QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What do the proposals of La Chalotais, Rolland, and Turgot indicate as to the degree of unification of France attained by the time they wrote?
2. What new subjects did Diderot add to the religious elementary school of his time?
3. Show how the decline in efficiency of the Jesuits was a stimulating force for the evolution of a system of public instruction in France.
4. Show the statesman-like character of the proposals made in the legislative assemblies of France for the organization of national education.
5. Assuming that there had been enough funds to carry out the law (1793) of the Convention for primary instruction, what other difficulties would have been met that would have been hard to surmount?
6. Compare the Lakanal school with an American elementary school of a half-century ago.
7. Show that many of the important educational reforms of Napoleon were foreshadowed in the National Convention.
8. Was Napoleon right in his attitude toward education and schools?
9. Explain the lack of success of the revolutionary theorists in the establishment of a state system of education.
10. Explain why the breakdown of the old religious intolerance came earlier in the American Colonies than in the Old World.
11. Show the great value of the Laws of 1642 and 1647 in holding New England true to the maintenance of schools during the period of decline.
12. What might have been the result in America had the New England Colonies established the school as a parish institution, as did the central Colonies?
13. Analyze the Massachusetts constitutional provision for education, and show what it provided for.
14. Show the similarity of the University of the State of New York to the proposals for governmental control in France.
15. Explain why the French revolutionary ideas as to education were realized so easily in the new United States, whereas France did not realize them until well into the nineteenth century.
16. Compare Jefferson's proposed law with the proposals of Talleyrand for France.
17. Just what type of educational institutions did Washington have in mind in the quotation from his Farewell Address? John Jay? John Adams?