FOOTNOTES:
[237] Gréard, Mémoire sur l’enseignement secondaire des filles, p. 78.
[238] French translation by Pictet, 1801.
[239] French translation by Chéron, 2 vols., Paris, 1804.
[240] Stewart, Elements, p. 11.
[241] Letters, Vol. I. p. 11.
[242] See the two volumes published in 1824 by Barrière, on the Éducation, par Madame Campan, followed by the Conseils aux jeunes filles.
[243] The work of Madame de Rémusat was published in 1824, after the author’s death, under the direction of Charles de Rémusat.
[244] Joubert, Pensées.
[245] The Annales de l’éducation appeared from 1811 to 1814. It is an interesting collection to consult. In it Guizot published among other pedagogical works, his studies on the ideas of Rabelais and Montaigne, afterwards reprinted in the volume, Études Morales.
[246] Éducation domestique ou Lettres de famille sur l’éducation. 2 vols. Paris, 1826.
[247] See in the Revue pédagogique, 1883, No. 6, an interesting study on Madame Guizot, by Bernard Perez.
[248] L’Éducation progressive ou Étude du cours de la nature humaine. 3 vols. 1836-1838.
[249] Preface to the fifth edition of the Progressive Education. Paris. Garnier.
[250] We must include in the educational school of Madame Necker de Saussure one of her countrymen, the celebrated Vinet (1799-1847), who, in his excellent book, L’Éducation, la famille et la société (Paris, 1855), has vigorously discussed certain educational questions.
[251] See the sixth edition, Paris, Hachette, 1877.
[252] See the work entitled Mademoiselle Sauvan, première inspectrice des écoles de Paris, sa vie, son œuvre, par E. Gossot. Paris, 1880.
[253] Essai sur l’instruction des femmes. Tours, 1841.
[254] The first edition is dated 1834. The ninth was published in 1873.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
THE PEDAGOGY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; VOTES OF THE COUNCILS-GENERAL (1801); FOURCROY AND THE LAW OF 1802; FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY (1806); ORGANIZATION OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY; INTENTIONS OF THE DYNASTY; PRIMARY INSTRUCTION NEGLECTED; ORIGIN OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION; BELL AND LANCASTER; SUCCESS OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE; MORAL ADVANTAGES; ECONOMICAL ADVANTAGES; ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS ON THE MUTUAL SYSTEM; VICES OF THIS SYSTEM; STATE OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION; GUIZOT AND THE LAW OF 1833; HIGHER PRIMARY SCHOOLS; CIRCULAR OF GUIZOT; PROGRESS IN POPULAR INSTRUCTION; PROGRAMMES OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION; THE THEORISTS OF EDUCATION; JACOTOT (1770-1840); THE PARADOXES OF JACOTOT; ALL IS IN ALL; THE SAINT-SIMONIANS AND THE PHALANSTERIANS; FOURIER (1772-1837); AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857) AND THE POSITIVISTS; DUPANLOUP (1802-1878); ANALYSIS OF THE TREATISE ON EDUCATION; ERRORS AND PREJUDICES; THE SPIRITUALISTIC SCHOOL AND THE UNIVERSITY MEN; ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.
597. The Pedagogy of the Nineteenth Century.—An effort more and more marked to organize education in accordance with the data of psychology and on a scientific basis, and to co-ordinate pedagogical methods in accordance with a rational plan; a manifest tendency to take the control of education from the hands of the Church in order to restore it to the State and to lay society; a larger part accorded the family in the management of children; a faith more and more sanguine in the efficacy of instruction, and an ever-growing purpose to have every member of the human family participate in its benefits,—such are some of the characteristics of the pedagogy of the nineteenth century. Education tends more and more to become a social problem; it is to be an affair of universal interest. It is no longer to be merely a question of regulating select studies for the use of a few who are the favorites of birth and fortune; but science must be placed within the reach of all, and through the simplification of methods and the universal distribution of knowledge, it must be adapted to the democratic spirit of the new society.
We have no intention to follow in this place, in all its details, and in the diversity of its currents, this educational movement of a century which has not yet said its last word; but we must limit ourselves to calling attention to the points which seem to us essential.
598. Laws of the Councils-General of 1801.—Notwithstanding the efforts of the Revolution, public instruction in France, during the first part of the nineteenth century, was far from being flourishing. There was urgent need of introducing reforms. The Councils-General were summoned in 1801 to give their advice on the organization of studies. That which is very noticeable in the State papers of the Councils-General of 1801, is that the departmental assemblies agree in demanding the establishment of a National University. The Councils-General complain that the professors, being no longer united by the ties of solidarity, as were the members of the religious teaching congregations of the old régime, march at random, without unity, without concerted direction. They solicit, then, a uniform organization of instruction. They even conceive the idea of an official instruction administered exclusively by the State.
