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Brave Words, Small Deeds: Education in Modern France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

David A. Harnett
David A. Harnett*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

To offer all individuals of the human race the means of providing for their needs, of assuring their welfare, of being acquainted with and exercising their rights, of understanding and fulfilling their duties; to assure to each individual the capacity of perfecting his labour, of making himself fit for the social functions to which he has the right to be called, to develop the whole extent of the talents that he has received from nature and, by this means, of establishing among citizens a de facto equality and also to make real the political equality recognized by the law; this must be the first goal of national education and, from this viewpoint, it is a duty of justice for public authorities.

Condorcet (1792)

Type
Essay Review I
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 1970 , pp. 465 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 History of Education Quarterly 

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References

Notes

1. While the following pages intentionally concentrate only on works written in English, it should be possible at various points to mention some of the most noteworthy studies and monographs published by French scholars during the past decade.Google Scholar

2. See: Fourrier, Charles, L'Enseignement français de l'antiquité à la Révolution; précis d'histoire des institutions scolaires par les textes juridiques (Paris: Institut Pédagogique National, 1964), and Snyders, George, La Pédagogie en France au XVII e et XVIII e siècles (Paris; Presses Universitaires de France, 1965).Google Scholar

3. Artz, Frederick B., The Development of Technical Education in France, 1500–1850 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Society for the History of Technology and the M.I.T. Press, 1966), p. 57.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 61.Google Scholar

5. See: Decaunes, Luc and Cavalier, M. L., Réformes et projets de réform de l'enseignement français de la Révolution à nos jours (1789–1960) (Paris: Institut Pédagogique National, 1962); Gontard, Maurice, L'Enseignement primaire en France de la Révolution à loi Guizot (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959).Google Scholar

6. For a recent monograph on the subject in English, see: Clark, James M., Teachers and Politics in France: A Pressure Group Study of the Fédération de l'Education Nationale (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1967). Also: Franceschi, Joseph, Les Groupes de pression dans la défense de l'enseignement public (Paris: Librairies Techniques, 1964); Patience Hunkin, Enseignement et politiques en France et en Angleterre (Paris: Institut Pédagogique National, 1962).Google Scholar

7. On the laicization question, see: Audibert et al. La Laïcité (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960); Cogniot, Georges, Laïcité et réforme démocratique de l'enseignement (Paris: Editions sociales, 1963); and Cotereau, Jean, Laïcité, sagesse des peuples: Anthologie des grandes textes de la laïcité (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1965).Google Scholar

8. On the educational situation in the later nineteenth century, see: Dommanget, Maurice, L'Enseignement, l'enfance et la culture sous la Commune (Paris: Librairie de l'Etoile, 1964), and for a comprehensive and exhaustive study of French universities, Gerbod, Paul, La Condition universitaire en France au XIX e siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965).Google Scholar

9. During the past decade, some excellent general histories of French education have appeared in French: Carceres, Benigno, Histoire de l'éducation populaire (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1964); Fourrier, Charles, L'Enseignement français de 1789 à 1945, précis d'histoire des institutions scolaires (Paris: Sirey, 1966); Antoine Prost, Histoire de l'enseignement en France, 1800–1967 (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1968). This last volume is especially worthy of attention; it is one of the most perceptive and skillful histories of French education available.Google Scholar

10. Developments in education from the Commune to the eve of World War I have been analyzed in: Ozouf, Mona, L'Ecole, l'église, et la république, 1871–1914 (Paris: Colin, 1963).Google Scholar

11. The same observation may be made also of the primary school system. These schools have received extensive examination in the monographs of Gontard, M.: Maurice Gontard, La Question des Ecoles normales primaires de la Révolution de 1789 á nos jours (Toulouse: Institut Pédagogique National, 1963); Les Écoles Primaires de la France bourgeoise (1883–1875) Toulouse: Institut Pédagogique National, 1964); L'Oeuvre scolaire de la troisième République; l'enseignement primaire en France de 1876 à 1914 (Toulouse: Institut Pédagogique National, n.d.).Google Scholar

12. Talbott, John E., The Politics of Educational Reform in France, 1918–1940 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 32. Note also: Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C., Les Héritiers: les étudiants et la culture (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1964); Fraser, W. R., Education and Society in Modern France (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963); Halls, W. D., Society, Schools and Progress in France (London: Pergamon Press, 1965); Megrine, Bernard, La Question Scolaire en France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960); Schneider, Christian W., Die neue Erziehung und das Schulwesen in Frankreich unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Schulreformversuch von 1930 bis 1959 (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1963).Google Scholar

13. Several years ago, before the publication of his book, Talbott engaged in an interesting debate in Past and Present with the British historian Watson, D. R. The debate focused on Watson's interpretative article on the French educational reform movement which appeared in 1966. For the most part, the two differed on matters of emphasis and in their explanation for the failure of reform. The Watson article is worth attention: Watson, David R., “Educational Reform in France, 1900–1940,” Past and Present, XXXIV (July 1966), 81–99. The exchange between Talbott and Watson may be found in: Past and Present, XXXVI (April 1967), 126–37.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., p. 246.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 247.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., p. 251.Google Scholar

17. Among the many publications to result from the events of 1968 May, two of the most interesting are: A. Deledicq et al., Un roi de mai oraguex: 113 étudiants parisiens expliquent les raisons du soulèvement universitaire (Paris: Privat, 1968), and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Jean Pierre Duteuil, Alain Geismar, Jacques Sauvageot, The French Student Revolt (New York: Hill and Wang, 1968). Some imaginative and informed ideas on and projects for educational reform in contemporary France may be found in: Capelle, Jean, Tomorrow's Education: The French Experience, trans. by Hall, W. D. (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1967).Google Scholar