In a word, La Chalotais, Rolland, Turgot, and some of their contemporaries, were real precursors of the French Revolution in the matter of education. At the date of 1762 the scholastic revolution began, at least so far as secondary instruction is concerned. The Parliaments of that period conceived the plan of the University of the nineteenth century, and prepared for the work of Napoleon I. But they left to the men of the Revolution the honor of being the first to organize primary instruction.
[402. Analytical Summary.—1. This study exhibits the evils brought upon a country by an education controlled and administered by a dominant Church for the attainment of its own ends; and also the efforts of a nation to save itself from imminent disaster by making the State the great public educator.
2. The right of the State to self-preservation is the vindication of its right to control and direct public education. The State thus becomes the patron of the public school; the product it requires is good citizenship; and for the sake of securing this product the State endows the school, wholly or in part.
3. The situation in France, as described in this study, is an aggravated case of what may occur whenever education is administered by a class having special interests and ambitions; and under some form there must be the intervention of the State as a means of protecting its own interests.
4. When education is administered in the main by the literary class, there is some danger that the instruction may not be that which is best adapted to the needs of other classes.]
FOOTNOTES:
[194] See the pamphlet published in 1764 entitled: Mémoires historiques sur l’orbilianisme et les correcteurs des Jésuites.
[195] Duclos, Considérations sur les mœurs de ce siècle. Ch. II. Sur l’éducation et les préjugés.
[196] See the Recueil of the works of President Rolland, printed in 1783, by order of the executive committee of the College Louis-le-Grand.
[197] Recueil, etc., p. 25.