599. Fourcroy[255] and the Law of 1802.—We have not the space to dwell long on the bill of Fourcroy, which became the law of 1802, although this measure, it has been said, was amended twenty-three times before being submitted to the Corps Législatif and to the Tribunate.
Fourcroy did not sufficiently recognize the rights of the State. Doubtless he did not go so far as to assert, with Adam Smith, that education should be abandoned entirely to private enterprise; but he thinks that the task of organizing the primary schools must be left to the communes. In his opinion, that which prevented the success of these schools was the attempt to impose too great a uniformity on them. He demands that the teachers be chosen by the mayors, or by the municipal councillors, who alone are cognizant of the local interests. The primary school is the need of all. Then let it be the affair of all. Fourcroy was mistaken. Primary instruction became a reality in France only on the day when the State vigorously put its hand on it.
On certain points, however, the law of 1802 prepared the way for the approaching creation of Napoleon; for example, in giving to the First Consul the appointment of the professors of the colleges, and in placing the primary schools under the supervision of the prefects.
600. Foundation of the University (1806).—The law of May 11, 1806, completed by the decrees of March 17, 1808, and of 1811, established the University, that is, a teaching corporation, unique and entirely dependent on the State:—
“There shall be constituted a body charged exclusively with instruction and public education throughout the whole extent of the Empire.”
Instruction thus became a function of the State, on the same basis as the administration of justice or the organization of the army.
At the same time that it lost all autonomy, all independence, the University gained the formidable privilege of being alone charged with the national instruction.
“No one can open a school or teach publicly, without being a member of the Imperial University and without having been graduated from one of its Faculties.” “No school can be established outside of the University, and without the authorization of its head.”
We know what protestations were excited, even on the start, by the establishment of this University monopoly. “It was not enough to enchain parents; it was still necessary to dispose of the children. Mothers have been seen hastening from the extremities of the Empire, coming to reclaim, in an agony of tears, the sons whom the government had carried off from them.” Thus spoke Chateaubriand, before lavishing his adulations on the restorer of altars, and he added, with an extravagance of imagination which recoils on itself, “Children were placed in schools where they were taught at the sound of the drum, irreligion, debauchery, and contempt for the domestic virtues!” Joseph de Maistre was more just: “Fontanes,”[256] he said, “has large views and excellent intentions. The plan of his University is grand and comprehensive. It is a noble body. The soul will come to it when it can. Celibacy, subordination, devotion of the whole life without religious motive, are required. Will they be obtained?”[257]
601. Organization of the Imperial University.—The Imperial University comprised, like the present University, Colleges, Lycées, and Faculties. The Colleges furnished secondary instruction, like the Lycées, but less complete. There were a Faculty of Letters and a Faculty of Sciences for each academic centre; but these Faculties were very poorly equipped, with their endowment of from five to ten thousand francs at most, and with their few professors. The professors of the neighboring Lycée (professors of rhetoric and mathematics) formed a part of the establishment, and each Faculty included at most but two or three other chairs.
Latin and mathematics formed the basis of the instruction in the Lycées. The Revolution had not come in vain, since that which it had vigorously demanded was now realized; the sciences and the classical languages were put on a footing of equality.
602. Dynastic Prepossessions.—That which absorbed the attention of the founder of the Imperial University was less the schemes of study than the general principles on which the rising generations were to be nourished. In this respect the thought of the Emperor is not obscure. He does not dissemble it. God and the Emperor are the two words which must be graven into the depths of the soul.
“All the schools of the Imperial University will make as the 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.”
“Napoleon,” as Guizot says, “attempted to convert into an instrument of despotism an institution which tended to be only a centre of light.”
603. Primary Instruction neglected.—Primary instruction never occupied the attention of Napoleon I. The decree of 1805 contented itself with promising measures intended to assure the recruitment of teachers, especially the creation of one or more normal classes within the colleges and lycées. Moreover, the Grand Master was to encourage and to license the Brethren of the Christian Schools, while supervising their establishments. Finally, the right to establish schools was left to families or to religious corporations, the budget of the Empire containing no item of appropriation for the cause of popular instruction.
The Restoration was scarcely more generous towards the instruction of the people. By the ordinance of February 29, 1815, it granted fifty thousand francs as encouragement to the primary schools. Was this derisive liberality any better than complete silence and neglect? A more important measure was the establishment of cantonal committees charged with the supervision of primary schools. These committees were placed, sometimes under the direction of the rector, and at others under the authority of the bishop, at the pleasure of the vicissitudes of politics. Certificates of qualification were delivered to the members of the authorized congregations, on the simple presentation of their letters of permission. We can imagine what a body of teachers could be assured by such a mode of recruitment.
