FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY Buisson and Farrington i^- FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE HOLDERS OF FRENCH EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT OF THE PRESENT Edited by FERDINAND BUISSON Form^y Director of Primary Education in France and Member of the Chamber of Deputies and FREDERIC ERNEST FARRINGTON Sometime Associate Professor of G)mparative Education, Columbia University; Headmaster Chevy Chase School, Washington, D. C. Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York WORLD BOOK COMPANY 1919 WORLD BOOK COMPANY ^ THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson YONKEBS-ON-HUDSON, NeW YoRK 2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago This volume has been subventioned by the French Ministry of Public Instruction and the Fine Arts. The publishers take pleasure in adding it to their list of professional works on education as being thoroughly in accord with their motto, "Books that apply the world's knowledge to the world's needs," and also as a means of furthering, in the special field of education, friendly mutual relations and interchange of ideas between France and the United States Copyright, 1919, by World Book Company CopjT^ght in Great Britain All righta reserved TO THOSE VALIANT SOLDIERS OF FRANCE AND OF AMERICA WHO FOUGHT SHOULDER TO SHOULDER ON THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE NEW WORLD FOR AMERICAN FREEDOM, AND ON THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE OLD WORLD it- FOR UNIVERSAL FREEDOM Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/frencheducationaOObuisrich FOREWORD Two members of the International Congress on Educa- tion, held at Oakland, California, in 1915, noticed regretfully to what extent the personnel of the two systems of education in France and the United States, although animated by a common inspiration, were ignorant of each other's purposes and ideals. It seemed to M. Ferdinand Buisson, oflficial repre- sentative at Oakland of the French Ministry of Public Instruction, formerly Director of Primary Education in France, and to Frederic Ernest Farrington, execu- tive secretary of the Congress and connected with the United States Bureau of Education, that a first attempt at bringing these two systems of schools closer together could be made by exchanging two volumes of texts chosen from representative educators in both countries, each volume to be translated into the language of the other country. Pursuant to this feeling, it was determined to bring out simultaneously in the two countries two volumes which should portray to American readers the fundamental ideals on which the French system of education is grounded, and to French readers in similar fashion the dominant ideals underlying our American educational spirit. French Educational Ideals of Today represents the American part of the plan, and we hope that it may help the American public to understand better the French educational point of view. Two subjects, lay education and moral instruction, may seem to have received an undue amount of atten- tion. These are really two phases of the same question, separation of Church and State, or lay versus clerical vi FOREWORD control of education, and they still occupy a dominant position in French educational discussion. Whether the reputed revival of religious interest will have any bearing on this point remains to be seen. At all events, today lay control is unquestionably in the ascendant in France. Obviously a limited number of extracts will give but a suggestion of the complete picture we should like to show, but we trust that the consummation of the plan will give French teachers a glimpse of America and American teachers a glimpse of France. F. B. F. E. F. May, 1919 CONTENTS PAOB Foreword v Introduction xi By Dr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education Edgar Quinet 1 A Lay School for a Lay Society .... 1 Jules Ferry 5 Letter to the Primary Teachers of France . . 5 Our Need of Educators 15 Program for Elementary Education ... 17 Octave Greard 32 New Mipthods in the Paris Primary Schools . . 32 Felix Pecaut 43 An Experiment in Moral Teaching at Fontenay- aux-Roses 43 Non-Sectarianism 58 The Use and Abuse of Pedagogy .... 64 The Woman Normal School Principal ... 69 Madame Kergomard 87 What Is an Infant School ? 87 The New Program for Infant Schools ... 88 Ernest Lavisse .91 The Fatherland . • ^^ An Open Letter to the Teachers of France on Civic Education 103 Jean Jaures . 110 The Schoolmaster and Socialism . . . .110 The Sentiment of Human Dignity, the Soul of the Lay School 116 The School and Life . . . . . .119 Georges Clemenceau 122 The Schoolmaster 122 Ferdinand Buisson 128 The Schoolmaster as a Pioneer of Democracy . 128 Education of the Will 137 vii viii CONTENTS PAGE E. Anthoine 162 Up and Down through Our Schools . . .162 Edmond Blanguernon 167 Attractive Problems 167 A Sound Body 169 A Morning Prayer 173 Ethical Lessons 175 On the Threshold of April 178 Georges Leygues . . . . . . .182 Education 182 Emile Durckheim 188 The School of Tomorrow 188 Autobiographical Sketches 193 N. Bizet 206 The Teacher and the Adolescent .... 206 Gabriel Seailles 208 The Real Meaning of Non-Sectarianism . . 208 Alfred Moulet 212 Program for Moral Education . . . .212 Edouard Petit 216 Marriages between Teachers . . . .216 The Mutual Benefit Association in the School . 219 School Excursions 223 Charles Wagner 226 The Lesson of the Ax and the Key . . . 226 Lithe Land of "Just About" .... 230 Henri Marion . 236 Questions of Discipline 236 F. Alengry . . . . " . . . . 242 Cultivation and Development of the Reason in Our Schools . .242 Emile Boutroux 245 Morality and Religion 245 CONTENTS ix PAGE Le Pere Laberthonniebe . . , . . 248 Authority in Education 248 Mgr. Alfred Baudrillart 252 On the Teaching of History 252 Jules Payot . . . . " . . . . 257 MiHtary Service and Self-Control .... 257 Louis Liard 260 The Place of Science in Secondary Education . 260 Jules Tannery 267 The Teaching of Elementary Geometry . . 267 Alfred Cij^iset 273 The Study of Latin and Greek and the Democracy 273 Madame Jules Favre 280 Extracts from the Letters of Madame Jules Favre 280 On Moral Teaching 285 Extract from Address at the First General Re- union of the Graduates of Sevres . . . 287 B. Jacob 288 Resignation 288 GusTAVE Lanson 295 The Modern Subjects in Secondary Education . 295 Paul Desjardins 309 Interpretation of Texts in the Lycee . . . 309 Gabriel Compayre 316 The Question of Overwork 316 Albert Dumont 318 Democracy and Education 318 Democracy and the Three Degrees of Education . 319 Paul Painleve 321 Address before the International Educational Con- ference 321 INTRODUCTION Stimulated by a common danger, France and the United States, the two foremost republics of the world, have been drawn closer together during these last years than ever before. Democracy has been at stake, and our two great nations have joined with the other allies against a common foe. As the German school- master won the Franco-Prussian war, so the ideals that have inspired the heroes of the two great demo- cratic nations today have been the ideals inculcated in the schoolroom. The good feeling that has so long existed between the sister republics has been revivified and more firmly established, and whatever conduces to a better under- standing of the national viewpoints is to be encouraged. It is on this basis that I am happy to write this brief word of introduction to a book that sets before the American public in general and the American teaching force in particular the educational ideals that have dominated in France during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. After reading the simple yet eloquent phrases of Ernest Lavisse, the leading historian of France, one cannot wonder at the sturdy and dogged fortitude of the French poilu. Animated by an international nationalism, M. Lavisse in this address in 1905 soimded with prophetic foresight the dangers that France actually had to face in 1914. Mgr. Baudrillart echoes the same patriotic spirit of sacrifice in no less clarion notes. Educators are asking each other, " What changes will the war bring in our schools.?" M. Durckheim, xi xii INTRODUCTION in the brief extract quoted, utters a word of construc- tive criticism on the educational ideals of the present and indicates the direction in which future modifications should tend. " Social discipline" is the keynote. Practical suggestions are found in M. Petit's two articles on "Mutual Benefit Associations" and "School Excursions," while several writers set forth the ideals of the lay school divorced from ecclesiastical control which is still one of the much-discussed questions in French education. Notice especially articles by Edgar Quinet, Jules Ferry, Felix Pecaut, Georges Clemenceau, Ferdinand Buisson, Gabriel Seailles, and Paul Pain- leve. In these days of youthful irresponsibility, Charles Wagner's "In the Land of *Just About'" is particu- larly timely, and is well worth the attention of old and young alike. May this contribution conduce to a more intelligent and so more sympathetic acquaintance with the spirit of French education on the part of the American people ! P. P. Claxton Washington, D.C. FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY EDGAR QUINET Edgar Quinet (1803-1875) was professor at the College de France at the end of Louis-Philippe's reign. With his colleague and friend, Michelet, he gave those famous lectures which aroused the enthusiasm of the youth of the liberal party and the wrath of the reactionaries. Elected deputy in 1848, he protested ener- getically against the coup d'Stat of December 2, 1851, and went into exile, to return only upon the fall of the Empire in 1870. He spent these nineteen years in awakening the French conscience by his forceful writings. In 1850, while a member of the legislative assembly and at the very moment of the clerical reaction, he wrote U enseignement du peuplcy in which he resolutely states the principles of a national education animated by the republican spirit. It is Edgar Quinet's plan that was realized by the Third Republic through the school laws which have been in force since 1880. A LAY SCHOOL FOR A LAY SOCIETY ^ No particular church being the soul of France, the teaching which diffuses this soul should be indepen- dent of every particular church. The teacher is not merely the priest's assistant; he teaches what no priest can teach, the alliance of churches in the same society. The teacher has a more universal doctrine than the priest, for he speaks to Catholic, Protestant, and Jew alike, and he brings them all into the same civil com- munion. The teacher is obliged to say : "You are all children of the same God and of the same country ; take hold 1 Extract from Venseignement du peuple, 1850. 1 2 /, FRENCH KpUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY of each other's hands until death." The priest is obhged to say: "You are the children of different churches, but among these mothers there is but one who is legitimate. All those who do not belong to her are accursed ; they shall remain orphans. Be, then, separated in time, since you must be separated in eternity." Do you think it would be a misfortune for your child thus to be born to civil life with any feeling of concord, peace, and union toward his brethren? Is the first smile that heaven has given him, given him to curse? Must his first lisping be an anathema ? The intention of the sacerdotal castes has always been that they are the only power capable of giving a foundation to civil and political institutions. Look at them wherever they have held sway, among the Hindus or in the states of Rome. While they reigned, each detail of the civil state, its administration, even the police, were things sacred; in the theocracy of Moses the smallest hygienic or agricultural regulation came from the wisdom on high. Every prescription of the priest is of divine institution; the thought of heaven permeates the whole body of laws. As soon as lay society frees itself from the rule of the priests, it is considered to have broken off all relation with the eternal order. The same laws which formerly were filled with the spirit of God are now but the caprices of chance. From the moment that this State, which was said to be of divine institution, dispenses with the priest, it is proclaimed atheistic. Yesterday it was eternal wisdom, manifested and written in the laws. Today it is a blind person who pushes away EDGAR QUINET 3 his guide. It knows nothing, it sees nothing. Sep- arated from the priest, what remains for it to teach? Not even the wisdom which the ant teaches the ant. If society without the priest does not beheve in jus- tice, why does it seek from century to century to come nearer to justice in the development of law.? If it does not believe in truth, why does it pursue truth in science .f^ If it does not believe in order, why does it pursue order in the succession of its institutions and revolutions ? Justice, truth, absolute order, what are they but the eternal source of divine ideas; in other words, that essence of the God on which the customs of the State are ordered .f^ This God of order and of justice, this eternal geometer who descends by degrees into the very groundwork of the laws of all civilized peoples, is not the one who pleases the sacerdotal castes. Is this a reason for conceding that a society contains no principle outside its Church, no moral teaching outside its clergy, or that all light dies out if it is not lighted at the altar ? People repeat incessantly that lay society has no fundamental principle and consequently nothing to teach. At least you must admit that better than any one else it can teach itself, and that is precisely the point in question in lay teaching. For my part I have always claimed that society possesses a principle which it alone is in a position to profess, and that on this principle is founded its ab- solute right to teach in civil matters. That which forms the foundation of this society, makes its existence possible, and prevents it from falling to pieces, is pre- 4 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY cisely a point which cannot be taught with equal au- thority by any of the official cults. This society lives on the principle of the love of citizens for one another independently of their beliefs. Do you wish to free lay teaching? Dare affirm what three centuries have affirmed before you, that it is sufficient unto itself, that it exists of itself, that it itself is belief and science. How has modern science been constituted.