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The Virtues of Archaism: The Political Economy of Schooling in Europe, 1750–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Mary Jo Maynes
Mary Jo Maynes
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Extract

Schooling is now a routine part of childhood in Western Europe, but this has not, of course, always been the case. The historical process of incorporation into school systems was one which affected the children of some social groups earlier than others and which occurred earlier in some regions than in others. In Western Europe, the contrast between the Protestant North and the Catholic South has proven to be significant in schooling history as in so many other realms: in general the South was less literate and less schooled than the North apparently from the sixteenth century until the accomplishment of universal school attendance and literacy around the beginning of the twentieth century.

Type
The Institutions of Established Culture and Social Change
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 611 - 625
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1979

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References

An earlier version of this article was presented to the Comparative Colloquium of the Department of History, The University of Michigan. The author wishes to thank the participants in the Colloquium for their suggestions and criticisms. Later critical readings of the written draft by Ron Aminzade. Harvey Graff and Allan Sharlin also provided much useful and appreciated guidance in revision.

1 The pioneering study by Fleury, M. and Valarmy, P., “Le progrés de l'instruction elementaire de Louis XIV á Napoleon III,” Population 12 (1957), 71–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has been followed by a large number of local and regional studies of literacy and schooling, among them: Cipolla, C. M., Literacy and Development in the West (London, 1969)Google Scholar, Stone, L., “Literacy and Education in England, 1640–1900,” Past and Present 42 (1969), 61–139,Google Scholar and Lockridge, K., Literacy in Colonial New England (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

2 This formulation is found in Lockridge, pp. 5ff, lOlff.

3 The argument is presented fully in Furet, F. and Ozouf, J., Lire el écrire: l'alphabetisation des français, de Calvin a Jules Ferry (Paris, 1977) 2 vols.Google Scholar The conclusions are summarized in Furet, F. and Ozouf, J., “Trois siècles de metissage culturel,” Annates E.S.C. 32 (1977) 488–502.Google Scholar

4 The sample of communities was structured according to size and included 20 communities in each region ranging from villages of fewer than 200 inhabitants to cities of more than 30,000. For a more complete description of the sample and the evidence collected, refer to Maynes, Mary Jo, “Schooling the Masses: A Comparative Social History of Education in France and Germany, 1750–1850,” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan, 1977).Google Scholar

5 These estimates are based on school enrollment figures coupled with both census figures on school-aged population (6–13 year olds) and on reconstructions of school-aged populations from parish and civil registers for communities and periods when census records were unavailable.

6 One economic model of schooling decisions is presented in Solmon, L., “Opportunity Costs and Models of Schooling in the Nineteenth Century,” Southern Economic Journal 37 (1970), 64–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Rey, R., “L'enseignement primaire et les écoles publiques dans les états pontificaux de France … avant 1789,” Memoires de l'Academie de Vaucluse 11 (1892), p. 30.Google Scholar

8 Musée Pédagogique. Archives de l'lnstruction Parimaire, #6 (hereafter MPAIP).

9 Ibib.

10 Archives Nationales. Serie H, #1248, 1250 (hereafter AN).

11 Archives Departementales de Vaucluse. Serie L, Fonds 2, #96 (hereafter ADV)

12 AN. H 1248,1250; ADV. 50 51,52.

13 Ziegler, K., Ortschronik Neidenstein (Neidenstein, 1962), p. 78.Google Scholar

14 Keller, K., Waldangellochs Vergangenheit (Eppingen, 1935).Google Scholar

15 Generallandesarchiv Baden. Abteilungen 63/#144, 77/9838, 388/242 (hereafter GLA).

16 MP. A.I.P., 6.

17 Again, the Kòmpelenzen are the best source for study of the nature and origin of teaching funds in the eighteenth century. Further information comes from community tithe reports resulting from an inquiry made in 1798. For the communities studied, some of these reports are contained in GLA. 77/1913–1917.

18 GLA. 229/94922, 229/113590.

19 GLA. 63/78, 377/1096.

20 GLA. 377/230.

21 GLA. 229/57428, 356/751.

22 GLA. 204/1807, 362/1652.

23 GLA. 204/1808,1825; 213/2644,2662.

24 GLA. 213/2644.

25 GLA. 235/29580.

26 The Guizot citation is taken from F. Furet and J. Ozouf, Chapter IV.

27 ADV. T Instruction Primaire, 3 bis.

28 Inquiries about tithe revenues of a few individuals, concerning the region around Avignon and the villages of Thor, Jonquerettes and LaCoste are located in ADV. 2L 78 and 1L256.

29 Carrière, V., Introduction aux études d'histoire ecclesiastique locales (Paris, 1936), p. 289 ff.Google Scholar

30 Refer to notes 15 and 17, above.

31 A more detailed discussion of the relationship between the growth of state organizations and market development can be found in Tilly, C., ed.. The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, 1975).Google Scholar Of particular interest for this subject are the essays by Gabriel Ardant, “Financial Policy and Economic Infrastructure of Modern States,” Rudolpf Braun, “Taxation, Sociopolitical Structure, and State-building: Great Britain and Brandenburg-Prussia,” and Charles Tilly, “Food Supply and Public Order in Modern Europe.”s

32 ADV. 50 102,103.