470. Letters and Sciences.—More just than Condorcet, Lakanal did not wish scientific culture to do prejudice to literary culture:—
“For a long time we have neglected the belles-lettres, and some men who wish to be considered profound regard this study as useless. It is letters, however, which open the intelligence to the light of reason, and the heart to impressions of sentiment. They substitute morality for interest, give pupils polish, exercise their judgment, make them more sensitive and at the same time more obedient to the laws, more capable of grand virtues.”
471. Necessity of Normal Schools.—Lakanal’s highest title to glory is that he has associated his name with the foundation of normal schools. The idea of establishing pedagogical seminaries was not absolutely new. A number of the friends of instruction, both in the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century,[213] had seen that it would be useless to open schools, if good teachers had not been previously trained; but the Convention has the honor of having for the first time given practical effect to this vague aspiration.
Decreed June 2, 1793, the foundation of normal schools was the object of a report by Lakanal on October 26, 1794. In a style which was inferior to his ideas, and which would have been more effective had it been simpler, Lakanal sets forth the necessity of teaching the teachers themselves before sending them to teach their pupils:—
“Are there in France, are there in Europe, are there in the whole world, two or three hundred men (and we need more than this number) competent to teach the useful arts and the necessary branches of knowledge, according to methods which make minds more acute, and truths more clear,—methods which, while teaching you to know one thing, teach you to reason upon all things? No, that number of men, however small it may appear, exists nowhere on the earth. It is necessary, then, that they be trained. In being the first to decree normal schools, you have resolved to create in advance a very large number of teachers, capable of being the executors of a plan whose purpose is the regeneration of the human understanding, in a republic of twenty-five millions of men, all of whom democracy renders equal.”
The term normal schools (from the Latin word norma, a rule) was not less new than the thing. Lakanal explains that it was designed by this expression to characterize with exactness the schools which were to be the type and the standard of all the others.
472. The Normal School of Paris.—To accomplish his purpose, Lakanal proposed to assemble at Paris, under the direction of eminent masters, such as Lagrange, Berthollet, and Daubenton, a considerable number of young men, called from all quarters of the Republic, and designated “by their talents as by their state of citizenship.” The masters of this great normal school were to give their pupils “lessons on the art of teaching morals, ... and teach them to apply to the teaching of reading and writing, of the first elements of calculation, of practical geometry, of history and of French grammar, the methods outlined in the elementary courses adopted by the National Convention and published by its orders.” Once instructed “in the art of teaching human knowledge,” the pupils of the Normal School of Paris were to go and repeat in all parts of the Republic the “grand lectures” they had heard, and there form the nucleus of provincial normal schools. And thus, says Lakanal with exaggeration, “that fountain of enlightenment, so pure and so abundant, since it will proceed from the foremost men of the Republic of every class, poured out from reservoir to reservoir, will diffuse itself from place to place throughout all France, without losing anything of its purity in its course.”
October 30, 1794, the Convention adopted the proposals of Lakanal. The Normal School opened January 20, 1795. Its organization was defective and impracticable. First, there were too many pupils,—four hundred young men admitted without competitive tests, and abandoned to themselves in Paris; professors who were doubtless illustrious, but whose literary talent or scientific genius did not perhaps adapt itself sufficiently to the needs of a normal course of instruction and of a practical pedagogy; lectures insufficient in number, which lasted for only four months, and which, on the testimony of Daunou, “were directed rather towards the heights of science than towards the art of teaching.” Thus the experiment, which terminated May 6, 1795, did not fulfill the hopes that had been formed of it: the idea of establishing provincial normal schools was not carried out. But no matter; a memorable example had been given, and the fruitful principle of the establishment of normal schools had made a start in actual practice.
473. Central Schools.—The central schools, designed to replace the colleges of secondary instruction, were established by decree of February 25, 1795, on the report of Lakanal. Daunou modified them in the law of October 25, 1795. They continued, without great success, till the law of May 1, 1802, which suppressed them.