Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto,
the French citizen might rather have cried, "I am a Frenchman, and that which is not French is foreign to me." A salutary reaction has set in since the war, and nothing is more common than to hear Frenchmen observe that their country was conquered not by Moltke or Krupp, but rather by the German Schullehrer.
We shall not enter into the merits of the long-standing dispute in France as to the superiority of secular or of clerical education. The parable of the mote and the beam might probably be applicable to both parties, but no impartial observer can fail to recognize that the triumph of Romanism in France, consequent upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, has formed one of the chief obstacles to the development of public education in that country. Huss, Luther, Calvin—in a word, all the leaders of the Reformation—inculcated the sacred duty devolving upon every man of reading the Bible for himself in his own tongue. Hence we now find education far more advanced in Protestant than in Catholic countries—a fact which has not a little contributed to the decadence of the Latin races. Richelieu, who held that a hungry people was the most submissive, was also of opinion that an ignorant people obeyed the most readily. Louis XIV. and Louis XV., without saying as much, acted up to the cardinal's maxim, doing absolutely nothing for popular education. The instruction of the upper classes was at that time in the hands of religious societies or congrégations. The Revolution, displaying its usual iconoclastic zeal, upset this system, without reflecting for a moment that it might be as well to substitute some other system for it, and that it takes time to organize a body of teachers fit to undertake such a work. The Convention decreed that those parents should be punished who did not send their children to school, overlooking the fact that there were no schools to send them to. It proclaimed gratuitous instruction, but made no provision for the salaries of the teachers. These hastily instituted reforms were eminently characteristic of the feverish excitement amidst which matters affecting the most serious interests of the nation were disposed of. The First Empire and the Restoration saw but little done on behalf of primary education. Under Louis Philippe the question of gratuitous instruction and compulsory attendance got no farther, notwithstanding the fact of such men being in power as Victor Cousin, Villemain and Guizot.
The efforts of Jules Simon and of Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire to have the question settled by the Republican government in 1848 proved futile. Napoleon III., having found 44,000 schools in France at the commencement of his reign, left it with 54,000 at its close—a most insignificant rate of increase, as regards primary instruction, compared with the advances made in the same direction by foreign nations, and with the material progress of France itself during those eighteen eventful years. The Third Republic has, as was observed above, given to the question of education a prominent place among the reforms to be instituted. Scarcely had the most pressing financial and military questions been dealt with ere a searching examination into the educational system of the country was undertaken and its defects laid bare. In a report on primary and secondary education in different countries, read by M. Levasseur before the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on the 29th of May, 1875, he establishes the fact that out of forty-five nations whose educational statistics he had examined, France only occupies the twentieth place—naturally a somewhat humiliating admission for a nation which has claimed to be the centre and radiating-point of modern civilization.
The map on which the departments figure tinged with black proportionately with the illiteracy of their inhabitants is in mourning to a most lamentable extent. It might be taken for the geological map of Pennsylvania, with the coal-regions indicated by black patches; and most assuredly the Lehigh Valley would appear no darker on such a map than does on the chart of ignorance the unfortunate department of the Ariége, with 66 per cent. of its inhabitants absolutely illiterate. Happily, since this map was issued matters have somewhat mended; nevertheless, the lack of appreciation of the benefits of education is still very noticeable in a large number of the departments.
The village schools are kept up by the communes, aided by contributions from the department and from the government. The total annual amount of the contributions from these three sources does not exceed 65,000,000 francs for the whole of France. Deduct from this paltry sum of $13,000,000 a certain quota for the construction and keeping in repair of school-houses, and it will at once be seen that what remains to be divided among the 54,000 teachers is scarcely sufficient to afford them even the barest subsistence. The recent reduction of school-teachers' salaries throughout the United States has given rise to much unfavorable comment, but happy indeed would teachers in France consider themselves were they to receive even anything approaching the reduced pay of their Transatlantic brethren. Of the school-teachers above spoken of, 26,000 receive 750 francs ($150) per annum, 14,000 receive 550 francs, and 10,000 but 450 francs, or less than the common farm-laborer, who has at least food and lodging provided for him by his master. True it is that many of the teachers receive a slight additional salary for acting as secretary at the mairie; but a much larger number of them have to eke out a scanty subsistence by manual labor during certain hours of the day, especially in harvest-time.
As for the school-houses, they are usually in such a dilapidated condition that the farmers would scarcely care to use them as cattle-sheds. We have visited schools—and they exist by the score, not to say by the hundred—without either benches or desks, blackboard or maps, and through the roofs of which the rain poured on teachers and pupils. On entering one of these schools and seeing the little fellows in their torn blouses, their feet simply encased in great wooden sabots, their lunch-baskets with coarse bread and a few nuts by their side, the stranger can hardly realize that he is in that country where there is a more even distribution of property, and where the peasantry are more prosperous and conservative, than anywhere else. Among the efforts made to improve things may be mentioned the frequent inspections, not only by government inspectors, but also by gentlemen called délégués cantonaux, who are usually chosen from among the landed proprietary of the neighborhood by the prefects.