^ By breaking away from the science of the Church. The civil \siw? By breaking away from canon law. The political constitution .f^ By breaking away from the religion of the State. All the elements of modern society have developed by emancipating themselves from the Church. The most important of all — edu- cation — remains to be emancipated. By a conclusion deduced from all that precedes, is it not clear that we can regulate it only on condition that it be completely separated from ecclesiastical education ? JULES FERRY Jules Ferry was born at St. Die in 1832 and died in Paris, March 17, 1893. He was a member of the Republican faction opposed to the government at the end of the reign of Napoleon III, mayor of Paris dm-ing the siege of 1870-71, a member of the National As- sembly, then of the Chamber of Deputies, where he became one of the leaders of the left wing. From 1879 to 1885 he was several times Minister of Public Instruction. Deriving his inspiration from Condorcet's "Plan of Education'* and from the ideas of Edgar Quinet, he brought about the enact- ment of the school laws which have been justly named the "Ferry laws." These laws provide for compulsory, free, elementary edu- cation to be given by laymen, for the secondary instruction of girls, for professional schools and normal schools. They instituted the "Higher Council of Public Instruction" and laid the founda- tion of the system of national education which has been gradually realized by the Third Republic. Jules Ferry was at the same time founder of the French colonial empire, an achievement which made him very unpopular for a long time. He bore this unpopularity with exceptional dignity and strength of character. One year after the promulgation of the law of March 28, 1882, the minister addressed to the primary school teachers the letter published herewith, as conveying the most authentic statement of the real spirit of the new legislation. LETTER TO THE PRIMARY TEACHERS OF FRANCE, NOVEMBER 17, 1883 The academic year just opened will be the second since the law of March 28, 1882, went into effect. At this time I cannot refrain from sending you personally a few brief words which you will probably not find inopportune, in view of the experience you have just had with the new regime. Of the diverse obligations it imposes upon you, assuredly the one nearest your heart, the one which brings you the heaviest increase of work and anxiety, is your mission to instruct your 5 6 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY pupils in ethics and citizenship. You will be grateful to me, I am sure, for answering the questions which preoccupy you at present, by trying to determine the character and the purpose of this teaching. In order to succeed more surely I shall, with your permission, put myself in your place for an instant to show you by examples borrowed from your everyday experience how you can do your duty, and your whole duty, in this respect. The law of March 28 is characterized by two pro- visions which supplement each other and harmonize completely : on the one hand it excludes the teaching of any particular dogma; on the other it gives first place among required subjects to moral and civic teaching. Religious instruction is the province of the family ; moral instruction belongs to the school. Our legislators did not mean to pass an act that was purely negative. Doubtless their first object was to separate the school from the Church, to assure freedom of conscience to both teachers and pupils, in short, to distinguish between two domains too long confused; the domain of beliefs, which are personal, free, and variable ; and that of knowledge, which, by universal consent, is common and indispensable to all. But there is something else in the law of March 28. It states the determination of the people to found here at home a national education, and to found it on the idea of duty and of right, which the legislator does not hesitate to inscribe among the fundamental truths of which no one can be ignorant. It is on you, Sir, that the public has* counted to realize this all-important part of education. While JULES FERRY 7 you are relieved from religious teaching, there never was a question of relieving you from moral teaching. That would have deprived you of the chief dignity of your profession. On the contrary, it seemed quite natural that the master, while teaching the children to read and write, should also impart to them those simple rules of moral conduct which are not less uni- versally accepted than the rules of language or of arithmetic. Has the Parliament made a mistake in conferring such functions upon you ? Has it presumed too much on your strength, on your willingness, on your com- petence .^^ Assuredly it would have incurred this re- proach had it planned suddenly to commission eighty thousand teachers to give a sort of course ex cathedra on the principles, origins, and ultimate ends of morality. But whoever conceived anything of the sort.f^ Im- mediately after the passing of the law, the Higher Council of Public Instruction took care to explain what was expected of you, and it did so in terms defy- ing misinterpretation. I am inclosing a copy of the programs it has approved, and they will give you a precious commentary on the law. I cannot too strongly urge you to reread them and draw inspira- tion from them. You will find in them the answer to the contradictory criticisms which reach your ears. Let me explain that the task is neither beyond your strength nor unworthy of you; that it is exceedingly limited but nevertheless of great importance, extremely simple but at the same time extremely difficult. Your r61e as regards moral education is exceedingly limited. Properly speaking, you have nothing new 8 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY to teach, nothing which is not familiar to you as well as to all honest men. Thus when people speak of your mission and your apostolate you will not mis- understand. You are in no way sent fofth with a new Gospel ; our legislators did not wish to make of you either a philosopher or an improvised theologian. They ask nothing one cannot ask any man with heart and good judgment. It is impossible that you should see all these children crowding round you day after day, listening to your lessons, observing your conduct, drawing inspiration from your example, at the age when the mind is awakening, when the heart is being opened and the memory enriched, without yoiu* having the desire to profit by their receptivity and their con- fidence. There must necessarily come to you the idea of giving them, together with the school learning properly so called, the first principles of morality; I mean simply those time-honored principles which we have received from our fathers and mothers, and which we all consider it an honor to follow in our everyday life, without taking the trouble to discuss their philosophical basis. You are the father's helper and in some respects his substitute. Speak, therefore, to his child as you would like to have a teacher talk to your own, with force and authority, whenever it concerns a question of undis- puted truth or a common precept; with the greatest reserve, as soon as you risk touching upon a religious sentiment of which you are not the judge. If you are perplexed at times to know just how far you may go in yom* moral teaching, the following is a practical rule on which you can rely : Whatever the JULES FERRY 9 precept, the maxim, that you are on the point of pro- posing to your pupils, ask yourself if, as far as you know, there is a single honest man that could be of- fended by what you are about to say. Ask yourself if a father, nay if a single father, present in your class- room and listening to you, could in good faith refuse his approval of what he would hear. If so, refrain from saying it. If not, speak fearlessly, for what you are going to impart to the child is not your own wisdom ; it is the wisdom of the human race ; it is one of those universally accepted ideas that centuries of civiliza- tion have added to the heritage of humanity. Narrow as such a sphere of action may seem to you, make it a point of honor never to depart from it. Remain on this side of the boundary line rather than run the risk of overstepping it. You can never be too scrupulous about touching that sacred and delicate thing, the conscience of a child. But when you have once faithfully confined your- self to the humble and safe region of ordinary morality, what do we ask of you? Speeches, learned disserta- tions, brilliant exposition, a teaching that is scholarly ? No. The family and society merely ask you to help bring up their children well, to make them honest citizens. This is saying that they expect of you not words but acts ; not one more subject entered upon your program, but a very practical service that you can render the country rather as a man than as a teacher. It is not a question of a series of truths to be demon- strated, but of what is far more laborious, a long chain of moral influences to exert on the young by force of 10 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY patience, by firmness, by kindness, by the strength of your character and your persuasive power. Par- liament is counting on you to teach our children to live properly by the very way you live with them and before them. It has dared claim for you that a few generations hence the habits and ideas of the pop- ulations among whom you have worked will attest the good effects of your lessons in moral instruction. History will justify this opinion of the French Chambers inspired by our teaching body : that each teacher is a natural aid to moral and social progress, a person whose influence cannot fail to elevate in some measure the moral standard. This r61e is great enough for you to feel no need of extending it. Subsequently others will take it upon themselves to finish the work you have begun and will add to this elementary instruc- tion in ethics a complement of philosophic or religious culture. For your part, hold to the task which society assigns you and which has a nobility of its own. In such a work, as you know, it is not with diffi- culties of theory and involved speculation that you will have to cope; it is with faults, vices, and coarse prejudices. It is not a question of condemning these faults, — does not every one condemn them ? — but of making them disappear by unobtrusively winning a succession of small victories. Thus it does not suffice that your pupils should have understood and retained your lessons ; it is especially necessary that their characters should feel the effects. It is not in school, it is more particularly outside the school, that one will be able to appreciate the value of your teaching. Do you wish to evaluate it yourself even now, to JULES FERRY 11 see if your teaching is well started on this, the only good road ? Find out if it has already led your pupils to practical reforms. You have spoken to them, for instance, of the respect due to law. If this lesson does not prevent them when they leave the classroom from committing a fraud or even a trifling act of poaching or contraband, you have failed to accomplish your purpose ; the moral lesson has not sunk in. Or, again, you have explained to them what justice is, what truth is. Are they deeply enough impressed to prefer to confess a fault rather than conceal it by a falsehood, and to object to unscrupulousness or to partiality ? You have branded selfishness and praised self- sacrifice. Have they the next moment abandoned a comrade in peril to think only of themselves? Your lesson must be taught again. Do not let these lapses discourage you. It is not the work of a day to form or reform a free soul. Doubt- less many lessons are necessary to accomplish this, with reading and maxims, written, copied, read, and reread; but especially necessary are practice, effort, acts, and habits. Children have a moral apprentice- ship to serve just as they have an apprenticeship in reading and arithmetic. The child who knows how to recognize and put letters together does not yet know how to read ; the one who knows how to trace letters one after another does not know how to write. What do they both need? Practice, habit, facility, rapidity, and sureness of execution. In the same way a child who repeats the first principles of morality does not yet know how to conduct himself; he must 12 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY be trained to apply these principles readily, naturally, almost instinctively. Only then will morality have passed from his mind into his heart, whence it will become part of his very life. Then he will be unable to forget it. From this very practical character of moral edu- cation in the primary school, it seems to me easy to formulate rules which should guide you in your choice of the means of teaching. One method only will per- mit you to obtain the results we wish. It is the one the Higher Council has recommended — few formulas, few abstractions, many examples, and particularly examples taken from life. These lessons demand a different tone, a differerft aspect, from all others, some- thing that is more personal, more intimate, more serious. It is not the book that is speaking ; it is not even the functionary ; it is, as it were, the father of a family, with all the sincerity of his conviction and his feeling. Does this mean that you will be asked to launch out into a sort of perpetual improvisation, without in- spiration and support from outside.