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An Eighteenth-Century French Board of Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Charles R. Bailey
Charles R. Bailey*
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Geneseo
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Extract

In the eighteenth century France did not have a system of secondary education. Instead, municipalities, teaching orders, and universities operated individual collèges (secondary schools) on their own initiative and largely free from government control. The universities and the teaching orders, especially the Society of Jesus and the Congregation of the Oratory, provided a uniform administration for their respective collèges. The administration of collèges founded by municipalities varied. Many municipal officials simply had turned over their schools to religious orders and had subsidized their operation. Others had administered their schools independently, with varying degrees of control over the principals and teachers. The situation changed somewhat, however, after 1763, when the government of Louis XV created boards throughout France to administer many collèges, especially those which the Society of Jesus was no longer permitted to operate and which no other religious order could be persuaded to take over. In the establishment of these boards and in the subsequent supervision of them, the royal government and at least one law court attempted to create a loose educational system.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Summer 1970 , pp. 189 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 History of Education Quarterly 

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References

Nostes

1. Sources differ concerning the exact number of Jesuit collèges in France. A combined total of 124 collèges and boarding houses, cited by Paul Bailly in a recently published catalog of Jesuit institutions (“Collèges,” in Pierre Delattre [ed.], Les Établissements des Jésuites en France depuis quatre siècles: Répertoire topo-bibliographique, publié à l'occasion du quatrième centenaire de la fondation de la Compagnie de Jésus, sous la direction de Pierre Delattre [5 vols.; Enghien, Belgium: Institut supérieur de théologie, 1949–1957], I, 1473), is probably correct, because the contributors to the catalog drew careful distinctions between collèges and other educational houses. I arrived at the figure for the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris by cross-checking in Delattre's catalog the list drawn up by the commissioners of Parlement in 1762: Compte rendu aux chambres assemblées, par Monsieur le Président Rolland [d'Erceville], de ce qui a été fait par MM. les commissaires, nommés par les arrěts des 6 Août et 7 Septembre 1762 (Paris: P.-G. Simon, 1763) (hereafter cited as Compte rendu), p. 2.Google Scholar

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7. Ibid., No. 117.Google Scholar

8. The regulation is cited in Barthélemy-Gabriel Rolland d'Erceville, Recueil de plusieurs des ouvrages de Monsieur le Président Rolland, imprimé en exécution des délibérations du bureau d'administration du collège de Louis-le-Grand, des 17 Janvier et 18 Avril 1782 (Paris: P.-G. Simon et N.-H. Noyon, 1783), pp. xxxvii-1. See also AN, X1A8528–8530.Google Scholar

9. d'Erceville, Rolland, p. 565; ACM, 10013, 10016, and 10017; and Comptes rendus aux Chambres assemblées, par MM. les commissaires nommés par les arrěts des 6 Août 1762 et 24 Mars 1763, des différens collèges du ressort qui n'étoient pas occupés par les ci-devant soi-disant Jésuites (Paris: P.-G. Simon, 1763) (hereafter cited as Comptes rendus), p. 145.Google Scholar

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17. ADA, D 12, pp. 67bis, 70bis, and 94–101bis. Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 1–101bis, passim, and Actes royaux, F. 23630, No. 124.Google Scholar

19. ADA, D 12, pp. 80–84, and Bibliothèque Nationale, Salle des Manuscrits, Joly de Fleury Collection (hereafter cited as Joly de Fleury), No. 1624, Items 209–10.Google Scholar

20. ADA, D 12, pp. 14–14bis, 16, 20bis, 40–41bis, 58bis, and 74bis-75.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., pp. 91–98.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., pp. 11–12, 47bis, and 75bis-76bis. Google Scholar

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24. de Fleury, Joly, No. 1691, Items 123–30, and Actes royaux, F. 23627, Nos. 150 and 187.Google Scholar