In anticipation of the monarchy of July, which in its liberal dispositions was to appear more regardful of popular education, private initiative signalized itself under the Restoration by the foundation of the Society for Elementary Instruction, and also by the encouragement it gave to the first attempts at mutual instruction.
604. Origin of Mutual Instruction.—Two Englishmen, Bell and Lancaster, have claimed the honor of having invented mutual instruction. The fact is, neither of them invented it; they simply gave it currency. It is in France, if not in India, that we must look for the real origin of mutual instruction. We have seen that Madame de Maintenon, Rollin, La Salle, and Pestalozzi, practised it, and to a certain extent gave it currency. In the eighteenth century Herbault had employed it in the hospital of La Pitié (1747), the Chevalier Paulet at Vincennes (1774), and, finally, the Abbé Gaultier,[258] also a Frenchman, had introduced the use of it into London, in 1792, some years before Bell brought it from India.
605. Bell (1753-1832) and Lancaster (1778-1838).—Bell and Lancaster are none the less the first authorized propagators of the mutual method, or, as the English say, of the monitorial system. Bell had used it at Madras, in imitation of the Hindoo teachers, and in 1798 he introduced it into England. But at the same period, a young English teacher, Lancaster, applied the same methods with success, and, so far as it appears, through a suggestion absolutely personal and original. Lancaster was a Quaker, and Bell a Churchman, so that public opinion in England was divided between the two rivals. The truth is that they had applied at the same time a system which was known before their day, and which must naturally have been suggested to all teachers who have too large a number of children to instruct, as a result of the inadequacy of their resources and the lack of a teaching force sufficiently large.
606. Success of Mutual Instruction in France.—Mutual instruction, which was maintained in certain schools of Paris till 1867, for a long time enjoyed an extraordinary credit in France. Under the Restoration, its success was so great that it became the fashion, and even a craze. Patronized by the most eminent men of that day, by Royer-Collard, by Laisné, by the Duke Decazes, by the Duke Pasquier, mutual instruction became the flag of the liberal party in the matter of instruction. Political passions became involved in it. The new system came into competition with the traditional instruction of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, and was fought and denounced as immoral by all the partisans of routine. “Mutual instruction was charged with destroying the foundation of social order by delegating to children a power which ought to belong only to men.... Men held for or against simultaneous instruction, its rival, as if it were a question of an article of the Charter.”[259]
607. Moral Advantages.—The friends of mutual instruction, in order to justify their enthusiasm, made the most of moral reasons. What can be more touching, they said, than to see children communicating to one another the little that they know? What an excellent lesson of charity and of mutual aid! The Gospel has said, Love one another. Was it not giving to the divine precept a happy translation to add, Instruct one another! An attempt was made, moreover, to introduce mutuality into discipline and into the repression of school faults. The school, on certain solemn occasions, was converted into a court for trying criminals. “All this was done very seriously, and it was also very seriously felt that these practices, passing from a class of children to a class of adults, would contribute to introduce into society the habits of a true and useful fraternity.”
608. Economical Advantages.—To tell the truth, mutual instruction was above all else “a useful expedient,” according to Rollin’s expression. At a period when teachers were scarce, when the budget of public instruction did not exist, it was natural that an economic system which dispensed with teachers, and which reduced to almost nothing the cost of instruction, should be hailed with enthusiasm. Let us add that there was also an economy in books, since “there was need of only one book, which pupils never used, and which would thus last for several years.”
Jomard calculated that there were 3,000,000 children to instruct, and that, according to the ordinary system, this would require the expenditure of more than 45,000,000 francs.[260]
Now, according to the calculations of the Comte de Laborde,[261] 1000 pupils being able to be educated by one single teacher, by the system of mutual instruction, more easily than 30 could have been by the old system, a sum of 10,000 francs granted annually by the State would suffice to educate in twelve years the entire generation of poor children.[262]
609. Organization of Schools on the Mutual Plan.—Bell defined mutual instruction as “the method by means of which a whole school may instruct itself, under the supervision of one single master.”
