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Free Secondary Education in France before and after the Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

R. R. Palmer
R. R. Palmer*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

“Before the French Revolution,” said Ferdinand Buisson in 1911, “the principle of free instruction, that is, of education regarded as a public service, was unknown.” He added that of course the church had given free schooling to a few poor boys before 1789, and that the principle of free education was now well established in France “at least for the primary schools.” It is well known that free education in secondary schools, at the public expense, was not realized in France until 1933.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , Winter 1974 , pp. 437 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Buisson, Ferdinand, Nouveau dictionnaire de pédagogie (article “gratuité”), (Paris, 1911), p. 749.Google Scholar

2. Allain, Ernest, “L'Enquête scolaire de 1791–92,” in Revue des questions historiques, nouv. ser. VI (Paris, 1891): 142–203, of which pp. 175–83 are specifically on the collèges; and L'Oeuvre scolaire de la Révolution, 1789–1802 (Paris, 1891 [Burt Franklin reprint, 1969]), esp. the tabulation of returns to the Enquète de l'An IX, pp. 348–364. Replies to the survey of 1791 are at the Archives Nationales, F17 1311 to F17 13172. Originals of replies to the survey of 1801 are at the Archives de l'Université de Paris, ancien fonds, carton 27, with copies at the Archives Nationales, F17 13178. Neither set contains much that Allain did not see.Google Scholar

3. France. Ministère de l'instruction publique, Rapport au roi sur l'instruction secondaire (Paris, 1843). Statistical tables with a long introduction by the minister, François Villemain.Google Scholar

4. Kilian, Etienne, Tableau historique de l'instruction secondaire en France (Paris, 1841). The title page calls him “chef de bureau au Ministère de l'instruction publique,” but there is no dossier personnel on him at the Archives Nationales. Evidence of interest in retrospective statistics may be found in the Archives de l'Université de Paris, carton 26, which contains three letters from the archivist, Daunou, to the minister of public instruction, in January, 1836, responding to the minister's request for information on scholarships before the Revolution, and enclosing materials on those of the Paris colleges in 1788–93. Daunou had taught in Oratorian schools before the Revolution, and been active in the educational debates in the Convention, 1793–95. In 1836–37 there was an important debate on secondary education in the Chamber of Deputies, to which the ministry of public instruction submitted an elaborate statistical report. It is printed in the Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 106, pp. 559–615.Google Scholar

5. Villemain in the Rapport cited in note 3 above, Table 25, pp. 298–99.Google Scholar

6. Allain, , Oeuvre scolaire, pp. 348–64; Kilian, , Tableau historique, pp. 310–25. In transcribing from Allain I have omitted a few schools noted by him as séminaires, and made additions as indicated by him on pp. 363–64, to supplement the Enquête de l'An IX with a few details from the Enquête of 1791–92. Allain reports on 69 departments, from which I have selected the 30 that appear to have adequate figures, suitable for comparison with Kilian.Google Scholar

7. For particulars on Louis-le-Grand, and to some extent on the colleges before the Revolution, see my forthcoming book The School of the French Revolution: A documentary history of the College of Louis-le-Grand and its director, J. F. Champagne (Princeton, 1975).Google Scholar

8. Ibid., p. 141, and Archives de l'Université de Paris, carton 26, dossier 2, cahier 9, pp. 103–18.Google Scholar

9. This table, like tables II and IV, is derived from Villemain's Table 25, op. cit., pp. 298–99. The quoted phrases in the present table are translations of the headings of two of his columns. For those who may wish to refer to Villemain's table a word of explanation of what is done here is in order. I have used only those of his figures which show the number of totally cost-free students, whereas Villemain wished to show the numbers of students who were free of educational cost both totally and in part. I have therefore disregarded his column, for each year, in which some unspecified diminution of expense is recorded. Villemain concluded that the figure for students “whose parents were relieved totally or in part of the expense of instruction” was 40,621 in 1789 and 7,567 in 1842. See his table 25 and pp. 57–58 of his introduction. It must be remembered, too, that instruction, frais d'études, and retribution collégiale refer to what we would call tuition. Boarding students, unless they had full bourses, paid the pension for lodging. Town dwellers might be day students, but persons living in very small places or in the country usually had to be boarded in town if they were to receive secondary education.Google Scholar

10. Villemain, , pp. 55–61.Google Scholar

11. The Archives parlementaires , 2nd ser., vol. 106, p. 615, n. 4 reveals the hard-to-find fact that, in 1836, the petits séminaires had 4,258 students who paid full pension, 10,552 paying reduced pension depuis le chiffre le plus infime, and 264 élèves gratuits. Google Scholar

12. Champagne, Jean-François, Vues sur l'organisation de l'instruction publique (Paris, An VIII), p. 84. Excerpts from this book are translated in the work mentioned in note 7 above.Google Scholar

13. For the source see note 9 above. It has proved impossible here to give a figure for the academy of Grenoble in 1789. A clerical or typographical error has crept into the figures given by Kilian and repeated by Villemain for the departments of the Drôme and the Hautes Alpes, in that the number of students receiving free instruction is larger than the total number of students.Google Scholar

14. For figures in this paragraph, including the dotations des villes of individual towns, see the Archives parlementaires, 2nd ser., vol. 106, pp. 559–615 for the year 1835–36; the Villemain report for 1842; and the similar report by the minister Duruy, Victor, Statistique de l'instruction secondaire en 1865 (Paris, 1868). Duruy's retrospective figures sometimes make slight corrections in Villemain's, so that discrepancies result. For some American college tuitions in the 1830's see Whitehead, John S., The Separation of College and State: Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale 1776–1876 (New Haven, 1973), pp. 94 and 135. At a more definitely secondary level, it should be noted that the American high school, paid for from tax funds, began in the 1870's.Google Scholar

15. Jourdain, Charles, Le Budget de l'instruction publique et des éstablissements scientifique et littéraires (Paris, 1857), pp. 300, 317, 318.Google Scholar

16. Annuaire de la jeunesse (Paris, 1914), p. 23.Google Scholar

17. Villemain, , op. cit. , p. 5.Google Scholar