^ No, far from it. Philosophers and publicists, several of whom are among the greatest authorities of our time and country, have considered it an honor to become your collabora- tors. They have put at your disposal the finest and most valuable of their teachings. For the last few months we have seen the number of textbooks on moral and civic instruction grow almost week by week. Nothing proves better than this the value public opinion attaches to thorough moral training in the primary school. Instruction in morality by laymen JULES FERRY 13 is not deemed impossible or useless, since the measure passed by our legislators has instantly awakened so powerful an echo throughout the country. Here, however, it is important to distinguish more clearly between what is essential and what is accessory, between the moral teaching that is obligatory and the method of teaching which is not prescribed. Some persons not conversant with modern pedagogy might think that our schoolbooks on moral and civic in- struction were to be a sort of new catechism, but this is an erro'- into which neither you nor your colleagues could have fallen. You know too well that with the system of free and open competition, which edu- cational publications universally enjoy, no book is imposed by fiat of the educational authorities. Like all the other books you use, yea, even more than these, the textbook on moral instruction is a manual and nothing more, an instrument which you utilize without becoming a slave to it. Ijr~ In all three of your classes, it is yoiu* influence which \ is important, not that of the text. The book should not come between your pupils and you, chilling your words, dulling the impression on the minds of your pupils, reducing you to the role of a mere drill master of moral theory. Remember, the book is made for you, and not you for the book. It is your adviser and guide, but you are to remain above all the guide and adviser of your pupils. In order to furnish you every means for enriching your teaching with material drawn from the best works and to prevent you from being restricted to any particular text, I am sending you the complete list 14 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL ICEALS OF TODAY of treatises on moral and civic instruction adopted this year by the teachers in the different academies. The pedagogical library of the principal town in each canton will receive these treatises from the ministry, if it does not already possess them, and will put them at your disposal. After examining them you are free either to choose one of these works and make it one of the regular readers of the class, or else to com- bine the use of several of these texts, all selected, of course, from the general list inclosed; or again you may reserve the right to choose extracts from dif- ferent authors to be read, dictated, or learned. It is but just that you should have in this matter as much liberty as you have responsibility. But whichever solution you prefer, I cannot too often impress this on your mind : Let it be understood that you place your self-respect, your honor, not in the introduction of this or that book, but in causing the practical teach- ing of good rules of conduct and worthy sentiments to penetrate profoundly the rising generation. It depends upon you, I am convinced, by your method of procedure, to hasten the moment when this teaching will be not only accepted, but appreciated, honored, and loved, as it deserves. The very people whose anxiety certain persons have sought to arouse, will not long remain blind to what is taking place before their very eyes. When they have seen you at work, when they find out that you have no secret intention, that you are trying merely to give them back their children better educated and better, when they notice that your lessons begin to take effect, that their children come from your class with better habits, JULES FERRY 15 gentler and more respectful manners, more upright- ness, more obedience, a greater liking for work, greater submission to duty, in short with all the signs of a constant moral uplift, then the cause of the secular school will be won, the good sense of the father and the heart of the mother will not be deceived. They will not need to be taught the esteem, the confidence, and the gratitude they owe you. I have tried to give you as precise an idea as possible of the newer and more subtle aspects of your task. Permit me to add that these will also bring you the most peculiar and enduring satisfaction. I should be happy if I had succeeded through this letter in showing you all the importance the government of the Re- public attaches to it, and if I had inspired you to re- double your efforts in order to prepare a generation of good citizens for our country. OUR NEED OF EDUCATORS ^ To those of you in my audience who direct normal schools, I desire to say, before leaving, what is as- suredly in your minds, what is in your hearts, what you know and feel as I do, and what nevertheless you should be told by one who at the present moment has the supreme honor of directing the education of the nation. What we expect of you, the lofty end for which we appeal to your zeal, to all your generous desire for progress and light, is this : We wish you to provide us not only with teachers but with educators ! We wish that the type of teacher criticized so keenly ^ Extract from an address at the annual meeting of the Socikes Savantes, at the Sorbonne, April 2, 1880. 16 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY a few years ago by M. Michel Breal, in a fine book which you have all read — the teacher who, he says, "is less like a teacher than a subordinate officer in a training camp, the teacher who exists in spite of the great progress we have been making for the last ten years" — we wish that thanks to you. Gentlemen, this type should completely disappear. We want educators. Good heavens ! is this then too ambitious .f* Is this a Utopia of which we are dreaming? Will it continue to be said that in order to be an educator one must assume a certain char- acter, wear a certain garb, and that there are no lay educators ? Ah ! Gentlemen, that is not possible ! And you shall see that it is not true. In proof thereof I need only cite the present tendency of peda- gogical science, the new methods which are being de- veloped and are beginning to spread abroad and to triumph. Those methods no longer dictate the rule to the child like a decree but make him discover it for himself; propose first of all to excite and awaken the child's spontaneity, to watch over and guide his normal development, instead of imprisoning him in ready- made rules which he does not in the least understand, instead of hemming him about with formulse which only weary him and whose sole result is to fill his little head with vague and ponderous notions. Those methods of Froebel and Pestalozzi which you apply every day are practicable only on one condition; namely, that the master, the teacher, enter into inti- mate and constant relations w^th the pupil. Can object lessons be properly taught unless there is a profound sympathy and a real love for the child? JULES FERRY 17 With the textbooks and the old methods one could dispense with these sentiments and this constant self- sacrifice; but in applying the new methods, those stimuli of thought, in order to give real object lessons that are intelligent and worth while, one must labor earnestly, one must put one's whole heart into it. In short, one must control through humanity rather than the rod; and when the human side appears, there is the educator. All this constitutes so great and so beautiful a work that it seems to me, if I may be permitted to say so, that to perfgrm the high functions of a normal school principal there can never be too much knowledge in a well-organized mind, never too much grandeur in a teacher's character, never in a well-born heart too much love, too much devotion, too much passion for the good and for progress. You can justly say to yourselves that you are performing one of the grandest and most holy functions of society. You are training educators. It is a greater work, I dare affirm, than training doctors or officers. Can you conceive a nobler and a surer means of contributing to the re- building and the greatness of the nation ? PROGRAM FOR ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ^ I. Physical Education 1. PURPOSE OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION Physical education has a double aim : on the one hand, to strengthen the child's body, give firmness * Official program of the lower primary schools. 18 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY to his constitution, and place him in conditions hy- gienically most favorable to his general development; on the other hand, to give him early in life that adroit- ness, agility, and manual dexterity, that promptness and sureness of movement, w^^>^ invaluable for all, are particularly necessary for pupils of the primary schools, the majority of whom will be compelled to work with their hands. Without losing its essential character as an edu- cational institution and without transforming itself into a workshop, the primary scl . can and ought to give this instruction sufficient attention so as to prepare and, in a certain way, to predispose the boy to his future work as an artisan or soldier, and the girl to housework and to woman's work in general. 2. METHOD Since bodily exercise is a diversion from scholastic work and the regular lessons, it will usually be a simple matter to have the children take it up happily and en- thusiastically, to make them consider it a real recrea- tion. The course of teaching is regulated in great detail in the manuals published under the auspices of the Ministry, as well as in the directions given by special teachers and instructors. The work in manual training for boys is divided into two parts : one comprises various exercises for giving suppleness and dexterity to the fingers, rapidity and precision to the movements; the other comprises graded exercises in modeling which serve to supple- JULES FERRY 19 ment the corresponding study of drawing, particularly of mechanical drawing. Manual training for girls, besides the work in sewing and cutting, allows for a certain number of lessons, suggestive talks, ar'^'"^Yercises in which the teacher will aini> not to gi^e a regular course in domestic econoniy, but to inspire the girls with a love of order by means of numerous practical examples, to make them acquire the serious qualities of the housewife, and to put them on their guard against frivolous or dangerous tendencies. (oou*> <^ n. Intellectual Education 1. PURPOSE It is easy to characterize the type of intellectual edu- cation which is given by the primary school. It gives but a limited amount of learning, but this learning is so chosen that not only does it provide the child with all the practical knowledge he will need through life, but it acts upon his faculties, forms, cultivates, and broadens his mind, and constitutes a real education. The ideal of the primary school is not to teach much, but to teach well. The child leaves it knowing little, but he knows that little well; the instruction he has received is limited, but not superficial. It is not a half-instruction, and he who possesses it is not a half- scholar; for what makes instruction complete or in- complete is not the greater or less extent of the domain it cultivates, but rather the manner of cultivating it. On account of the age of the pupils and their probable future careers, primary education has neither the time 20 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY nor the means to cover a cycle of studies equal to that of secondary education. What it can do for its pupils is to make their studies profit them in the same way, and in a humbler sphere to render them the same serv- ices that secondary studies afford the pupils in the lycees ; for both carry away from the public school a sum total of knowledge adapted to their future needs, and, what is more important still, good habits of mind, an open, wide-awake intelligence, with clear ideas, good judgment, and reflective power, together with order and accuracy in thought and language. "The object of primary teaching," as has very justly been said,^ "is not to include all it is possible to know about the various subjects of instruction, but to teach well in each one of them that of which a person may not be ignorant." 2. METHOD The object being thus defined, the method to be used necessarily follows. It cannot consist either in a series of mechanical processes or in mere apprentice- ship in the elements of communication, reading, writing, and arithmetic ; nor yet in a dull succession of lessons which set before the pupils different chapters in a course of study. The only method that befits primary instruction is the one which makes teacher and pupils participate in turn, and which encourages a continual interchange of ideas in forms that are varied, flexible, and ingen- iously graded. The teacher should always start with ^ Gbeard, Rapport aur la tituation de Censeignement primaire de la Seine, 1875. JULES FERRY 21 what the children know, and then, proceeding from the known to the unknown, from the easy to the diflScult, should lead them by a logical succession of oral ques- tions or written exercises to discover the consequences of a principle, the applications of a rule, or, inversely, the principles and the rules which they have already unconsciously applied. In all his instruction the teacher should begin by making use of material objects, should have the chil- dren see and handle them, and should bring the children face to face with concrete realities. Then, little by little, he trains them to segregate the abstract idea, to compare, to generalize, and to reason without the help of material examples. It is, therefore, by constant appeal to the attention, the judgment, and the intellectual spontaneity of the pupil that primary teaching can maintain itself. Pri- mary teaching is essentially intuitive and practical; intuitive, that is to say, it depends first of all on natural good sense and on that innate power possessed by the human mind to grasp at first glance and without demonstration, not all truths, to be sure, but the simplest and most fundamental truths. Primary education is practical, in that it never loses sight of the fact that the pupils of the primary school have no time to lose in idle discussions, in learned theories, or in scholastic curiosities, and that five or six years in school are not too much to provide them with the little store of ideas which they absolutely need and to put them in a position to preserve and enlarge it in after life. It is upon these conditions that primary instruction 22 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY can undertake the education and cultivation of the mind. Nature alone, so to speak, guides it; it de- velops simultaneously the varied faculties of the in- telligence by the only means at its disposal — in other words, by training them in a simple, spontaneous, al- most instinctive way. It develops the judgment by leading the child to judge, the spirit of observation by making him observe, the reason by helping him to reason for himself and without dependence upon logical rules. This confidence in the natural forces of the mind and this absence of all pretension to science properly speaking befits all rudimentary instruction; but it is especially applicable to the primary school, which must influence the child population as a whole rather than a few children taken individually. Teaching here is necessarily collective and based upon a class system. The teacher cannot devote himself to a few ; he is responsible for all. It is by the results obtained in his whole class, and not by the attainment of the best, that his pedagogical work should be judged. Whatever be the intellectual inequalities of his pupils, there is a minimum of knowledge and attainment that the primary school must impart, with very rare ex- ceptions, to all its pupils alike. Some will easily rise above this level, but even so, if it is not attained by the rest of the class, the teacher has not appreciated his task, or at any rate he has not entirely accom- plished it. JULES FERRY 23 III. Moral Education 1. PURPOSE Moral instruction differs fundamentally in aim and character from the other two divisions of the program. Aim and essential characteristics of this instruction. Moral instruction is intended to complete and bind together, to elevate and to ennoble all the other in- struction in the school. While each of the other branches tends to develop a special order of aptitudes or of useful knowledge, this study tends to develop the man himself — that is to say, his heart, his in- telligence, his conscience. Hence moral instruction moves in an altogether different sphere from the other subjects. Its force depends far less upon the pre- cision and the logical relation of the truths taught than upon the intensity of