Here is the picture of a mutual school, as described by Gréard:—
“That was a striking spectacle at the first glance,—those long and vast structures which contained a whole school, such as the older generations of our teachers recollect still to have seen at the Halle aux Draps. In the middle of the room, throughout its entire length, were rows of tables having from five to twenty places each, having at one end, at the right, the desk of the monitor, and the board having models of writing, itself surmounted by a standard or telegraph which served to secure, by means of directions easy to read, regularity of movements; at the side of the room, and all along the walls, there were rows of semi-circles, about which were arranged groups of children; on the walls, on a line with the eye, there was a blackboard on which were performed the exercises in computation, and from which were suspended the charts for reading and grammar; right at his side, within reach of his hand, was the stick with which the teacher was provided for conducting the lesson; finally, at the lower part of the room, on a wide and high platform, accessible by steps and surrounded by a balustrade, was the chair of the master, who, employing in succession, according to fixed rules, voice, bâton, or whistle, surveyed the tables and groups, distributing commendation or reproof, and directing, in a word, like a captain on the deck of his vessel, the whole machinery of instruction.”
In respect of systematic movements and exterior order, nothing is more charming than the appearance of a school conducted on the mutual plan. It remains to inquire what were the educational results of the system, and whether the fashion which brought it into favor was justified by real advantages.
610. Vices of Mutual Instruction.—The monitor was the mainspring of the mutual method. But what was the monitor? A child, more intelligent, doubtless, than his comrades, but too little instructed to be equal to his task. The mutual school did not open till ten o’clock. From eight to ten there was a class for the monitors. There they learned in haste what they were, for the rest of the day, to teach to the other children. The purpose of the master being to form good instruments as quickly as possible, they were fitted up for their trade by the most expeditious methods.
“What sort of teachers could such a preparation produce? To teach is to learn twice, it has been truly said; but on the condition of having reflected on that which has been learned and upon that which is to be taught. To convey light into the intelligence of another, it is first necessary to have produced the light within one’s self, a thing which supposes the enlightened, penetrating, and persevering action of a mind relatively mature and trained. From the class where they have just been sitting as pupils, the monitors—masters improvised as by the wave of a wand,—passed to the classes of children whom they were to indoctrinate” (Gréard).
The instruction, consequently, became purely mechanical. The monitor faithfully repeated what he had been taught. Everything was reduced to mechanical processes.
Let us observe, besides, that from the moral point of view, the mutual system left much to be desired. The monitors, we are told, did not escape the intoxications of pride. Even in the family they became petty tyrants. Parents complained of their dictatorial habits and their tone of authority.
However it may be, mutual instruction has rendered undeniable services, thanks to the zeal of such teachers as Mademoiselle Sauvan and Monsieur Sarazin; but its reputation went on diminishing in proportion as the State became more and more disposed to make sacrifices, and as it was possible to multiply the services of teachers.[263]
611. The State of Primary Instruction.—Under the title, Exhibit of Primary Instruction in France, a member of the University, P. Lorain, published in 1837 a résumé of the inquiry, which, by the orders of Guizot, had been made in 1833 throughout the whole extent of France, by the labors of more than 400 inspectors. Here are some of the sad results of this inquiry: all the teachers did not know how to write; a large number employed the mechanism of the three fundamental rules without being able to give any theoretical reason for these operations. “The ignorance was general.”
As under the old régime, the teacher practiced all the trades; he was day-laborer, shoemaker, innkeeper.
“He had his wife supply his place while he went hunting in the fields.”
The functions of the teacher, poorly rewarded, exposed to the risk of a very slender tuition, enjoyed no consideration.
“The teacher was often regarded in the community on the same footing as a mendicant, and between the herdsman and himself, the preference was for the herdsman.”
Consequently, the situation of school-master was the most often sought after by men who were infirm, crippled, unfit for any other kind of work.
“From the teacher without arms, to the epileptic, how many infirmities to pass through!”
612. Guizot and the Law of June 28, 1833.—Primary instruction, so often decreed by the Revolution, was not really organized in France till by the law of June 28, 1833, the honor of which is due in particular to Guizot, then minister of public instruction.[264]
Primary instruction was divided into two grades,—elementary and higher. Henceforth there was to be a school for each commune, or at least for each group of two or three communes. The State reserved the right of appointing teachers, and of determining their salary, which, it is true, in certain places, did not exceed two hundred francs. Poor children were to be received without pay.
613. Higher Primary Schools.—One of the most praiseworthy purposes of the legislator of 1833 was the establishment of higher primary instruction.
“Higher primary instruction,” he said, “necessarily includes, in addition to all the branches of elementary primary instruction, the elements of geometry, and its common applications, especially linear drawing and surveying, information on the physical sciences and natural history, applicable to the uses of life, singing, the elements of history and geography, and particularly of the history and geography of France. According to the needs and the resources of localities, the instruction shall receive such developments as shall be deemed proper.”
A higher primary school was to be established in the chief towns of the department and in all the communes which had a population of more than six thousand souls. The law was executed in part. In 1841, one hundred and sixty-one schools were founded. But little by little, the indifference of the government, and, above all, the vanity of parents who preferred for their children worthless Latin studies to a good and thorough primary instruction, discouraged these first efforts.
