1Z EDUCATION AND THE EDUCA TIONAL SYSTEM OF FRANCE. The De velopment of Education.— The organization of education in France as a public service is of comparatively recent date. Before the Revolu tion of 1789, teaching was considered as essen tially a matter of private enterprise, and little, if anything, had been done to regulate and con trol it. Naturally enough it was the Church that first understood the importance of instruc tion and the first masters were members of the clergy. As far back as the 10th century there were monastic and cathedral schools scat tered all over the kingdom, which possessed a large population of scholars and attracted stu dents from the most remote parts of Europe. At the end of the 12th century some of these schools had already developed into universities. The University of Montpellier, the most ancient of all, was established about 1125; that of Paris about 1150, and others followed rapidly; Orleans 1200, Angers 1220, Toulouse 1230, Grenoble 1339, etc. In their turn the universi ties gave birth to a number of colleges, and after the great revival of learning at the Renaissance the latter multiplied so that in Paris alone there were more than 450 of them. As to the universities, they, too, steadily in creased, and when the Revolution broke out in 1789 there were no fewer than 25. in France, Paris being the most important with 6,000 un dergraduates. But so far, little had been done for the education of the people at large, and learning had remained the portion of an °elite.* Primary instruction was given in small uncomfortable schools by masters not often qualified for their task: teaching the rudiments was looked upon as a trade, and the customers were few, because few were able or willing to pay. Yet a universal feeling prevailed through out the kingdom that this state of things was to be remedied, and when the °Etats generaux° summoned by Louis XVI assembled. in Ver sailles in 1789. there was a loud cry from the third Estate (Tiers-Etat) and the clergy for better schools and a wider diffusion of instruc tion among the people. They distinctly asked for a national education of all classes, by means of national schools. But the expense entailed in the execution of such a vast scheme was ob viously too much for the public treasury, ex hausted as it was by continuous war. °The Constituante adopted the principle, but two years later when the members of the °Legis lative• were asked by Condorcet for 24,000,000 francs as a first outlay, they were obliged to reduce the estimate to a paltry 200,000 (29 May 1792). In spite of discussions in the
assembly concerning the opportunity of making education compulsory, and of several decrees trying to enforce its decisions, nothing really effective could be done for the time being. The first practical measure was taken by Lakanal and the °Convention* (27th Brumaire year three) when they granted a subsidy to the pri mary schools then extant, and created training schools to recruit masters. This was but a very imperfect solution, and one that only par tially met the wishes of the people, but it was greatest effort made by the Revolution to solve the problem of a national primary educa tion. More was attempted in favor of secondary education, which received a common program of studies combining scientific with classical training, and for which the act of the 7th VentOse year three established the so-called °central schools.* A new plan of secondary education, drawn up by Napoleon, then first consul, with the help of Fourcroy and adopted by Parliament (I May 1802) brought up to 36 the number of the central schools, which took the name of °lycies" and which were provided with the necessary staff of masters and an of fectual budget. And it was only the beginning of a vaster scheme, for in 1808, when he had become emperor, Napoleon, with a view to forming a young generation devoted to the Imperial regime, founded the Imperial Univer sity, "exclusively entrusted with the mission of teaching and giving education in the whole Empire.° It was a complete organization of education in three degrees, elementary, second ary and superior, placed in the hands of a privileged corporation, which, in the intention at least of its founder, was destined to abolish private education everywhere and in all its forms. This total abolition, of course, was as yet impossible; so private colleges were toler ated, but only under the control of the omnipo tent University and with the main object of recruiting pupils for it afterward. Moreover, of the national primary schools that were so badly wanted, few, if any, were created; Napo leon's University merely adopted and, so to speak, legitimated those which existed already. Guizot in 1833 for the first, time seriously took in hand the interests of popular education; under his influence the primary schools in creased in the proportion of nearly 900 a year (24,000 in 1847, against 9,00) in 1830).