feeling, the vividness of im- pression, and the contagious ardor of conviction en- gendered. The aim of this education is not to make children know, but to make them will; it arouses rather than demonstrates. Compelled to act upon the emotional nature, it proceeds more from feeling than from reason- ing. It does not attempt to analyze all the reasons for a moral act. It seeks first of all to produce a moral act, to cause it to recur, to make it habitual so that it shall dominate life. In the primary school it is not a science, it is an art — the art of inclining the free will toward the good. The rSle of the teacher. In respect to this subject as to the other branches of education, the teacher is 24 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY regarded as the representative of society. It is of the highest importance to a democratic secular society that all its members should be initiated early, and by lessons which cannot be effaced, into a feeling of their dignity, and into a feeling not less deep of their duty and of their personal responsibility. To attain this end the teacher is not to proceed as if he were ad- dressing children destitute of all previous knowledge of good and evil; he should remember that the great majority of them have received or are receiving a religious instruction which familiarizes them with the idea of a God of the universe and a Father of men, with the traditions, the beliefs, the practices of a wor- ship, either Christian or Jewish; that they have al- ready received the fundamental ideas of a morality, eternal and universal. These notions, however, are still in a state of the nascent and fragile germ; they have not yet profoundly penetrated the child's exist- ence ; they are fleeting, unstable, and confused, rather glimpsed than possessed, confided to the memory more than to the conscience, which as yet is scarcely de- veloped. These ideas are still wdth them in the germ. They await ripening and developing by appropriate culture, and this culture remains for the teacher to give. His mission is therefore limited. He is to strengthen, to root into the minds of his pupils, for all their lives, through daily practice those essential notions of a morality common to all civilized men. He can do this without making personal reference to any of the religious beliefs with which his pupils associate and blend the general principles of morals. JULES FERRY 25 He takes the children as they come to him with their ideas and their language, with the beliefs which they have derived from their parents, and his only care is to teach them to draw from these that which is most precious from the social standpoint ; namely, the pre- cepts of a high morality. Peculiar purpose and limits of this teaching. The moral teaching of the school is, then, distinguished from religious instruction without running counter to it. The teacher is neither a priest nor the father of a family; he joins his efforts to theirs to make each child an honest man. He should insist upon the duties which bring men together, and not upon the dogmas which separate them. All theological and philo- sophical discussion is manifestly forbidden him by the very character of his functions, by the age of his pupils, and by the confidence of their families and of the State. He is to concentrate all his efforts upon a problem of another nature, but one which is not less arduous, for the very reason that it is exclusively practical. He should aim to make all the children serve an effective apprenticeship to a moral life. Later in life they will perhaps become separated by dogmatic opinion, but they will be in accord in having the aim of life as high as possible; in having the same horror for what is base and vile; the same delicacy in the appreciation of duty; in aspiring to moral perfection, whatever effort it may cost; in feeling united in that fealty to the good, the beautiful, and the true, which is also a form, and not the least pure, of the religious sentiment. 26 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY 2. METHOD By his character, his conduct, his example, the teacher should be the most persuasive of examples. In moral instruction what does not come from the heart does not reach the heart. A teacher who recites precepts, who speaks of duty without convictions, without warmth, does much worse than waste his efforts. He is altogether wrong. A course of morals which is regular, but cold, commonplace, dry, does not teach morals, because it does not develop a love for the subject. The simplest recital in which the child can catch an accent of gravity, a single sincere word, is worth more than a long succession of me- chanical lessons. On the other hand, it is hardly necessary to say, the teacher should carefully avoid any reflection either by language or expression upon the religious beliefs of the children confided to his care, anything that might betray on his part any lack of respect or of regard for the opinions of others. The only obligation imposed upon the teacher, and this is compatible with a respect for all convictions, is to watch in a practical and paternal manner the moral development of his pupils with the same solici- tude with which he follows their progress in scholar- ship. He should not believe himself free from re- sponsibilities toward any of them if he has not done as much for the education of character as for that of the intellect. At this price alone will the teacher have merited the title of educator, and elementary instruction the name of liberal education. JULES FERRY 27 MORAL EDUCATION The Program 1 Infant section: Ages 5 to 7 years. Very simple talks mingled with all the exercises of the class and of recreation. Simple poems explained and learned by heart. Simple stories with a moral, re- lated and followed by questions calculated to bring out their sense and ascertain if the children have understood them. Simple songs. Special care should be given by the teacher to those children in whom she has observed any defect in character or any vicious tendency. Primary section : Ages 7 to 9 years. Familiar talks. Readings with explanations (stories, examples, precepts, parables, and fables). Teaching through the emotions. Practical exercises tending toward application of the moral training in the class itself : 1. By observation of individual character (taking account of the predispositions of the children to correct their defects or to develop their good qualities). 2. By intelligent application of school discipline as a means of education. (Distinguish carefully neglect of sense of duty from simple infraction of rules; show clearly the connection between the fault and its punishment; illustrate a scrupulous spirit of impartiality in the government of the class; inspire a horror of tale-bearing, dissimulation, and hypocrisy; put candor and up- rightness above all else, and therefore never discourage frank speaking on the children's part, or refuse to listen to their com- plaints or their requests.) 3. By constant appeal to the feelings and moral judgment of the child himself. (Frequently make the children judges of their own conduct, especially by having them evaluate moral and in- tellectual effort in themselves and in others ; allow them to speak and act for themselves, but subsequently make them discover for themselves their errors or their faults.) 4. By correcting vulgar notions (popular superstitions and * Extract from the official program of the lower primary schools. 28 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY prejudices, belief in witchcraft, in ghosts, in the influence of certain numbers, foolish fears, etc.). 5. By instruction dra^Ti from facts observed by the children themselves. It is advisable at times to make them feel the sad consequences of the vices they sometimes have under their eyes : drunkenness, laziness, disorder, cruelty, brutal appetites, etc., while inspiring in them as much compassion for the victims of the evil as horror of the evil itself. It is also advisable to proceed in the same way, through concrete examples and appeals to the im- mediate experience of the children, in order to initiate them into the moral emotions, to develop in them, for instance, the feeling of admiration for the order of the universe and of religious feeling by making them contemplate some great natural scenery. It is further advisable to stimulate their charitable impulses by calling their attention to a misfortune to be relieved and giving them the opportunity of performing a practical act of charity discreetly; and to arouse in them the feeling of gratitude and sympathy by the narration of an act of courage, by a visit to a charitable institution, etc. Intermediate section: Ages 9 to 11 years. Talks, reading and interpretation, practical exercises. The same type and means of teaching as before, save that instruction becomes somewhat more methodical and precise. Coordination of lessons and readings so as to omit no important point in the program below : I. (a) The child in the family; duties toward parents and grandparents : obedience, respect, love, gratitude. Help the parents in their work ; relieve them in their illness ; come to their aid in old age. (6) Duties of brothers and sisters : Love one another ; protection of the younger children by the older; responsibilitj^ for setting a good example, (c) Duties toward servants : Treat them politely and with kindness. {d) Duties of the child at school: Regular attendance, obedience, industry, civility. Duties toward the teacher ; duties toward comrades, (e) The fatherland : France, her greatness and her mis- JULES FERRY 29 fortune. Duties toward the fatherland and toward society. n. (a) Duties toward oneself: Care of the body, cleanliness, sobriety, and temperance. Dangers of alcoholism: weakening of the intelligence and of the will; ruin of the health. Gymnastics. (6) Material goods: Economy, avoidance of debt, evil effects of the passion for gambling; duty to avoid immoderate desire for money and gain ; prodigality ; avarice. Work (economy of time; obligation of all men to work ; nobility of manual labor), (c) The soul : Veracity and sincerity ; never lie. Personal dignity, self-respect. Modesty; recognition of one's own faults. Evils of pride, vanity, coquetry, frivolity. Shame of ignorance and sloth. Courage in danger and misfortune ; patience, spirit of initiative. Dangers of rage. {d) Treat animals with gentleness. Do not let them suffer uselessly. The Grammont law ; societies for the pro- tection of animals, (e) Duties toward others : Justice and charity ; the Golden Rule. Never injure the life, person, property, or reputation of another. Kindness, brotherhood. Tolerance, respect for the beliefs of others. Little by little alcoholism entails the violation of all duties toward others (laziness, violence, etc.). (Note. In this whole course the teacher should assume the existence of conscience, of the moral law, and of moral obligation ; he should appeal to the feeling and idea of responsibility. He does not undertake to demonstrate any of these by theoretical exposition.) in. Duties toward God : The teacher is not required to give a course ex professo on the nature and attributes of God. The instruction which he should give to all without distinction is limited to two points : First, he teaches his pupils not to speak the name of God thought- lessly. He clearly associates in their minds a feeling of respect 30 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY and veneration for the First Cause and the Perfect Being ; and he accustoms each one to surround the idea of God with the same re- spect even when it is presented to him in a form different from that of his own rehgion. Then, and without paj^ng attention to the ordinances peculiar to the different religious beliefs, the teacher endeavors to make the child understand and feel that the first homage he owes the Divinity is obedience to the laws of God revealed to him by his conscience and his reason. Higher section: Ages 11 to 13 years. Talks, readings, practical exercises as in the two preceding sections. This course comprises, besides a regular series of lessons whose number and order may vary, elementary instruction in ethics in general and more es- pecially of one's duty toward society, according to the program below : I. The family : Duties of parents and of children ; reciprocal duties of masters and servants ; the family spirit. n. Society : Necessity and benefits of society. Justice, the condition of all society. Solidarity and human brotherhood. Al- coholism destroys these sentiments little by little by destroying the mainspring of will and of personal responsibility. Applications and development of the idea of justice: respect for human life and liberty ; respect for property ; respect for the pledged word; respect for the honor and reputation of others. Probity, equity, loyalty, delicacy. Respect for the opinions and beliefs of others. ^ Applications and development of the idea of love or brother- hood. Its varying degrees; duties of benevolence, gratitude, tolerance, mercy, etc. Self-sacrifice, the highest form of love; show that it can find a place in everyday life. in. The fatherland: What a man owes his country: obedi- ence to law, military service, discipline, devotion, fidelity to the flag. Taxes (condemnation of fraud toward the State). The ballot : a moral obligation, wliich should be free, conscientious, disinterested, enlightened. Rights wliich correspond to these duties : personal freedom, liberty of conscience, freedom of con- tract and the right to work, right to organize. Guarantee of the JULES FERRY 31 security of life and property to all. National sovereignty. Ex- planation of the motto of the Republic : Liberty, Equality, Fra- ternity. Under each of these heads in the course in social ethics, the teacher should explain clearly, without entering into metaphysical discussions : 1. The difference between duty and self-interest even when the two seem to be identified — that is to say, the imperative and dis- interested nature of duty. 2. The distinction between the written and the moral law; the one fixes a minimum number of prescriptions which society imposes under penalty on all its members ; the other imposes on each one in the secret of his conscience a duty which no one con- strains him to fulfill, but in which he cannot fail without feeling a sense of wrong toward himself and toward God. OCTAVE GREARD Octave Gr^ard (1828-1904), writer and administrator. After reorganizing the system of primary instruction of the city of Paris, he was called by Jules Ferry to one of the highest educational positions in France, that of vice-rector of the University of Paris, a position which he filled with distinction for twenty-three years. As chairman of almost all the commissions appointed by the Ministry, he exerted an uninterrupted influence over teaching in all its stages and had a dominant share in all the educational work of the Third Republic. Jules Ferry expressed the general senti- ment of French educators when he called Greard "the first