The legislator of 1833 had good reason for thinking that a good vest was worth more than a poor coat. His mistake was in thinking that people would be persuaded to abandon the coat in order to take the vest.[265] The higher schools were almost everywhere annexed to the colleges of secondary instruction. To suppress their independence and their own distinctive features was to destroy them. The final blow was given them by the law of 1850, which abstained from pronouncing their name, and which condemned them by its silence.
614. Circular of Guizot.—In transmitting to teachers the law of June 28, 1833, Guizot had it followed by a celebrated circular, which eloquently stated the proper office of the teacher, his duties and his rights. Here are some passages from it:
“Do not make a mistake here, Sir. While the career of primary instruction may be without renown, its duties interest the whole of society, and it is an occupation which shares the importance attached to public functions.... Universal primary instruction is henceforth to be one of the guarantees of order and social stability.”
The circular next examines the material advantages which the new law assured to teachers, and it continues thus:—
“However, Sir, as I well know, the foresight of the law and the resources at the disposal of public authority, will never succeed in rendering the humble profession of a communal teacher as attractive as it is useful. Society could not reward him who devotes himself to this service for all that he does for it. There is no fortune to gain; there is scarcely any reputation to acquire in the difficult duties which he performs. Destined to see his life spent in a monotonous occupation, sometimes even to encounter about him the injustice and the ingratitude of ignorance, he would often grow disheartened, and would perhaps succumb did he not draw his strength and his courage from other sources than from the prospect of an interest immediate and purely personal. It is necessary that a profound sense of the moral importance of his work sustain and animate him, and that the austere pleasure of having served men and secretly contributed to the public good, become the noble reward which his conscience alone can give. It is his glory to aim at nothing beyond his obscure and laborious condition, to spend himself in sacrifices scarcely counted by those who profit by them, and, in a word, to work for men and to look for his reward only from God.”
615. Progress of Popular Instruction.—It would be an interesting history to relate in detail the progress of popular education in France from the law of 1833 to our day. The public bills of the Republic of 1848, the liberal propositions of Carnot and of Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, the recoil of the law of March 15, 1850, the statu quo of the first years of the Second Empire, then towards the end the praiseworthy efforts and tentatives of Duruy, and, finally, under the Third Republic, the definite and triumphant organization,—all this is sufficiently known and too recent to justify us in dwelling on it here.
For successfully introducing anew into the laws the principles of gratuity, obligation, and secularization, as proclaimed by the French Revolution, not less than a century was necessary. And in particular, the better spirits allowed themselves to be convinced of the need of obligatory instruction only by slow degrees. However, in 1833, Cousin, who reported the law of Guizot to the Chamber of Peers, expressed himself as follows:—
“A law which should make of primary instruction a legal obligation seems to me to be no more above the powers of the legislator than the law on the national guard, and that which you have just made on a forced appropriation for the public good. If reasons of public utility justify the legislator in appropriating private property, why do not reasons of a much higher utility justify him in doing less,—in requiring that children receive the instruction indispensable to every human creature, to the end that he may not become dangerous to himself or to society as a whole?”
Cousin added that the commission of which he was the chairman would not have receded from measures wisely combined to make instruction obligatory, had it not been afraid of provoking difficulties, and, in this way, of postponing a law that was awaited with impatience. The evident necessity of instructing the people, the interests of society, the interests of families and individuals,—all these considerations have insensibly overcome the scruples or the illusions of a false liberality, and it is no longer necessary, to-day, to repeat the eloquent pleas of Carnot in his bill of 1848, of Duruy, and of Jules Simon.
In 1873 Guizot expressed himself as follows:—
“The liberty of conscience and that of families are facts and rights which, in this question, ought to be scrupulously respected and guaranteed; but, under the condition of this respect and of these guarantees, it may happen that the state of society and the state of minds may render legal obligation, in respect of primary instruction, legitimate, salutary, and necessary. This is the condition of things to-day. The movement in favor of obligatory instruction is sincere, serious, national. Powerful examples authorize and encourage it. In Germany, in Switzerland, in Denmark, in most of the American States, primary instruction has this character, and civilization has reaped excellent fruits from it. France and its government have reason to welcome this principle.”
616. Programmes of Primary Instruction.—At the same time that primary instruction made progress by its ever-growing extension, and by the participation in it of a greater number of individuals, its programmes were also extended, and it is interesting to compare in this respect the different laws which have regulated the matter of instruction in our century.
The law of 1833 said: “Elementary primary instruction necessarily comprises moral and religious instruction, reading, writing, the elements of the French language and of computation, the legal system of weights and measures.”
