CHAPTER II. REPORT ON THE EDUCATIONAL CONGRESSES AND EXHI BITION HELD IN PARIS IN 1889. By W. H. Widgery, Assistant Master at University College School, London. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. To the COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, U. S.: SIR: I have the honor to lay before you a report on educational mat、 ters at the Paris Exhibition in 1889. The range of the questions discussed, the wealth and variety of the objects exhibited, make a full account almost impossible. I have striven to give the salient points, with such references to the copious and valuable literature, published mainly by the Government, as may enable a student interested in any special point to pursue his inquiries further. The spectacle of a nation raising itself triumphantly from unexampled disaster can not fail to arouse and enlist the sympathies of every man. Education has been universally looked on as the great regenerator; during the last decade a system of education, more coherent and close knit than any other in the world, has been loyally accepted by the country from the hands of a small body of pedagogic reformers. The solutions of difficult educational problems made by a highly centralized government, regarding as its supreme aim the full and free development of all the forces, physical, intellectual, and moral, of its citizens, must needs be of interest and importance to men of English race, who are jealous of state interference and look on the private initiative of the individual as the main cause of their greatness. At a universal exhibition the nations meet together for mutual improvement. France may justly complain of neglect from many quarters, but her own work, due to an intense logical sense coupled with the intellectual courage to put into action whatever the mind sees to be right, only stands out the clearer; to other nations wedded to the anomalies caused by an êxclusive attention to historic precedent, she has given a necessary corrective and the means of understanding her own point of view. Among nations, as among men, when once the way to a thorough understanding has been opened up, action is not far off, and this the Paris Centenary, as far at least as education is concerned, may fairly claim to have evoked. I have the honor to be, sir, yours obediently, W. H. WIDGERY. 3 GRAY'S INN SQUARE, W. C., LONDON, January 1, 1890. Discussion of the first question (Subjects to be taught in schools)... Discussion of the second question (The place of women as teachers) Discussion of the third question (Practicing schools). M. Gréard's report to the minister of education .......... The first question: The extent and sanction of secondary studies ..... The second question: The international equivalence of studies and de- Complete list of international congresses held in Paris, 1889. Appendix II. Educational memoirs and bulletins published by the Musée Pédagogique 86 97 98 100 102 106 108 112 114 115 120 132 A. THE CONGRESS ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDU CATION. SECTION I.-INTRODUCTORY. After the disasters of 1806, Prussia, crushed and dismembered, without hope of foreign aid, was forced to seek within herself the sources of her own revival. "We have lost our lands," cries Friedrich Wilhelm III; "abroad our power and our glory have fallen; but it is our duty and our desire to strive to regain power and glory at home. My chief wish is that the greatest attention be paid to the education of the people." The control of the school began to pass from the church to the State; teaching was raised to a profession and made secular, entrance being regulated by a special examination. Aided by Schleiermacher and Süvern, W. von Humboldt, with an energy that profound belief alone can call forth, embodied in the education of Prussia Wolf's conception of the teacher as the high priest of ancient culture. Among the considerations urged in support of the draft that afterwards became the important edict of July 12, 1810, we find these eloquent words of Humboldt: "Education as a whole is honored in the State, when every man engaged in it is bound to show his capacity beforehand. Those who devote themselves to teaching, and who form, as it were, with the approval of the public, a closed circle, develop in time a feeling which, while free from any narrow corporate spirit, presses forward firmly and surely to a common goal. A pedagogic school and a pedagogic fraternity will arise; if it is important to be on our guard against a unity of opinion obtained by compulsion, it is none the less important by means of a certain community of interests, incapable of conception unless elements that do not rightly belong to it are excluded, to arouse a force and enthusiasm, lacking to individual and scattered activity; and this community of interests can reject the bad, raise and direct the mediocre, and lend wings and strength to the progress even of the best." With her physical forces developed by the turbulent genius of Jahn, Germany found her justification in the "année terrible," the fiery baptismal year of a new France. Scattered throughout the exhibition were many speaking statistical diagrams; for three years after the war the lines fall and then steadily rise, often, as in the case of education, almost perpendicular, testifying to a marvelous fecundity and recuperative power. The reader whose ideas of the French Revolution are derived from the moving accidents of a popular history will find his views profoundly modified when he studies the whole work of the convention in educational matters. Directly France has a republican form of government, education comes to the fore; with a monarchy it is hedged aside or malignantly crippled by cunningly devised regulations; but even when the times are out of joint men like Guizot and Duruy can realize some of the hopes of the revolu tion. Like Germany, France has turned her most serious attention to education. She has followed the same development and carried it much further; indeed, she seems to have crowded into the last ten years the work of a century. Instead of watching the slow patchwork mending of ancient institutions, we see orders, decrees, and laws, touching some of them the very foundations of society, pass before us in swift succession like the rapidly moving scenes of some great drama. Through the law of June 1, 1878, 500,000,000 francs were spent on school buildings; in 1878 the Musée pédagogique was founded; on August 9, 1879, every department was ordered to provide a training college for men and for women. By the law of December 11, 1880, apprenticeship schools were made an integral part of primary education. On June 16, 1881, school fees were abolished and teachers compelled to obtain a pedagogic certificate. On March 28, 1882, education was made unsectarian, the clergy being deprived of their right of inspection, and attendance at school became compulsory. On March 20, 1883, all the communes and villages were ordered to provide suitable school buildings. On October 30, 1886, the organization of education was carefully settled, while on July 19, 1889, the keystone of the whole system was fixed when the salaries of the teachers were regulated.* The activity of the law, however, was not confined to primary education. On February 7, 1880, a law due to Jules Ferry constituted the high council of public education, a consultative body at the right hand of the minister; the members are nominated by the President or elected by their peers; the humblest teacher in the land has his representative in this pedagogic parliament. On December 20 of the same year the famous law of Camille Sée made the proper education of girls a matter for the state. By a decree of December 28, 1885, the isolated faculties were brought into harmonious working order under a high council of the faculties. To what fundamental idea are we to ascribe this phenomenal activity of the state in educational matters? If we follow M. Marion in his striking monograph on the "Movement of Pedagogic Ideas in France," we shall say that "the idea of the rights and duties of the state in matters of education has triumphed brilliantly. The idea of Condorcet and Lakanal, forgotten under the Empire, disgraced under the restoration, taken up with authority by Guizot, and partly realized in the law of 1833; the idea whose accom La nouvelle législation et commentaire suivis du texte des lois, décrets, circulaires et programmes, par M. P. Carrive, juge au tribunal d'Etampes. (Hachette.) |