school- master of France." NEW METHODS IN THE PARIS PRIMARY SCHOOLS ' The time is past when reading, writing, and "counter and pen reckoning," to use the traditional expression, together with the catechism, constituted the whole program of primary instruction. When the life of the city or country workman was embraced within a very limited circle of needs, to decipher a few words of print or manuscript was a distinction, to sign one's name a mark of superiority. If one casts a glance over the signatures in the marriage records and the contracts which are cited today as evidence of the diffusion of instruction before 1789, one will easily gather from the crude letters found therein how rare were the occasions for holding a pen among those who could use it so indifferently. Today this ele- mentary knowledge is only the tool knowledge, as it began to be called by the end of the eighteenth cen- tury — that is to say, knowledge to be used in acquir- ing other knowledge. A new social organization * Extract from Education et enseignement : enseignement primaire. OCTAVE GREARD SS has created new necessities in general education. It would be rash, however, to forget that the purpose of primary instruction is not to include all that it is possible to know about the diverse subjects it touches, but rather to teach well in each one of them those facts of which a person cannot afford to be ignorant. This comprehension, which answers to the nature of things, is all the more necessary since elementary knowledge is a means as well as an end. It would do but half the good it ought to accomplish if it did not primarily serve to form and develop in the child good sense apd the moral sense. Hence, the method is almost more important in primary instruction than the teaching itself. In his great project for language reform, Fenelon, setting himself over against the scholars, did not wish too elaborate a grammar. "It seems to me," he wrote, "that it is necessary to confine ourselves to a short and simple method." Short and simple, such in our eyes is the double character of the method par- ticularly suited to primary instruction. Short, not dull; education needs subjects in abundance in order to nourish the mind, but it is an abundance well chosen, which alone is nourishing. Likewise facility, as Fene- lon would have us understand it, excludes any idea of diffusion or approximation, for nothing repels the spirit of the child more than lack of precision. More- over, Fenelon himself defines the simple method which he recommends. "The great point," he says, "is to bring a person to the study of things at the earliest possible moment." We must reject all exercises that turn education 34 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY aside from its proper course under pretext of raising the standard : models of complicated handwriting, inordinately long lessons, series of written analyses and conjugations, ill-digested definitions. In grammar we must proceed from example to rule, ignoring the subtleties of grammatical scholasticism; we must make arithmetical exercises practical once more; we must teach geography only by the use of maps and enliven topographical details of places by describ- ing the natural or industrial products peculiar to them ; in history we must emphasize only the essential features of the development of French nationality, seeking this less in a succession of deeds of war than in the methodical development of institutions and in the progress of social ideas ; in a word, we must make of France what Pascal called humanity, a great being which exists forever. In this way we can give even the child an idea of the fatherland, of the duties it imposes, and the sacrifices it exacts ; in this way, too, we can hope to reach the innermost recesses of his mind and leave there, to be fixed by the application that he can make of it, the essential knowledge on which all education rests. Under these conditions, the direction of a class offers diflBculties, as we are well aware. Serious and clean- cut explanations, clear definitions, striking examples, which are the secret and the strength of such teach- ing, are not found without effort and without prep- aration. Happy improvisations are in reality only the fruit of very attentive previous study and of that absolute mastery of one's subject from which the striking expression gushes out as from a spring. The OCTAVE GREARD 35 spring always gathers its waters before pouring them forth, and it is this preparatory work which constitutes the worth of the lessons, and at the same time pro- vides the necessary interest and charm. However, the greatest benefit of this short and simple method is that it functions toward the edu- cation of the faculties themselves. Pere Girard takes up arms against what he calls "word-machines, writing-machines, and reciting-ma- chines" which the teacher exhibits as Vaucanson ex- hibited his automata. For the grammar of words he wished to substitute the grammar of ideas, thereby compelling the child to formulate the rules of syntax, to reason about the terms he uses and the forms he applies. Study of language was for him only an instru- ment by the aid of which, while teaching the child what it is indispensable to know, he applied himself to train his judgment. Pestalozzi established his pedagogical doctrine on another foundation, on a basis of practical arithmetic. But for both alike the end was to give the child assurance and an open, straightforward- mind, while inculcating in him a certain number of positive notions. This method, furthermore, is applicable to all branches of instruction. Generally speaking, the success of primary studies is compromised by the fact that we rely too exclusively upon the memory. Doubtless all teaching should be aided by the memory, but to be profitable the thing remembered must penetrate the intelligence, which alone can preserve a durable imprint of it. It would be almost better for the child to forget what he has not understood. Aside from the fact that 36 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY anything in the memory that is not fully comprehended is a useless weight on the mind, does it not often become the starting point of the most disastrous errors ? How many popular prejudices, how many dangerous the- ories, are merely ideas that have been badly digested ! The other faculties of the child are equally important. His imagination and feelings are no less spontaneous than his memory; and if his reasoning power is still weak, with what confidence he accepts the hand that knows how to guide him while treating him kindly ! The best teacher is the one who knows how to put this activity at work. The child once on the road, it suffices to stimulate him gently, to bring him back if he goes astray, always leaving him as far as possible the trouble and the satisfaction of discovering what he is expected to find. Let him accustom himself to justify every statement he advances, to express himself freely in his own language; let him even expose himself to an error and make him correct it. showing him wherein he has reasoned badly. It will be the most profitable of lessons. When he has re- ceived this kind of training from one end of his studies to the other, one can be sure of having formed a good mind, capable of methodical and productive appli- cation in any field of endeavor. Indispensable to the education of the judgment, this active method is no less useful in the education of the moral sense. The child is generally born with right instincts ; there remains only for us to strengthen and develop them. To be sure, this is partly an affair of discipline, of exact, loyal, enlightened discipline, which keeps the conscience constantly on the alert OCTAVE GRfiARD 37 and exercises the will, but the choice of material in teaching will also have a share in this work if one knows how to utilize the available resources. Indeed, there is no study which does not lend itself to the cultivation of the feelings. It is so easy not to give pupils any spelling exercise which does not contain the development of a sound ideal. Pere Girard furnishes us an example drawn from his per- sonal experience: "I never had my pupils conjugate verbs separately," he says, "... but always in sentences, since this is much more agreeable and useful for the children. I gave out the verb in the infinitive, the tense and mode in which to conjugate it were prescribed, and the children had to do the rest. One day when, according to custom, I was acting as substi- tute for one of the monitors, the idea came to me to have the pupils judge of the moral good or evil ex- pressed in their sentences and make them state reasons therefor. I saw that they were all delighted at my having opened up a new field by affording them oppor- tunity for the play of conscience." The same thing can be done still more profitably in history and geography, where the study of cause and effect plays such an important part. In arith- metic, too, what is more simple than not to leave the mind of the child "in the air" over a problem which represents only a combination of figures ! What is more simple than to base our problems on data which may enrich the mind with an idea of economy, or give an exact notion of one of the great departments, industrial, commercial, or financial, of modern life ! Before or after correcting the exercise time may well 38 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY be devoted to bringing out the moral consequences of the illustrations used. But foremost among the exercises adapted to this education we must recognize those involving invention and composition. Wisely regulated exercises of these types (although here also there are abuses to be feared) are of the greatest value in enabling an intelligent teacher to take possession of the child's mind and to direct it in turn toward all the points which can con- tribute to develop his moral sense. It would be dijflScult to imagine how hard it is to obtain from pupils of school age the simplest state- ment of fact in a personal form, or how meager is the vocabulary they use. Not only do they lack expression for sentiments of a delicate character, but even in the sphere of those ideas among which they move, they are obliged to borrow their words from the vocabulary of slang. Familiarity with good books gives the first oppor- tunity to correct and purify the pupils' language. Like the body, the mind contracts the habit of correct bearing. During the first month at school the children are for the most part quite neglected; at the end of some time they themselves ask their mothers to keep them clean (we know of more than one such instance), and from the day that they feel this desire they are generally won over to the ideas of discipline and work. In like manner good language is not only the aim of education, it becomes through the respect given itself an agent of moral improvement. Yet reading merely collects the elements of thought and language. In order that these elements may be- OCTAVE GREARD 39 come valuable to mind and heart, they must be assimi- lated. Here the exercise of redaction comes to the fore. The name is used to designate those exercises by which the child is called upon to express his ideas. They were formerly given, and in the young ladies' boarding schools they are still given, the false and ridiculous name of "style." Even the word "redac- tion" appears too pretentious, and we should like to substitute a name nearer the reality, more simple and more exact, the name "exercise in invention and composition." Indeed, the idea attached to the word "redaction" is such that the exercise is taken up only in the upper grades; and for the same reason its subjects are sought very far away. What is the result? If the theme concerns facts that the child has learned, he records them on paper ; if his memory does not furnish him anything, not knowing how to set to work, he bestirs himself to put a few banal phrases together as best he can. Ideas do not come of themselves to the child's mind ; he must be taught to find them. Still less do they take on by themselves the order and the form that they should assume; he must be taught to compose. Now one can profitably begin this modest apprenticeship very early. How- ever young the child may be, he is capable of creating the examples by which he is made to recognize the nature and use of words in language; he has ready- made simple sentences already in mind; he possesses them unconsciously, but he possesses them none the less; his games, the objects about him, continually furnish the subjects of these sentences which he is only too anxious to express. While stimulating this 40 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY natural faculty, it is necessary to see that he expresses himself correctly. K this very elementary exercise is cleverly combined with reading, if the attention of the pupil as he goes along is carefully called to the things least familiar to him and to the words which serve to represent them, little by little the resources of his vocabulary will increase, together with those of his mind, and from the invention of the simple clause he will easily pass to the invention of the complex clause, and thence to the joining of two clauses. All that will make up one sentence at the most. From this stage to composition properly so called is assiu'edly a great advance. But from now on there will no longer be any fundamental diflSculty; for in this as yet purely oral work the child will have begun to gain an idea of the elements of thought and of the forms which give expression to thought. As he grows older, he will reach the stage of written development. The first idea will be furnished by the teacher in a few sentences, in the beginning four or five at most; even the framework will be prepared. The work of the child will consist in filling it out by indicating the causes, the effects, and the accessory circumstances of time, place, etc. This sort of theme can once in a while serve as text for the spelling lesson. In whatever fashion the exercise is given, it should be corrected on the blackboard in class. Since each pupil will bring his own more or less happy suggestion, the teacher will have the opportunity of training the judgment of all by comparing their contributions. The child will thus learn to recognize the sources of OCTAVE GREARD 41 the different ideas, to make a choice among them, and to link them together. He will understand the work performed by his mind, for his reason will suggest to him the supplementary development and will make him appreciate the fitness and unity of this develop- ment. He will thus be ready to attack real subjects of composition in which he will have to depend entirely upon himself. If these subjects are borrowed ex- clusively from the order of things to which his reading or his reflection has introduced him, he will attack them without astonishment and he will feel at ease with them. Through being accustomed to analyze the elements of his thought in order to discover the exact word