The bill presented, June 30, 1848, by Carnot, minister of public instruction, expresses itself thus:—
“Primary instruction comprises: 1. reading, writing, the elements of the French language, the elements of computation, the metric system, the measure of distances, elementary notions of the phenomena of nature, and the principal facts of agriculture and of industry, linear drawing, singing, elementary notions on the history and geography of France; 2. a knowledge of the duties and the rights of man and citizen, the development of the sentiments of liberty, equality, and fraternity; 3. the elementary rules of hygiene, and useful exercises in physical development.”
“The religious instruction is given by the ministers of the different communions.”
According to the bill of Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire (April 10, 1849), elementary instruction for boys, necessarily comprised “moral, religious, and civic instruction, reading, writing, the elements of the French language, the elements of computation, the legal system of weights and measures, linear drawing, elementary notions of agriculture and of hygiene, singing and gymnastic exercises.
“According to the needs and resources of localities, elementary primary instruction shall receive the developments which shall be thought proper, and shall comprise, in particular, notions on the history and geography of France.”
Finally, the law of March 15, 1850, is worded thus:—
“Art. 23. Primary instruction comprises moral and religious instruction, reading, writing, the elements of the French language, computation, and the legal system of weights and measures. It may comprise in addition, arithmetic applied to practical operations, the elements of history and geography, notions of the physical sciences and of natural history applicable to the ordinary purposes of life, elementary instruction on agriculture, trade, and hygiene, surveying, leveling, linear drawing, singing and gymnastics.”
Progress has especially consisted, since 1850, in rendering obligatory that which was simply optional. History, for example, did not become a subject of instruction till 1867.
617. The Theorists of Education.—Along with the progress of primary instruction, the historian of the pedagogy of the nineteenth century would have also to follow the development of secondary instruction and of superior instruction. He would have to write the history of the University, reforming the methods of its lycées and its colleges, and ever enlarging in a noble spirit of liberty the studies of its faculties. But we should depart from the limits of our plan, were we to undertake this order of inquiries, and were we to enter into details which pertain to contemporary history.
That which should engage our attention is the theoretical reflections of the different thinkers who, in our century, have discussed the principles and the laws of education, of those at least who have become celebrated for their novel views.
618. Jacotot (1770-1840).—Jacotot, who has maintained scarcely any celebrity in France except for the singularity of his paradoxes, is perhaps of all French educators of the nineteenth century the one who has received most attention abroad, particularly in Germany. “Jacotot,” says Doctor Dittes, “has incited a lasting improvement in the public instruction of Germany. The reform which he introduced into the teaching of reading is important. He started with an entire sentence, which was pronounced, explained, and learned by heart by the children, and afterward analyzed into its constituent parts.”[266] On the other hand, a French critic, Bernard Perez, has drawn the following portrait of Jacotot:—
“He was the best and the most lovable of men. He had the firmness, patience, honesty, and candor of superior minds, an inexhaustible goodness and a universal charity which make him close all his letters with this formula, ‘I especially commend to you the poor.’ This ardent philanthropy, as well as his enthusiasm and his zeal for instruction, pervades even his writings, though full of inequalities and verbal eccentricities.”[267]
619. Paradoxes of Jacotot.—In his principal work, Universal Instruction,[268] Jacotot has set forth his principles, which are so many paradoxes, “All intelligences are equal”; “Every man can teach, and even teach that which he himself does not know”; “One can instruct himself all alone”; “All is in all.”
Doubtless at the basis of Jacotot’s paradoxes there is an element of truth; for example, the very just idea that the best teaching is that which encourages young minds to think for themselves. Doubtless also he qualified the exaggeration of his statement when he said that the inequality of wills at once destroys the equality of intelligences. But the violent and unreasonable form which he gave to his ideas has compromised them in public opinion. That which is true and fruitful in his system has been forgotten, and we recall only the whimsical formulas in which he delighted.
620. All is in All.—The most famous of Jacotot’s paradoxes is the formula, “All is in all.” The whole of Latin is in a page of Latin; the whole of music is in a piece of music; the whole of arithmetic, in a rule of computation.
In practice, Jacotot made his pupils learn the first six books of the Telemachus. Upon this text, once learned, and recited twice a week, there were constructed all sorts of exercises, and these sufficed for the complete knowledge of the French language. In the same way the Epitome Historiæ Sacræ, put in the hands of pupils, and learned in two months, was almost the sole instrument for the study of Latin. In fact, and aside from evident exaggerations, Jacotot rightly thought that it is necessary, as he said, “to learn something well, and to connect with this all the rest.”
