CHAPTER XXIII
[1] The commune in France was the smallest unit for local government, and corresponded to the district, town, or township with us, or with the Church parish under the old régime. There were approximately 37,000 communes in France. The Department was a much larger unit, France being divided, for administrative purposes, into 82 Departments, these corresponding to a rather large county.
[2] By this term what is known elsewhere as secondary school must be understood. See footnote, page 272, for explanation of the term.
[3] The University had at its disposal approximately 2,500,000 francs a year. This was derived from a state grant of 400,000 francs, the income from the property still remaining from the old confiscated universities, and the remainder largely from examination fees. In 1850 its property was taken over by the State, and the University was changed into a state department.
[4] This type of administrative organization is at first not easy for the American student to understand. The University of the State of New York— virtually the department of public instruction for the State—is our closest American analogy. On the banishment of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy, in 1815, the Grand Master and Council were replaced by a Commissioner of Public Instruction, with Assistant Commissioners for the different divisions, and in 1820 this was further changed into a Royal Council of Public Instruction.
[5] In 1909 a decree restored Greek and Latin to their old place of first importance in the Lycées, thus destroying the strong interest in scientific instruction, in so far as the higher secondary schools were concerned, which had characterized the Revolution.
[6] Report on the Condition of Public Instruction in Germany, and particularly in Prussia. Paris, 1831. Reprinted in London, 1834; New York City, 1835.
[7] François Pierre Guillaume Guizot was Minister for public Instruction from 1832 to 1837, and head of the French government from 1840 to 1848. He was throughout his entire political career a conservative, anxious to preserve constitutional government under a monarchy and stem the tide of republicanism.
[8] We see here the beginnings of education in agriculture, in which the French were pioneers.
[9] The schools, though, were not very successful, because of social reasons. Parents who could afford to do so sent their children to the much higher-priced Communal Colleges or Lycées, where Latin was the main study, in preference to sending them to a scientific, modern-type, middle- class school, as conferring a better social distinction on both pupils and parents.
[10] By 1838 there were 14,873 public schools the property of the communes; by 1847 there were 23,761; and by 1851 but 2500 out of approximately 37,000 communes were without schools. There were also over six thousand religious schools by 1850. By 1834 the number of boys in the communal schools was 1,656,828, and a decade later over two millions. The thirteen normal schools of 1830 had grown to seventy-six by 1838, with over 2500 young men then in training for teaching. In 1836 the Law of 1833 was extended to include, where possible, schools for girls as well, and the creation of a new set of normal schools to train schoolmistresses was begun. By 1848 over three and a half millions of children, of both sexes, were receiving instruction in the primary schools. In 1835 primary inspectors, those "sinews of public instruction," as Guizot termed them, were established, one for every Department, by royal decree. By 1847 there were two inspectors-general, and 13 inspectors and sub-inspectors at work in France.
[11] This was in large part due to manufacturing and business needs, as France was rapidly forging ahead during the period as a manufacturing and commercial nation.
[12] Prominent among these, perhaps most prominent, was Jules Ferry, Mayor of Paris during the trying period of 1870-71, then member of the French legislature and Minister of Public Instruction in a number of cabinets between 1879 and 1885. Drawing his inspiration from Condorcet's Plan of Education (p. 514; R. 256) and Edgar Quinet's Instruction of the People (R. 289), he brought about the enactment of a series of reform school laws commonly known as the "Ferry Laws." These provided for free, compulsory, elementary education, to be given by laymen; secondary education for girls; the extension of normal schools; and enlarged aid by the State in the building up of popular education.
[13] "The non-sectarian school is not the work of a few advanced thinkers imposed upon a docile country. They would not have been able to create anything enduring if the French conscience had not been ready to follow them. This is what the adversaries of our schools do not wish to understand, cannot understand, or are anxious to conceal from those whom they direct. Certainly they have the right to attempt a reaction according to their own preferences. They have no right to believe, nor even to allow it to be believed, that the creation of the non-sectarian school was the coup de force of an audacious minority. The non-sectarian school has come because the nation wished it. The program of moral instruction, long prophesied, conceived, and hoped for, was in the traditions of France as she marched forward toward her republican aspirations. This program is not only the conscious effort of the men who gave the school a new mission— that of laying the foundation of social peace through elementary instruction; it is the expression of the republican conscience of 1882." (Moulet, Alfred, D'une éducation morale démocratique.)
[14] "To each man his proper sphere; to the minister of religion the liberty of preaching the doctrine of the different churches, to teachers who teach in the name of the State, that is, of society, the right of limiting themselves to the field of universal human morals, together with the duty of refraining from any attack on religious beliefs. Neutrality is guaranteed by the secularization of the teaching body, and it must be strictly observed." (Compayré, Gabriel.)
[15] "The most striking feature is that, in place of the one single and uniform course for all pupils, several are provided for their selection. Here is obvious the influence of the elective courses common in the United States, whose existence and success were reported on to the Minister of Public Instruction by the Commission to the World Exposition at Chicago, in 1893. The courses last seven years. The school period is divided into two cycles, first one of four years, and then one of three. In the first cycle, the pupils have a choice of two sections, one emphasizing the ancient and modern languages, the other the modern languages and science. In the second cycle there are four sections, viz., Graeco-Latin; Latin- modern languages; Latin-scientific; and scientific-modern languages." (Compayré, Gabriel, Education in France.)
[16] Arnold, Matthew, Schools and Universities on the Continent, p. 115, (London, 1868.)
[17] For example, by the Peace of Lunéville (1801), by which Napoleon took from the Germans all territory west of the Rhine and consolidated it, he extinguished 118 free cities, principalities, and petty states. In addition, he extinguished the separate existence of 160 others east of the Rhine. The importance of such consolidations for the future of Germany has been large.
[18] Bologna, for example, had 166 professors in the early seventeenth century, but by 1737 it had but 62. The universities came chiefly to be places where young men obtained degrees but not learning. At Naples a noble family by the name of Avellino came to have the power of virtually selling degrees in law and medicine.
[19] Not only were schools built up, but commerce, roads, and in particular scientific agriculture were subjects of deep interest to Cavour. He saw, very clearly, that if Sardinia was to be the nucleus of a future Italy, Sardinia must show unmistakably her worthiness to lead.
[20] By 1859 Sardinia had come to include Savoy and Lombardy, and was the largest State in northern Italy. A year later all but Venetia and the States of the Church had been added.
[21] The Law of 1877 fixed the instruction in the primary schools, for the three compulsory years, as reading, writing, the Italian language, elements of civics, arithmetic, and the metric system. The omission of religious instruction excited much opposition from church authorities, but without effect.