Paris as It Was and as It Is / A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution

by Francis William Blagdon

After the suppression of the colleges and universities existing under the monarchy, and to which the Collège de France in Paris is the sole exception, the National Convention, by a decree of the 24th of Nivôse, year III (14th of January 1795) established Normal Schools throughout the Republic. Professors and teachers were appointed to them; and it was intended that, in these nurseries, youth should be prepared for the higher schools, according to the new plan of instruction. However, in less than a year, these Normal Schools were shut up; and, by a law of the 3d of Brumaire, year IV (25th of October, 1796) Primary, Secondary, and Central Schools were ordered to be established in every department.

In the Primary Schools, reading, writing, and arithmetic formed the chief part of the instruction. Owing to various causes, the Secondary Schools, I understand, were never established. In the Central Schools, the internal regulation was to be as follows.

The whole of the instruction was divided into three classes or sections. In the first, were taught drawing, natural history, and ancient and modern languages. In the second, mathematics, physics, and chymistry. In the third, universal grammar, the fine arts, history, and legislation. Into the first class the pupils were to be received at the age of twelve; into the second, at fourteen; and into the third, at sixteen. In each Central School were to be a public library, a botanic garden, and an apparatus of chymical and physical instruments. The professors were to be examined and chosen by a Jury of Instruction, and that choice confirmed by the administration of the department.

The government, in turning its attention to the present state of the public schools, and comparing them with the wants and wishes of the inhabitants of the Republic, has found that the Primary Schools have been greatly neglected, and that the Central Schools have not been of so much utility as was expected. Alarmed at the consequences likely to be produced by a state of things which leaves a great part of the present generation destitute of the first rudiments of knowledge, the government has felt that the reorganization of these schools is become an urgent duty, and that it is impossible to delay longer to carry it into execution.

The Special Schools of Arts and Sciences are mostly confined to Paris. The other rich and populous cities of the Republic have undoubtedly a claim to similar institutions. There is at present no School of Jurisprudence, and but one of Medicine.

The celebrated FOURCROY[[1]] has been some time engaged in drawing up a plan for the improvement of public instruction. In seeking a new mode of teaching appropriate to the present state of knowledge and to the genius of the French nation, he has thought it necessary to depart from the beaten track. Enlightened by the past, he has rejected the ancient forms of the universities, whose philosophy and acquirements, for half a century past, called for reformation, and no longer kept pace with the progress of reason. In the Central Schools he saw institutions few in number, and too uniformly organized for departments varying in population, resources, and means. He has, nevertheless, taken what was good in each of these two systems successively adopted, and removed their abuses. Without losing sight of the success due to good masters and skilful professors, he has, above all, thought of the means of insuring the success of the new schools by the competition of the scholars. He is of opinion that to found literary and scientific institutions on a solid basis, it is necessary to begin by attaching to them pupils, and filling the classes with students, in order not to run the risk of filling them with professors. Such is the object which FOURCROY wishes to attain, by creating a number of national pensions, so considerable that their funds, when distributed in the Lyceums, may be sufficient for their support.

Agreeably to these ideas, the following is said to be the outline of the new organization of public instruction. It is to be divided into four classes; viz. Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, Lyceums, and Special Schools.

PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

A Primary School may belong to several communes at a time, according to the population and the locality of these communes.

The teachers are to be chosen by the mayors and municipal councils.