and the proper form in which to express it, he will be able to bring method, fluency, and clear- ness into his composition. Such at least is the end which one should gradually strive to attain. I must repeat, there can be no ques- tion of training the pupils to write, in the literary sense of the word. The capital of the child, however rich we succeed in making it, is after all too limited to be drawn upon repeatedly. We aim only properly to direct his mental activity and thus to teach him to express accurate ideas in correct form. Teaching a child to read clearly in his reason and in his heart may spare him many errors of conduct. At least it renders more difficult the encroachment of false ideas and evil passions. No longer understood as "literary themes" superficially plastered on the studies of the final years (as so often happens), but as exer- cises aiming even from the first grade to fortify the 42 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY solid qualities of the mind, these simple attempts at invention and composition will help to give the child a firm and exact knowledge of himself, of what he feels, of what he thinks, of his inclinations and duties. Under such conditions they can and will be one of the surest and most powerful instruments in education. Many things learned on the schoolroom benches are more or less quickly effaced from the memory. So it is at all stages in the studies of youth. But what remains of studies well done, what should remain of a primary education in which the moral culture that forms the character is united with the intellectual culture that forms the mind, this residuum is a sound and enlightened judgment. FfiLIX PECAUT F^lix P^caut (1828-1898), in his youth a Protestant minister, became one of the founders of the religious movement known as "liberal Protestantism." In 1880 he was chosen by Jules Ferry to organize the higher primary normal school for women at Fontenay- aux-Roses, which he directed until just before his death. For fifteen years he furnished the inspiration for a type of moral edu- cation whose originality consisted in uniting deep religious feeling with the complete independence of mind characteristic of the lay spirit. It is at Fontenay, the "Port-Royal of the Third Republic," that the teachers and principals of normal schools for women are trained. Without question Pecaut has had the most far-reaching influence over the primary education of women in contemporary France. AN EXPERIMENT IN MORAL TEACHING AT FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES ^ You all know what an effort we have been making in France for the past quarter of a century to organize a system of national education after the type outlined by the men of the French Revolution. The name of Jules Ferry suffices to personify for you this great political movement. The public school that has be- come a lay school — lay in program, lay in personnel, lay in the spirit that animates it — such is the end that the laws of the Third Republic have permitted us to attain after long years of violent struggle. But what is the lay school ? And what is the basis of the principle of the lay spirit itself? I do not know whether it is perfectly comprehended abroad or if you yourselves, observant though you are of events in France, have * Extract from a lecture delivered at the University of Geneva, April, 1900, by Ferdinand Buisson. 43 44 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY not been inclined to accept interpretations that made the question a little too simple. Some good people, confining themselves to a superficial view of the ques- tion, have gone so far as to see in this revolution in our schools either a reaction against Catholicism, or else a triumph of positivism. Others, who do not take pains to examine critically the theories that suit their prejudices, made a discovery which they have divulged with great gusto, claiming that beneath these school politics there was a clever conspiracy to Protestantize France. Quite recently M. Georges Goyau, the lieutenant of M. Brunetiere, published an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes which he subsequently expanded into a volume filled with facts and documents, entitled "The School of Today," a critical study in which a touch of bitterness should not make us misjudge a great deal of insight. He attributes to Protestantism, and par- ticularly to its radical element, a secret but persistent control in the new lay school. This is not the place to examine these diverse con- tentions. I should like, however, to call your attention to a single chapter in our educational history during the past twenty years, because this chapter will show you the educational applications of the doctrines which I have tried to expound. For my part, I am not primarily interested in their specific Protestant aspects. But then, you must judge for yourselves. Of all the tasks that Republican France was under- taking, so far as the schools were concerned, the newest, avowedly the most delicate, and the one where nothing had been done, was the education of girls. Under FELIX PfiCAUT 45 the leadership of Paul Bert and Jules Ferry, Parlia- ment had indeed taken a radical step. It had decreed the establishment of a normal school for women teachers in each department, that is to say of a school for the training of lay teachers destined to replace the sisters in the primary schools for girls. Thanks to the splendid impulse which, on the very morrow of our disasters, united for the time being all parties in the thought of rehabilitating the nation, the funds were found which were necessary for creating both these normal schools and the thousands of primary schools which we lacked. But something else was wanting which it was less easy to create. Where should we find a staff of lay- men capable of training some thousands of future teachers ? For divers reasons there could be no ques- tion of asking our system of higher education, as it was then constituted, to assume the burden. Right or wrong, the Republic was determined to have this preparation of women teachers conducted by women. It was therefore necessary to place at the head of each one of these eighty normal schools for girls a principal and three or four teachers capable of conducting the professional education of forty, fifty, sixty normal students, most of them young peasant girls, from six- teen to twenty years of age, who would leave at the end of three years, to act as lay teachers in villages which had never seen a school mistress and did not suspect that there were any except the good sisters. To attempt such a work and in such a brief time, under the fire of so much ill-will and in the midst of so many difficulties; to improvise a staff of women 46 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY capable of such an effort, in a country where the edu- cation of women had until then remained in the hands of the Church, was not that attempting the impossible ? Jules Ferry dared it, and it is perhaps the greatest act of faith in the virility of the French democracy that can be cited on the part of a statesman of our day. He conceived the idea of founding a higher normal school, a sort of poedagogium, to which there should be admitted, after competitive examination, young women learned enough to be able in a year or two to become good teachers, resolute enough to form the first phalanx in this new army, courageous enough to go out into the different departments and face every kind of prejudice and every kind of calumny. M. Ferry confided the organization of this central school, from which the new spirit in the education of girls was to radiate, to a man who had no oflScial quali- fication for the position, a publicist known chiefly in the religious and philosophical world. For a short time in his youth he had filled a pastorate in Beam, but had given it up in 1859 on the publication of his first work, Christ and the Conscience, a book which had caused a sensation in the Protestant world. The author, manifestly of unusual mind and soul, was in spite of his youth esteemed, loved, and respected by all. People read with amazement the conclusions of this book, which preceded by several years Renan's Life of Jesus, and surpassed in certain respects Renan's audacity. Many of those who hear me know M. Pecaut and remember the place he occupied among the extreme radicals of Protestant theologians. FfiLIX PfiCAUT • 47 To this man, noted for his very advanced opinions, M. Ferry thought proper to confide the training of the higher teaching staff for the education of girls. He commissioned Pecaut to organize the school at Fontenay-aux-Roses. You doubtless can picture to yourselves the difficulty, the complexity, of the task. These girls, the majority of them coming from lower- class families, almost all of them Catholics, provided only with a good elementary education, were to be transformed- into teachers of teachers. Not only must they be well-informed persons, acquainted with the newest and best methods of teaching, possessing open and cultivated minds, but above all they must be directors, sources of inspiration, human beings capable of enlightening and stimulating other human beings. "It would be," he had written, " a poor sort of reason and a very poor school which should pretend to teach only what can be seen, handled, or demonstrated mathematically, without concerning itself with all the truth, the nobleness, the aspirations, the dignity, that humanity has created through the continual effort of its sages, its seers, and its legislators — in short, with the very ideal in the depth of the human soul. What- ever may be said of all this, it is nature ; it is human. It belongs to reason, and when appropriating it freely, reason only enriches herself by her rightful heritage. So true is this that our schoolmasters, in affecting for instance to neglect the lessons of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius, of Socrates, or of Jesus, as a teaching now superannuated, would fail to recognize their true 48 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY spiritual ancestors and the ideal by which the world and they themselves are living today." How much truer and more important still must these observations have appeared to him when the education of women was in question. In this domain more than in all others M. Pecaut felt that the nerve and sinew of the new education lay in the depth and strength of the personal conviction animating the teacher. He did not hesitate to think that the first guarantee of serious development that could be given to lay instruction in the Republic was to establish steadfastly in each one of these women the inner au- thority, or, to express it better, the sovereignty of reason and of conscience. For him the success of the revolution attempted by our country depended upon the answers to these questions : Will it be possible to give the educators of the French lay school **a re- ligious soul" and at the same time a "mind freed from the blind regard for tradition".'^ Will the principal of the Republican normal school be able to "seek out and cultivate that which is the foundation of feminine nature and its dignity .^^ Can she by her example teach the young teachers of the people to consider themselves engaged in a divine work, in which they must be co-laborers with God himself, to the end that the woman of conscience and of reason, capable of truth and justice no less than of love, may rise from the depths of weakness and coarse instinct, by the aid of the elements of knowledge .^^ " It was given to M. Pecaut to direct for more than fifteen years the school he had founded. I should like to make you realize how he accomplished the task FELIX PECAUT 49 just outlined, but here neither definitions nor formulas nor official reports can enlighten you. You would have to enter into the eager everyday life of Fontenay. At the risk, or rather with the certitude, of being ex- tremely superficial and of giving but fragmentary views of this connected whole, I ask your permission to use the method of illustration, and cite a few random traits, leaving you the task of piecing them together. Ill The school at Fontenay had existed barely a few months when it received the visit of a foreigner, a good judge in such matters, Matthew Arnold. This great writer, who at the same time inherited his father's pedagogical genius, stopped a few days at Fontenay during a protracted tour of Europe, in the course of which he was making a first-hand study of the principal educational establishments. He says in his report : "I doubt whether I saw on the continent as good a school, certainly I saw none so interesting, as the training school at Fontenay-aux-Roses." After giving a few details about the house, the family spirit, and the personnel, he adds : ** The soul of the place is M. Pecaut, a man of about sixty, whom I had already met in France twenty years ago. When I hear it said that all that the French Republican government is doing for education is due to hatred for religion, I think of Fontenay and of M. Pecaut. I think of the cordial support given him by the Minister of Public Instruction. When I think of all that, I render jus- tice to the Republican government." Here the eminent critic relates what he saw of the 50 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY first halting steps of the moral teaching given by lay- men in our primary schools. He recognizes better than anybody else what it lacks and explains this in- sufficiency, precisely "because such an instruction is not improvised." So he describes with very par- ticular interest what is done at Fontenay : The young women at Fontenay are in general Catholics. They go to church on Sundays, but each morning they receive from M. Pecaut, in an informal talk, a lesson that may be called a lesson in pedagogy, but which is really a special form of moral and re- ligious education. M. Pecaut takes up with his class selected passages from great pedagogical writers, Locke, Rousseau, Pesta- lozzi. The day that I was at the lecture, the author under con- sideration was Bishop Dupanloup, whose book Education raises what are called burning questions on every page. They were treated in a manner deeply moral and perfectly religious, and yet neither Catholic nor Protestant. Not only did M. Pecaut treat them so himself, but he had trained his pupils so to treat them also. One could judge of this by their answers, by their participation in the oral discussion, and by their written notes. If M. Pecaut could be multiplied and placed in every normal school in France, the foundation of a moral instruction, not futile as at present? ;^*^, seriously and religiously effective, would be made possible in the French schools. At present it is at Fontenay only that I found instruction of this kind. What is accomplished there is all of the highest value, but this particular moral instruction is unique. I was anxious to quote you the judgment of this keen visitor. You would appreciate the morning lectures to which Matthew