A wider extension has been given to higher primary instruction by the establishment of cours complémentaires in certain schools, at centres at which it would be impossible to organize separate higher primary schools. A similar solution Supplementary courses. of the continuation school problem has recently commended itself to the consultative committee of the Board of Education for England.
Admission to the higher primary schools in France is only accorded to those who have obtained the elementary school leaving certificate, certificat d’études primaires. A feature of importance for continuation work in rural districts is the provision made for boarding scholars in attendance at these schools. The boarding arrangements are generally, as in the case of the secondary schools, left to the head teacher, but in some instances municipal hostels have been provided. No fees may be charged for higher primary instruction, and scholarships (bourses) are provided to a certain extent in the form either of boarding scholarships or maintenance allowances to compensate the parent for the loss of the child’s labour. The number of scholars in the public higher primary schools for the year 1903-1904 was 34,084, and in cours complémentaires 21,777, making a total of 55,861. In addition there were 8891 scholars in receipt of higher primary instruction in private schools.
French secondary education is given in the lycées which are first-grade schools maintained and controlled by the state, and the collèges, which are schools of the second grade maintained partly by the state and partly by the Secondary schools, lycées and collèges. municipality. A considerable number of scholars pass annually from the collèges to the lycées. In both grades of schools the teachers are paid by the state and nominated directly or indirectly by the minister of education. They are required to possess certain specified academic qualifications which can only be obtained from the université, but failing teachers with the prescribed qualifications the classes are taught by teachers styled chargés de cours as distinct from professors.
With a view to supplying teachers for the secondary schools, the state maintains the École Normale Supérieure, a college in which instruction, board and lodging are given free to a number of scholars selected by competition École Normale Supérieure. from the best secondary school boys, though residence in the institution is no longer compulsory. By the decrees of November 10, 1903, and May 10, 1904, the École Normale became practically the College of Pedagogy of the University of Paris. Its students are entered as students of the university, and study for their qualifying examination as teachers in secondary schools (agrégation) under university professors, partly at the Sorbonne, partly at the École Normale, while their professional preparation is entrusted solely to the latter institution.
The Republic has not reorganized secondary education by a comprehensive law; it has, however, introduced by decree, under parliamentary authority, an important reform in the internal organization of the schools which marks a notable Classical and modern education. Reform of 1902. departure from the traditional view of secondary education as a self-contained whole. Article 1 of the decree of May 31, 1902, declares that secondary education is co-ordinated with primary education in such a way as to constitute a continuation of a course of primary studies of a normal duration of four years. The decree goes on to provide for a full course of secondary studies of seven years’ duration, divided into two cycles of four and three years respectively. In the first cycle the scholar has two options. In section 1 Latin is obligatory and Greek optional from the beginning of the third year (classe iv.). In section 2 there is no Latin. At the end of the first cycle the state grants a certificat d’études secondaires du premier degré. In the second cycle one of four courses may be taken; section 1 with Latin and Greek continues the old classical education; section 2 with Latin and modern languages corresponds to the German Realgymnasium; section 3 with Latin and science, and section 4 with modern languages and science, to the Oberrealschule. The baccalauréat, or secondary school-leaving examination, conducted by the university, is adapted to all the courses on the principle that courses of study of equal length, whether classical or modern, literary or scientific, are entitled to equal advantages. This system of alternative courses with leaving examinations of equal value is mainly German in origin, and may be said to represent the results of the best European thought upon the problem of the organization of secondary education.
It is remarkable in view of the thoroughness with which the principle of laicization has been applied to the primary schools that the lycées still retain their chaplains (aumôniers) for the purpose of giving religious instruction. This Religious instruction in lycées. difference of treatment is apparently based upon the consideration that the gratuitous and compulsory character of primary education demanded a much stricter interpretation of the principle of the neutrality of the state than was necessary in the case of secondary education, which is neither compulsory nor gratuitous.
In addition to the state schools there have until lately been in France a large number of private secondary schools, the most important of which have been associated with the Catholic religious orders. The enforcement of the laws Private secondary schools. against these communities has resulted in the closure of a number of these schools, and in the reorganization of others under a lay teaching staff. It is conceivable that the action of the Republic may largely forward the movement, otherwise perceptible in the Roman Catholic Church, to transfer education, even when combined with specific religious teaching, from ecclesiastical to lay hands. Evidence of this tendency is to be found in the boarding-schools (some four in number) founded upon the plan of M. Demolins (author of A quoi tient la supériorité des Anglo-Saxons) after the English public school model, but with a distinctly Catholic colouring.
Apart from the position of the religious orders, the future of private education in France is far from secure at the present time. The liberty of teaching secured by the Loi Falloux is regarded as a pseudo-liberty by the advanced republican educationists, and the principle that education is a function of the state and not a matter of supply and demand is deeply rooted in the public mind. Proposals have been mooted for making the baccalauréat strictly a school leaving examination attached to the state schools. The adoption of any such measure would practically destroy liberty of teaching by reason of the power which the baccalauréat secures to the state as the key to the professions.
The foundation of secondary schools for girls in connexion with the educational reform of Jules Ferry is in its way one of the most notable achievements of the republic. There is little doubt that the expulsion of the religious orders is Secondary education for girls. destined to exercise a profound influence upon the education of women in France. The place of the closed convent schools is being taken either by new state schools or by Catholic schools under lay teachers, and the number of scholars affected by this process of laicization is far larger in the case of girls than of boys. This change is calculated to produce far-reaching effects in the social and religious order, by no means necessarily, however, of an anti-Catholic or irreligious kind.
For an account of the resuscitation by the Republic of the local universities under the one great state teaching body collectively known as the University, see [Universities].