"Paris is not France," is a remark frequently uttered by French conservatives, and one which certainly holds good as regards education. The department of the Seine actually expends some $6,000,000 annually on education, which is something over 46 per cent. of the total expenditure for all France under this head. Considering that the population of the department of the Seine does not exceed 2,400,000, it will be seen that the expenditure there for educational purposes is not inferior to that of our own representative States. At the Vienna Exhibition of 1873 it may be recollected that Paris, conjointly with Saxony and Sweden, was awarded the diploma of honor for primary instruction. This branch of education is absolutely gratuitous, and, in view of the experience of other countries, is likely to remain so, in spite of the outcry that parents able to contribute toward the education of their offspring should be compelled to do so. Ink, paper, pens, books, models and maps are supplied free of charge to each pupil. During 1876 not less than 330,000 books, 1,490,000 copy-books and 1,440,000 steel pens were thus supplied in the primary schools of the capital. In Paris there are some 260,000 children of both sexes old enough to go to school. Of this number, 104,000 get some kind of education, either at home or at the boarding-schools, and 134,000 attend the public schools—either under secular or clerical management—and the salles d'asile, of which we shall presently speak. The great capital thus contains some 22,000 children who cannot read or write, and this will account for the fact of the educational status of the department of the Seine being inferior to that of many of the eastern departments, and occupying a far lower place on the list than might otherwise have been expected. Up to the age of two years the infants of parents too poor to watch over their offspring in the daytime are admitted into the crèches. In these admirable private institutions—founded some thirty years ago by M. Marbeau—the infants are washed, fed and tended with maternal solicitude. Between the ages of two and six years the children are admitted into the salles d'asile, or children's homes, of which there are over a hundred in Paris. There it is first sought to develop the child's intellectual faculties, prepare it for school, inculcate habits of cleanliness and morality, and instruct it in the rudiments of reading and writing. Between the ages of six and fourteen children are admitted into the schools, and, nominally at least, go through the plan of study drawn up by the board of primary education, and which is as follows: Reading, writing, geography, spelling, arithmetic, compendium of sacred and French history, linear drawing, singing, the rudiments of physics, geometry and natural history, and calligraphy. Were this programme carried out in its integrity, education in France would, it need hardly be said, be considerably further advanced than it is at present. Even in Paris, however, the material obstacles are not slight. Most of the schools are far too cramped for space, especially in those wealthy and crowded parts of the city between the Rue de Rivoli and the Boulevards, for instance, where every foot of ground and every breathing-space are worth large sums of money. In a city where the people are so closely packed, and where a family is content to live on a flat, how is room to be found for spacious, airy school-buildings, with a detached seat and desk for each pupil, a large central hall and a play-ground adjoining? Such establishments must inevitably cost immense sums of money, but Paris, if we may judge by the annual increase in the educational appropriations, seems determined not to let this difficulty stand in the way of her children obtaining a good education.
A word as to the teachers. The female lay teachers are, it must be acknowledged, very greatly inferior to the lady teachers in the United States. It is said that in England when a man has failed at everything else he becomes a coal-merchant. We should not dream of applying this remark to French ladies as regards school-teaching. At the same time, it is an established fact that the French girls' schools which are managed by nuns, and especially those of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, are far above the other female educational establishments. Most of the male lay teachers are appointed from the primary normal schools which exist in the chief town of every department; and it is a noteworthy fact that the majority of them are ardent Republicans, notwithstanding the fact that during the Empire every effort was made to win them over to the imperial side. In every normal and primary school was the bust of Napoleon, and a liberal distribution took place of the famous Journal des Instituteurs, every paragraph of which, political or educational, was dressed up in Napoleonic attire. Possibly, some of the lay primary school-teachers may have adopted republicanism out of a spirit of natural opposition to their old adversaries and competitors, the instituteurs congréganistes. Of these, too, a word must be said. While in the secondary clerical schools most of the instructors are Jesuits, in the primary schools most of the teachers belong to the confraternity of the École Chrétienne, the members of which, without taking the vows and assuming a lifelong engagement, agree nevertheless to remain single, to submit to the discipline of the society and to wear the ecclesiastical dress. Strict Ultramontanists, these brethren have been somewhat unjustly nicknamed the frères Ignorantins. Living as they do in common, with but few wants, and receiving, whenever they require it, pecuniary aid from the wealthy party to which they belong, they are satisfied with a rate of pay less than one-half that of the lay teachers, and are thus preferred in a large number of communes on the simple ground of economy. Their plan of instruction is the same as that adopted in the secular primary schools, except that religious instruction and exercises of course play a larger part with them than with their lay brethren. The ultra radicals, who in a large measure control the educational appropriations in the town-council, are bitterly opposed to any portion of the public instruction remaining in the hands of the clerical element, and their most strenuous efforts are used to have all these congregational schools of both sexes closed. They would concentrate the entire national educational system under the control of a body of lay teachers to be paid by the towns and by the state. In these views they are supported by the Republican party, while the clergy have on their side the majority of the Senate. Whether the absence of clerical competition would be likely to prove advantageous or not to the secular educational establishments, we shall not attempt to say, but certain it is that the long continuance of this bitter feud between the two parties has been anything but conducive to the educational progress of France.
At the age of fourteen the Parisian youth not intended for one of the learned professions leaves school to learn a trade. Should he desire to increase his stock of knowledge and have a taste for study, he can, after passing an examination, enter the excellent École Turgot, wherein the programme of the primary schools is somewhat extended, without, however, embracing the study of Latin and Greek. At the Turgot the course comprises mathematics, linear and ornamental drawing, physics and mechanics, chemistry, natural history, calligraphy, bookkeeping, French language and literature, history, geography, English and German. All the pupils are day scholars. There could probably be no better devised programme for developing and exercising the intellectual faculties of those who have gone through the primary schools, and it may unhesitatingly be affirmed that for most of the pupils the training received at the École Turgot is of lifelong value.