enactment of the Law of 1802 there had been created in France 46 Lyc�es, 378 secondary schools of various degrees of completeness, and 361 private schools of secondary grade had been opened.

A number of these disappeared later, in the reorganization of 1808. For the supervision of all these institutions the Director General of Public Instruction appointed three Superintendents of Secondary Studies; and for the work of the schools he outlined the courses of instruction in detail, laid down the rules of administration, prepared and selected the textbooks, and appointed the “professors.”

 

SPECIAL OR HIGHER SCHOOLS. The chapter of the Law of 1802 on Special Schools made provision for the creation of the following special “faculties” or schools for higher education for France: 3 medical schools, to replace the Schools of Health of 1794 (p.

518).

10 law schools; increased to 12 in 1804 (Date of Code Napol�on, p. 518).

4 schools of natural history, natural philosophy, and chemistry.

2 schools of mechanical and chemical arts, 1 mathematical school,

1 school of geography, history, and political economy.

A fourth school of art and design.

Professors of astronomy for the observatories.

 

In 1803 the School of Arts and Trades was added (R. 282), and in 1804, after Napoleon had signed the Concordat with the Pope, thus restoring the Catholic religion (abolished 1791), schools of theology were added to the above list.

 

We have here, clearly outlined, the main paths along which French state educational organization had been tending and was in future to follow. The State had definitely dispossessed the Church as the controlling agency in education, and had definitely taken over the school as an instrument for its own ends. Though primary education had been temporarily left to the communes, and was soon to be turned over in large part to be handled by the Church for a generation longer, the supervision was to remain with the State. The middle-class elements were well provided for in the new secondary schools, and these were now subject to complete supervision by the State. For higher education groups of Special Schools, or Teaching Faculties, replaced the older universities, which were not recreated until after the coming of the Third Republic (1871). The dominant characteristics of the state educational system thus created, aside from its emphasis on secondary and higher education, were its uniformity and centralized control. These characteristics were further stressed in the reorganization of 1808, and have remained prominent in French educational organization ever since.

 

CREATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANCE. By 1806 Napoleon was ready for a further and more complete organization of the public instruction of the State, and to this end the following law was now enacted (May 10, 1806): Sec. 1. There will be formed, under the name of Imperial University, a body exclusively commissioned with teaching and public education throughout the Empire.

 

Sec. 2. The members of this corporation can contract civil, special, and temporary obligations.

 

Sec. 3. The organization of this corps will be given in the form of a law to the legislative body in the session of 1810.

 

In 1808, without the formality of further legislation, Napoleon issued an Imperial Decree creating the University of France. This was not only Napoleon’s most remarkable educational creation, but it was an administrative and governing organization for education so in harmony with French spirit and French governmental ideas that it has persisted ever since, though changed somewhat in form with time.

 

The Decree began by declaring that “public instruction, in the whole Empire, is confined exclusively to the University,” and that “no school, nor establishment for instruction, can be formed independent of the Imperial University, and without the authority of its chief.” Unlike the University of Berlin (p. 574), created a year later, this was not a teaching university at all, but instead a governing, examining, and disbursing corporation, [3] presided over by a Grand Master and a Council of twenty-six members, all appointed by the Emperor. This Council decided all matters of importance, and exercised supervision and control over education of all kinds, from the lowest to the highest, throughout France.

[4] To assist the Council, general inspectors for medicine, law, theology, letters, and science were provided for, to visit and “examine the condition of instruction and discipline in the faculties, lyc�es, and colleges; to inform themselves in regard to the fidelity and ability of professors, regents, and ushers; to examine the students; and to make a complete survey of those institutions, in their whole administration.”

Beneath the Grand Master and Council the State was divided into twenty-seven “Academies” (administrative districts), each of which had a Rector, a Council of ten, and Inspectors, all appointed by the Grand Master. These exercised jurisdiction over teachers and pupils in all schools, and decided all local matters, subject to appeal to the Grand Master and Council.

 

Under this new administrative organization but little change was made in the schools from that provided for in the law of 1802. Primary education remained as before, private schools and Church schools supplying most of the need. All were under the supervision of the University, and all were instructed to make as a basis of their instruction: (1) the precepts of the Catholic religion; (2) fidelity to the Emperor, to the imperial monarchy, the depository of the happiness of the people, and to the Napoleonic dynasty, the conservator of the unity of France, and of all the ideas proclaimed by the Constitution.

 

The Lyc�es and Communal Colleges continued, much as before, [5] and during the half-century which followed, experienced a steady and substantial growth.

 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE LYC�ES

 

Year 1809 1811 1813 1829 1847 1866

Lyc�es 35 36 36 36 54 74

Pupils 9,068 10,926 14,492 15,087 23,207 34,442

Free pupils 4,199 4,008 3,500 1,600

 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNAL COLLEGES

 

Year 1809 1815 1830 1849 1855 1866

Colleges 273 323 332 306 244 251

Pupils 18,507 19,320 27,308 31,706 32,500 33,038

 

The Special Higher Schools were also continued, and to the list given (p.

593) Napoleon added (1808) a Superior Normal School (R. 283) to train graduates of the Lyc�es for teaching. This opened in 1810, with thirty-seven students and a two-year course of instruction, and in 1815 a third year of method and practice work was added. With some varying fortunes, this institution has continued to the present.

 

THE NEW INTEREST IN PRIMARY EDUCATION. The period from 1815 to 1830 in France is known as the Restoration. Louis XVIII was made King and ruled until his death in 1824, and his brother Charles X who followed until deposed by the Revolution of 1830. Though a representative of the old r�gime was recalled on the abdication of Napoleon, the great social gains of the Revolution were retained. There was no odious restoration of privilege and absolute monarchy. Frenchmen continued to be equal before the law; a form of constitutional government was provided; the right of petition was recognized; and the system of public instruction as Napoleon had organized it continued almost unchanged. For a decade at least there was less political reaction in France than in other continental States.

 

In matters of education, what had been provided was retained, and there seems (R. 285) to have been an increasing demand for additions and improvements, particularly in the matter of primary and middle-class schools, and a willingness on the part of the communes to provide such advantages. Some small progress had been made in meeting these demands, before 1830.

 

In 1816 a small treasury grant (50,000 francs) was made for school books, model schools, and deserving teachers in the primary schools, and in 1829

this sum was increased to 300,000 francs. In 1818 the “Brothers of the Christian Schools” were permitted to be certificated for teaching on merely presenting their Letter of Obedience from the head of their Order, and in 1824 the cantonal school committees were remodeled so as to give the bishops and clergy entire control of all Catholic primary schools.

Monitorial instruction was introduced from England by private teachers, in an effort to supply the beginnings of education at small expense, and for a time this had some vogue, but never proved very successful. In 1815 the Lyc�es were renamed Royal Colleges, but in 1848 the old name was restored, and has since been retained. In 1817 there were thirty-six Lyc�es, receiving an annual state subsidy of 812,000 francs; thirty years later the fifty-four in existence were