Arnold makes allusion far better, however, if you should gather the testimony either of the professors and tutors or of the numerous generations of young women who have felt M. Pecaut's influence. According to a former student, "it was, so FfiUX PECAUT 51 to speak, the religious service which opened our day." Little by little there grew up a custom of opening or closing the assembly with one of the beautiful choruses that first M. Bourgalit-Ducoudray and later Maurice Bouchor selected for Fontenay and the lay schools. IV Not long ago an old notebook was found in which M. Pecaut had jotted down the synopses of these talks. Will you allow me to read you a few lines? In spite of their brevity, you will understand his method : November 9, 1886. Read Madame de Maintenon's letter on the sensible girl. Charming picture. The sensible girl is gay; she makes herself everything to everybody ; she goes to sleep satisfied with her day. This last trait Port-Royal would have condemned. Madame de Maintenon is concerned with what her young lady will do more than with what she will be. The moral sentiment is not sufficiently profound. November 10. On Madame de Maintenon. The term "good sense" is the characteristic feature of her lessons. "Be sensible and you will be amiable," she loves to say. Good tfense for her was the wisdom that accommodates itself to persons and tc igs. There are, nevertheless, greater virtues : courage of soul ; indignation in the face of evil. Madame de Maintenon teaches us to be on our guard against excitement and sentimentality. That is very well. But let not our good sense inhibit the transports of our soul. Can we love Madame de Maintenon, sensible as she is? Montesquieu has said of her : " Louis XIV had a soul that was greater than his mind. Madame de Maintenon worked to lower it until she had brought it down to his level." This judgment is severe. Is it too severe ? November 23. On the reflections our readings should inspire. Read in the Temps the letters on the last elections. When you see that the peasants of the Ardeche, in their joy at the defeat of the republican candidates, sacrificed a goat to celebrate the funeral 52 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY rites of the Republic, you will better understand the duties of our teachers. December 17. Essay on Misery by the Comte d'HaussonvUle. Poverty, a great evil, to which we must not resign ourselves. Society's preventive measures (pension funds, mutual benefit societies) are insufficient. Charity is necessary. Let us make a place for it in our school life. Ideas inspired by science are being diffused ; these ideas tend to show in the poverty-stricken a dead weight which hinders the advance of society. M. d'Haussonville seems struck by the force of these ideas and bears a grudge against science. As for us, let us try to harmonize our ideas of human liberty with the physical necessities that science establishes. December 21. On an address by M. Laffite, leader of the pas- itwistSy at Gerson Hall. It was a popular audience of about two hundred persons, who pencil in hand were trying to take notes. M. Pierre Laffite, the disciple and follower of Auguste Comte, ex- pounded the general physical and social laws on which education should rest. The address was not conspicuous for its clearness. Nevertheless, the audience listened to him with reverential attention. Positivism brings to those who adopt it a sort of revelation of science, rules of conduct, and peace of mind. Whether that shocks us or not, we must grow accustomed to the thought that thousands of men live by another spiritual bread than we. The most striking thing about these informal talks is that nothing savors of the didactic or the pedantic. M. Pecaut brings his hearers face to face with ques- tions affecting social, national, and family life, but especially those affecting moral life. He takes for his theme the event of the day, the elections, Mgr. Freppel's stirring speech in Parliament on Tongking, the publication of a libelous attack on France by a German. "What is bitter is a tonic," he writes, "and it will be good for us to read these charges." He often touches upon domestic and household life, or on middle- class prejudices. FELIX PECAUT 53 At other times he discusses the most lofty subjects in philosophy or poetry. One day he talks to them on the death of Socrates. Socrates puts away his wife. He compares Socrates with Saint Augustine, who says of his mother, "We had but one life between us." Then follow reflections on the role of woman in Greek society. He contrasts it with the portrait of the virtuous woman in the Bible, and in reference to this writes in his memoranda : Practical sense and physical energy are strongly marked traits in the Hebrew type, traits which we should borrow. Woman is sometimes spoken of as a visionary creature. Our women of the people are strong and robust. They do not dream; they act. You who wish to develop tender women should begin by making them strong. You who wish to develop religious women should remember that morality is the beginning of true piety. Our ideal of woman must possess besides force reason in its broadest sense, a reason enlightened and free, which becomes her as well as man ; the practical sense that is perhaps more necessary for her than for him; and affectionate kindness, kindness with the grace which captivates, which retains and appeases; modesty, that is to say reserve ; but the quality that should dominate the others is moral earnestness, a serious conception of life and its actions. That is what we would add to the Greek type. At another time he asks them to consult their con- sciences and find out if they have already had the experience described in this quotation from Edgar Quinet : What I have loved I have found every day more lovable. Each day justice has seemed to me more simple, liberty more beautiful, the word more sacred, poetry more true, nature more divine, and the divine more natural. 54 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY Was I not right in telling you that a few citations would suffice to disclose the intensity of the moral life of which Fontenay has been the center ? To com- plete your enlightenment on this subject allow me to refer you to two admirable articles by the director of Fontenay which express his whole soul, and in which his work appears in its luminous beauty. These are his two last addresses, the one at the general reunion of his former pupils in 1895, entitled the Spirit of Fontenay y the other his farewell address, on August 6, 1896.^ But let me again resort to direct borrowing from Pecaut himself and give you testimony at first hand. From a few pages not destined for publication and written on the death of M. Pecaut by one of his former pupils, I choose one which gives in epitome the experiences of every "Fontenaisienne" : The three years I passed at Fontenay, and especially the last, were the most fruitful in my life. They cast upon it a ray of joy and gave it its force. The charm of these years doubtless consisted in the intellectual treat afforded by the lessons of so many eminent teachers. It lay in all the world of ideas which opened up before us. But more than intellectual joys, what made us happy was the moral atmosphere breathed at Fontenay, a pure and invigorating atmosphere, in which we felt our hearts grow bigger and in which all pettiness disappeared, leaving room only for a joyous impulse toward the good. However young and unenlightened we might be on arrival at Fontenay, we soon had a strong though confused idea of a moral grandeur before unknown, of a new moral world, as it were. At first I was greatly astonished that the words of M. Pecaut in the morning lectures made a more religious impression upon me than * In Uidncation publique etlavie nationale. FELIX PECAUT 55 did the sermons I heard and the religious services themselves, al- though he did not mention religion. Doubtless during the first two years I was very far from imder- standing all he said. However, as I developed a more lively feeling of duty, a two-fold teaching became clear, that of personal re- sponsibility and of free and sincere seeking after truth. One of M. Pecaut's favorite themes was "that it is permitted to no one, either to individuals or to peoples, to give over into the hands of another the government of self." Was it because this truth was new to me? None made a more lively impression. It was for me the awakening of the personal life of the conscience. Not that from one day to the next I had broken with the past, but I under- stood that the final word devolved upon my conscience. It was no longer possible to lull myself with the words of another into a false peace. It was my conscience that had to be obeyed. It was with my conscience that I had to be reconciled. From that moment its authority superseded all external authority. At last I saw clearly that it is one of the gravest errors to consider absolute obedience a virtue, or even a virtue to be proposed to those who seek perfection in the spiritual life. To surrender one's conscience, whatever be the pretext, seems to me today the supreme im- morality. Many passed through the religious crisis to which allusion is made here. All did not come out of it in the same fashion, but what they all learned was how far their director was from being a director of con- science. No word, no idea was more repugnant to him. Never did a man intervene less between the conscience of others and truth. "His fundamental principle," says M. Sabatier, "was to ask every one to be true, true to himself." But it must be added that there was born of this intellectual sincerity an inner freedom, a lively sentiment of responsibility, the absolute command never to shrink from the duty of thinking and willing for oneself. As the corre- 56 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY spondence of his pupils in their professional life attests, it is the point to which he never ceases to return. If they had had but one lesson to carry away from Fontenay, it would have been this: "Never," as one of them says, "never did M. Pecaut pronounce a judg- ment for you. It seemed that in his presence you felt your own conscience revealing itself to you; and he simply said : 'Listen, seek, truth must reveal itself to the soul that seeks it.'" VI Among all the characteristics that distinguish him, the most striking is certainly this incessant appeal to the conscience as the religious force preceding all re- ligions and superior to them. It is this conviction that a man can do nothi^^ more religious than to strive to form within hims.ix an upright soul and to create around him others of the same kind. Is it not remark- able to see the same person unhesitatingly attach an infinite price to the moral activity of the humblest schoolmistress and be able at the same time so frankly to remind her how little, how humble, how narrow this work is and with what modesty she must confine herself to it ? To a directress who, in the face of serious diflSculty in the government of her school, asked his advice, he answered, "First, do not get discouraged." Then he added : In your place should I get along better than you? I do not think so. Of a truth I should retire within myself every day, seeking in stillness and humility and in the affection of those poor children ("unmanageable students") new resources, more dis- FfiLIX PECAUT 57 cerning methods of influencing all of them and a chosen few in particular. After all, there is something human in them that we can always evoke. Come now, confidence and hope! In the meantime these girls compel you to be worth something more than you would have been worth without them. To another who, a simple teacher at the time, was meeting many obstacles in the broad educative work of which she had dreamed, he writes : You say you are almost resigned to apply yourself to mere teaching. Stop at the "almost," and do not restrict yourself by it. Never leave off awakening in your newcomers other sentiments than those of schoolgirls. Have not I already told you that it would be a splendid reward for each one of us to create a few firm consciences, a few liberal, generous souls among these girls? To prevent settling down into forgetfulness, to prevent the torch (the one that has given us light) from Voing out in France, at least in the corner of the field which has beeiuassigned to us ; to have one or two of our "Fontenaisiennes" tran.'ilijt it bright and vivid to others, that is after all not to have lived in vain. And in another letter : It is surely the duty of your age to bring to the common work the spirit of youth, that is of confidence, courage, and joy. Re- member, what I expect of the daughters of Fontenay is that they make up for the weaknesses of their predecessors by their good humor and their merry activity. You owe it to us to help us re- main young. I should pity this country if the spirit of resignation or discouragement came to predominate among you, if the new generation of directresses and teachers in normal schools, who look to their predecessors for guidance, should renounce renewing itself from within. There will be at least a few of you to ward off this misfortune. Such was the teaching of this new Port-Royal where history "will mark out the figure of Felix Pecaut as that of a lay St. Cyran, philosopher, and republican." 