621. The Followers of Saint Simon and of Fourier.—There is little of practical value to be gathered from the writings of the celebrated utopists, who, at the opening of this century, became known by their plans of social organization. It is the chimerical which characterizes their systems. Cabet demanded among other absurdities that all ancient books be burned, and that no new books be written except by command of the State. Besides, he would have the school-code established by the children themselves.[269]
Victor Considerant suppressed, not books, but discipline and authority. “The child,” he said, “shall no longer be disobedient, because he shall no longer be commanded.”[270]
Saint Simon, in 1816, communicated to the Society for Elementary Instruction, a brief essay which gave proof of his interest in education. For him and his disciples, education is “the aggregate of efforts to be employed in order to adapt each new generation to the social order to which it is called by the march of humanity.” This was to mark the contrast between modern tendencies which aspire above all else to an earthly and a social end, with ancient tendencies which were subservient to supernatural ideas. Æsthetic sentiments, scientific methods, industrial activity,—such is the triple development which special and professional education should consider. But above this the Saint-Simonians place moral education, too much neglected, as they think, which should consist particularly in developing in the young the sympathetic and affectionate faculties. The Saint-Simonians placed but little dependence on science and abstract principles for assuring among men the reign of morality. Sentiment, in their view, is the true moral principle, and education, consequently, ought to be essentially the education of the heart.
622. Fourier (1772-1837).—Fourier, like Saint Simon, had educational pretensions. There is nothing more curious than his treatise on Natural Education. In it there is only here and there a flash of good sense mingled with a multitude of grotesque fancies.
Fourier renews the utopias of Plato, and confides infants to public nurses. He is more reasonable when, in spite of his declamations on the excellence of nature, he is really willing to recognize in children a diversity of characters, and divides “the nurslings and the babies” into three classes,—“the benign, the malign, and the devilkins.”
We must also commend Fourier for his efforts to encourage industrial activity. There is perhaps a valuable hint in those walks which he recommends children to take through manufactories and shops, so that at the sight of such or such a tool, their particular vocation may be suggested to them!
The instincts of the child are sacred in the eyes of Fourier, even the worst, their inclination to destroy, for example, or their contempt for the rights of property. Far from opposing them, he turns them to account and utilizes them, by employing destructive and slovenly children in occupations in accord with their tastes; for example, in the pursuit of reptiles, and in the cleansing of sewers.
But it is useless to enter into longer details. The education of the Fourierites is neither a discipline nor a rule of life; it is simply a system of complaisant adherence, and even of ardent provocation, to the instincts which the child inherits from nature. It is no longer a question either of directing or of training; it is simply necessary to emancipate and to excite.
623. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) and the Positivists.—The positivist school, and its illustrious founder, Auguste Comte, could not omit, in their encyclopædic works, a question so important as that of education. The author of the Course in Positive Philosophy had even announced a special treatise on pedagogy, “a great subject,” he said, “which has not yet been undertaken in a manner sufficiently systematic.”[271] The promise was not kept, but from different passages in the writings of Auguste Comte it is possible to reconstruct, in its principal features, the education which would be derived from his system.
Comte took for his guide the natural and specific evolution of humanity.
“Individual education can be adequately estimated only according to its necessary conformity with collective evolution.”
As positivism represents, in the view of Comte, the supreme degree of the evolution of humanity, the new education ought to be positive.
“Right-minded men universally recognize the necessity of replacing our European education, a system essentially theological, metaphysical, and literary, by a positive education, conformed to the spirit of our epoch, and adapted to the needs of modern civilization.”
The teaching of science, then, shall be the basis of education; but this teaching will bear its fruits only on one condition, and this is, that at last we renounce “the exclusive specialty, the too pronounced isolation, which still characterizes our manner of conceiving and cultivating the sciences.” The precise purpose of the Course in Positive Philosophy was to remedy the deleterious influence of a too great specialization of research, by establishing the relations and the hierarchy of the sciences. Comte made of mathematics the point of departure in scientific instruction. This was the very reverse of the modern tendency, which consists in beginning with the concrete and physical studies.
Auguste Comte, in his project for social reform, demanded universal instruction, and he bitterly complains of the indifference of the ruling classes for the instruction of the poor.
“Nothing is more profoundly characteristic of the existing anarchy than the shameful indifference with which the higher classes of to-day habitually regard the total absence of popular education, the exaggerated prolongation of which, however, threatens to exert on their approaching destiny a frightful reaction.”
Comte does not go so far, however, as to dream of an identical education for all men, an integral education, as it has been called. He admits degrees in instruction, “which,” he says, “will allow varieties of extension in a system constantly similar and identical.”
