[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.