58 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY His work and doctrine could not be better sum- marized than in these words of one of the men who knew him best: "He thought with all that intensity of reflection that was characteristic of him that morality had a religious foundation and should have a religious soul. ... He thought that in order to possess its full truth, moral life needs to rest upon something immutable. He believed in man's divine descent and in his divine destiny. In order to do his duty well at the post assigned him, the humblest of us needs to know that in doing it he is in accord with the uni- versal order and collaborates with it. Now this firm and lively faith is religion itself. Pecaut, who had begun by transforming the religion of his childhood, wishing it to be exclusively moral, transfigured his morality at the end by making it profoundly religious. This intimate fusion of two powers which are so violently at war in our society constituted his origi- nality as a teacher and his inner force. He lived sincerely and he died in peace, because he, too, was conscious of having contributed in the measure al- lotted him to the imiversal order." NON-SECTARIANISM ^ There is a great deal of discussion about the sec- tarian spirit which is supposed to have dictated the law and the programs of lay control. People are wont to confuse the lay spirit with the sectarian spirit, as if the lay spirit (that is to say, the spirit of reason, the spirit of everybody, of society as a whole, of historical ^ VHvjcaiion jmblique et la vie nationaley Introduction. FfiLIX PfiCAUT 59 traditions of every sort, the free human or national spirit and not that of a conservative church or school) were not in its essential principle the very opposite of the spirit of sectarianism or of system, and as open to religious as to secular thought. In the face of necessities as evident as the sun, on what basis could the State build up a national education save upon the basis of a lay program ? This would include only such subjects as are dependent upon reason alone, understood in its broadest sense, that is to say the intelligence, the conscience, and the heart enlightened by history. Such a program would exclude the teach- ings of the Church or of any particular sect, which spring from authority or from faith. And to what staff of teachers would the State have confided the care of this education if not to lay teachers, who mingle in the life of the times, who are free from the limitations imposed by a particular sect, and who recognize no other superiors than the inspectors of the State? By what strange misapprehension could any- body who prides himself on his intelligence see a Jacobin or a positivist purpose (I do not refer to the intolerant measures of an occasional town council) in the law itself, which does not exclude from the public school any one of our sons or daughters (whether Catholics in their immense majority, or Protestants, Jews, or free thinkers, merely requiring that they be servants of the State) while teaching according to reason the things which reason dictates, and abstain- ing from teaching according to authority the things which are not based upon reason ? This plan was not only legitimate; it was nee- 60 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY essary in a country like ours, where the Church has always assumed, and too often exercised, tlie right to the monopoly and sovereign control of moral teach- ing. If she had shown herself less hostile to our in- stitutions, more disposed to tolerance and to social relations, it would have been possible to open tlie school doors to her clergy and to have them give con- fessional teaching to their adherents. But even under these conditions lay society would have failed in its duty; it would have abrogated its essential right if it had failed to give moral instruction itself, accord- ing to its own spirit and method, in view of the needs of a democracy which is establishing itself in the midst of a thousand risks and perils. Was this scheme chimerical ? Only those will think so who forget that society lives by a certain quota of beliefs and generally adopted rules, and that this quota, in spite of or by means of revolutions in ideas and institutions, is always being clarified, expanded, deepened. Is it not true that legislators when pro- mulgating their laws, fathers and mothers when bring- ing up their children, teachers when approving or censuring their pupils, moralists when passing judg- ment upon action or character, implicitly refer to a certain idea of man, of the individual man, of the man in the family, of the citizen? And can it be denied that in spite of the doctrinal uncertainties of the present, the idea of humanity is richer today than it has ever been, and is in many respects more ac- tive.'^ . . . Doubtless the contemporary conscience, at least in France, has allowed certain essential traits of humanity to be effaced and almost lost : humility. FELIX PECAUT 61 resignation, habitual conservation of the soul and life as opposed to their disintegration, love of silence as opposed to wastage of thought and word, sincere charity toward one's neighbor, the fruit of humility and the exact knowledge of self, vigilant control of the inner life, and in general a just value placed upon this invisible life, from which the life that is seen flows incessantly in word and deed but whose secret escapes others and often escapes ourselves. Present society has, nevertheless, retained or appropriated by as- similation a number of precious traits borrowed from Christian and historic ideals and from the philosophy of the last century. Taken together they make up a sort of credo tacitly accepted by all. Such are justice, or the idea of right which, together with that of social duty, has been extended in various new direc- tions ; the idea of human dignity existing in all men, which is the true basis of democracy and of free in- stitutions, and from which proceed the respect of self and of others, of woman and of the child; the idea of the natural laws which rule us and impose upon us the difficult condition of effort, pain, and perseverance in the moral order, as in all else ; the idea of the moral destiny of man, and of the high value it confers on the temporal interests of our present life with its diverse activities ; the idea that man is called to shape his destiny freely, that is to say, constantly to impose order in the chaos of instincts, blind impulses, ob- scure whims, and noble aspirations that he carries within him, in a word, to bring forth from the natural man the real and hidden man, the only one worthy of his august name; the idea that after having con- 62 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY ceived this order he is called by a quite natural vo- cation to realize it in everyday life, and to that end to subdue and discipline himself by strict habit. Such a view of education which few among us would dare contradict openly puts us, I think, very far short from absolute determinism, as well as from the indulgent and skeptical naturalism of Montaigne, that assails on all sides the spirit of our generation. Another feature of the tacitly accepted contemporary credo is that moral discipline, while aiming first of all at the health of the soul, is secular, as opposed to ecclesiastical or idealistic asceticism. The present life with its fundamental instincts is legitimate, but it is nevertheless matter which the mind must pene- trate. If matter be suppressed or diminished there is no longer real morality, but if morality, that is to say the higher phase of the mind, be suppressed, there is no humanity, and from that moment life is valueless ; it is no longer human life, but it falls within the scope of natural history. In the same way the principle of personal responsi- bility which is unanimously conceded to govern the whole ethical world and consequently occupies the place of honor in lay teaching, is opposed to the deadly principle of sacerdotal tutelage, the most disastrous solvent of peoples and individuals, is opposed to simple control through habit, through established custom, through worldly propriety, and is likewise opposed to mere civil or religious training of the mind. . . . To these ideas must be added a better comprehension of the solidarity of all, both great and small, by way of support for the principle of brotherhood through F£LIX PfiCAUT 63 inevitable community of interest ; a conviction, grow- ing stronger day by day, that in the long run no one in the body politic can live, prosper, or even perfect oneself alone; that the physical and moral destiny of each is linked with the destiny of all ; that we shall perish together or together work out our salva- tion. ... In enumerating all these truths of our belief or experience I have not exhausted the subject, but I have said enough to show that the soul of today is not left helpless, bereft of rule, defense, or means of existence. ... A father, a lycee teacher or a school- master, a statesman or a man of the world can make appeal to these ideas with the certainty of awakening a response. If they are not a dogmatic credo, they are nevertheless beliefs generally reputed to be good coin of standard currency. Therefore, without de- ceiving myself as to the extent or depth of the results secured, I judge that the preaching (I use the word advisedly) in the school of numerous and ingenious manuals of morality, of ministerial instructions, of inspectors in their lectures, and of schoolmasters in their classes, has not remained sterile. No one will deny that instruction has awakened a multitude of minds to the elementary life of the intelligence; but it has done and is doing more : it has awakened personal powers in great numbers; better yet, in order to discipline these powers, it is in the act of cre- ating the beginnings of moral and rational tradition, right habits of mind and feeling. It is true that this is but a beginning, subject to many vicissitudes ; the results escape the rude figures of statistics; and furthermore it is futile to expect that a work so new and of this character should be achieved in a few years. 64 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY THE USE AND ABUSE OF PEDAGOGY i Pedagogy today is in high favor; one could almost say it is fashionable. A foreigner visiting our country and reporting to his compatriots the most conspicuous feature he saw, that which occupies the greatest number of minds, which causes us to publish the greatest number of books, which seems to be in honor both in Parliament and in the ministries, at Paris and in the provinces, in the city and in the village, would run no risk of making a mistake by writing in his memoranda: "France is turning pedagogue." Courses of lectures public and private, higher normal schools, official programs, examinations of high and low degree, books on method, historical textbooks, collections of extracts — seemingly nothing is lacking that serves to cultivate the art of education and to propagate it. One finds theory, general and special method, the theory and practice of education properly so called, that is to say the manner of forming the mind and character. We make no pretense of abandon- ing anything to chance or routine. We wish to an- ticipate everything, to regulate everything according to reason and in the light of history. This explains the introduction into our primary programs ^ of certain studies, which without exaggeration may be called new, so great is the importance they have assumed : psychology, or the science of the faculties of the mind and their development, aided by physiology, which brings out the action of the physical on the moral; * USducation jmblique et la vie nationale, pages 53-57. * In the programs of the primary normal schools. FEUX PECAUT 65 rational ethics or the science of the principles which should regulate conduct and the motives which deter- mine the action of the will; finally the history of pedagogy. In the midst of this topsy-turviness, what becomes of the old-time schoolmaster? One might say he is rapidly becoming a relic. The "edu- cator" is making his advent in France, armed with rational principles and scientific methods, no less than with technical knowledge and skill. Some good people grow anxious at the sight of this flood of primary pedagogy, which seems to continue to rise. If we take their word for it, they are some- times tempted to regret the old master and his humble routine; or rather they invoke common sense and experience to combat the peril of a new scholasticism, more refined than the old, and they think the more to be dreaded in proportion as its processes are more methodic. However, in matters like this we must not abandon ourselves to ill humor or base our judgments upon impressions alone. How can we refuse to recognize that there is a science and an art of education, until now too much neglected in their application to primary work ? In other words, how can we refuse to recognize that there is a unity of principles, general rules, and processes of application founded upon the observation of human nature; that this observation, whether psychological or physiological or moral, should con- form to the rules of scientific experiment in order to arrive at positive results ; that this art has its boughs and branches (teaching and education, physical, intel- lectual, moral, aesthetic) which in turn have special 66 FRENCH EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF TODAY rules due to their particular purpose or to the faculties they bring into play? Is it not obvious that there is a good and a bad way to conceive and direct edu- cation in general; that there is also an art of teach- ing history or literature well, which is not the art of teaching mathematics, and which varies according to the age of the pupil; that there are good and bad methods in developing or correcting the observation, the judgment, the moral sense, the imagination; but that all those branches are joined to a common trunk, which itself depends upon a certain instinctive or de- liberative way of considering man's nature and destiny ? What is all that if not pedagogy? And can one be afraid of making it too rational, that is to say, too much in conformity with reality, with human nature closely and methodically observed ? In the same way is it not apparent to everybody that good sense, or pedagogical sense which is merely an application thereof, can gain in acuteness and accuracy only if it is trained to control individual experience by collective experience, that of the present by that of the past; if it is accustomed by this com- parison the better to distinguish the substantial from the specious, the natural from the arbitrary, the unfruitful germs from those that are fertile ? What is more reasonable than to ask the teachers who have preceded us for examples and advice, and instead of foolishly making a clean sweep of the past to estab- lish the present upon it as far as possible, striving particularly to understand our national temperament ? All this is the history of pedagogical theory applied to education. FfiLIX PECAUT 67 People should not imagine, then, that it is a proof of good sense or intelligence to decry this new science. It is new only in the importance given it today as a very natural consequence of the necessities of our democratic and lay regime. Pedagogy is quite as French as it is German or English. We seek in vain for a reason why we should cede to others any privi- lege in this domain, we who have kept school during the last three centuries with teachers like Rabelais, Montaigne, Jacques Rousseau, Madame Necker de Saussure, Pere Girard, and the like. Certainly if there is a tradition that deserves to be called French, and for which even foreigners honor us, it is precisely our pedagogical tradition. It would be strange if on the pretext of patriotism we should be forbidden in the name of our national good sense to continue it. Nevertheless, closer examination may reveal that the apprehensions one sometimes hears expressed may not be without foundation. People are right in thinking that principles, rules, methods, science, theoretical or practical, experimental or historical, in a word pedagogy, far from being everything in education, do not constitute the principal factors, that they are but simple auxiliaries. In this matter the most abundant and correct knowledge, the methods best guaranteed by experience and history, do not take the place of the greatest of pedagogical qualities, which is the freedom of movement, the talent of rapid and sure observation possessed by a healthy, well- cultivated mind which is not a slave to any method or the dupe of any process, a mind which without scrupu- lousness