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.