624. Dupanloup (1803-1878).—Of all the ecclesiastical writers of our century, he who has the most ardently studied the problems of education is certainly Bishop Dupanloup. Important works give proof of the educational zeal of the eloquent prelate. But they were composed with more spirit than wisdom, and they betray the zeal of the Christian apologist more than the inspiration of an impartial love for the truth. Extravagances of language and exaggerations of thought too often prevent the reader from feeling, as he ought, the moral and religious inspiration out of which proceeded those books of ardent and profound faith, but of faith more than of charity. Notwithstanding their length and their vast proportions, these books are pamphlets, works of combat. One should be on his guard against taking them for scientific treatises. Serenity is lacking in them, and from the very first, we feel ourselves enveloped in an atmosphere of trouble and storm.
625. Analysis of the Treatise on Education.—However, the three volumes of the Education will be read with profit. The first volume treats of education in general, and contains three books. In the first book the author determines the character of education, which has for its purpose to cultivate the faculties, to exercise them, to develop them, to strengthen them, and, finally, to polish them. In the following books the author studies the nature of the child, of whom he sometimes speaks with a touching tenderness; and examines the means of education, which are “religion, instruction, discipline, and physical culture.” Discipline consists in supporting, preventing, and repressing. Discipline is to education “that which the bark is to the tree which it surrounds. It is the bark which holds the sap, and forces it to ascend to the heart of the tree.”
The general title of the second volume is, On Authority and Respect in Education. Authority and respect, in the eyes of the author, are the two fundamental things. From this point of view, he studies what he calls the personnel of education; that is, God, the parents, the teacher, the child, and the schoolmate.
The third volume, entitled Educational Men, treats of the qualities befitting the head master of an educational establishment, and of his different colleagues.[272]
626. Errors and Prejudices.—Although he wrote a beautiful chapter entitled, Of the Respect due the Dignity of the Child and the Liberty of his Nature, Dupanloup is still more struck with the faults than with the virtues of childhood. He shudders in thinking of his thoughtlessness, of his curiosity, of his sensuality, and especially of his pride. So he distrusts commendation and rewards.
“In praising your pupils,” he says to the teacher, “do you not fear to excite their pride? The pride of scholars is a terrible evil; it begins in the ‘third,’ develops in the ‘second,’ blossoms in ‘rhetoric,’ and becomes established in ‘philosophy.’”[273]
To this mistrust of human nature is joined a singular pessimism with respect to the functions of the teacher.
“There is found,” he says, “in this service, grave troubles. Sometimes, if we are worthy of this service, if we sacrifice ourselves to it, we can find consolations in it, but pleasure, never!”
The verdict is severe and absolute, but it recoils in part on him who pronounces it. How not mistrust an educator who declares that there is no sweetness mingled with the fatigues of teaching, and who condemns the teachers of youth to a life of complete sacrifice and bitterness?
The greatest fault in the educational spirit of Dupanloup is that he does not cross the narrow limits of an education in small seminaries. Dupanloup wrote only for the middle classes. He had no interest in popular education; he does not love the lay teacher; he detests the University. Finally, he is the man who inspired the law of May 15, 1850.
627. The Spiritualistic School and University Men.—The philosophers of the French spiritualistic school have not in general paid great attention to the theory of education. The most illustrious of them, Cousin (1792-1868), at the same time that he aided in organizing University instruction, carefully studied educational institutions abroad, especially in his two works, Public Instruction in Holland (1837), and Public Instruction in Germany (1840). The works of Jules Simon have the same practical character, but with a marked tendency to treat by preference the questions of primary instruction. The School (1864) is a manifesto in favor of gratuity and obligation.
The University men, on their part, have, in this century, acted rather than speculated. They have been intent rather on making good pupils than on composing theories. There would, however, be valuable truths to cull from the works of Cournot,[274] of Bersot,[275] and especially of Michel Bréal.[276]
[628. Analytical Summary.—1. One of the main characteristics of the educational thought of this century is doubtless the effort to deduce the rules of practice from certain first principles. The principles of instruction are to be found, for the most part, in the science of psychology, and the principles of education, in part, in social science and even in jurisprudence.
2. The purpose of Napoleon to secure the perpetuity of his dynasty through the influence of his Imperial University, is a striking proof of the belief in the potency of ideas, and of the belief in the potency of popular instruction as a means of national strength.
3. The history of mutual instruction exhibits three important facts: 1. the effect of agitation in arousing public interest in educational questions; 2. the manner in which peculiar circumstances suggest an expedient which can be justified on no absolute grounds; 3. the danger of converting such an expedient into a “system” for universal adoption.
4. Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Jacotot, attempted to make instruction universal by simplifying its processes to such a degree that every mother might be a teacher and every household a school.
5. In Comte we see the re-appearance of Condillac’s doctrine, that the historic education of the race is the type of individual education. The same hypothesis will re-appear in Mr. Spencer’s Education.]