At that date, the idea of _Kindergartens_ had not yet taken form

in his mind; and _The Education of Man_ was not so much the

exposition of the practical applications of Frœbel’s method, as a

nebulous and tumid development of his metaphysical principles. It

is a book little read, and, let it be confessed, partly illegible!

We have ventured to speak of the nonsense written by Pestalozzi.

What shall be said of the mystical dreams of Frœbel? The pedagogy

of the Germans, like their philosophy, has for a century often

lost its way in strange theories which absolutely surpass the

comprehension of the French mind. From a mass of vague and

pretentious speculations on universal nature, there are culled with

difficulty some ideas which are well founded. However, let us try

to gather up the obscure idea of Frœbel, made still more obscure

by the exterior form of the work. In the first edition Frœbel had

omitted to introduce into the text any division into chapters and

paragraphs. The reading of this uninterrupted text could not fail

to be laborious; even with the somewhat artificial divisions which

were subsequently introduced, _The Education of Man_ remains

difficult to read and to analyze.

531. ANALYSIS OF THE WORK.--The introduction is the most

interesting part of the work. We might reduce the somewhat confused

ideas which it contains to three essential points, to three general

ideas, of philosophy, of psychology, and of pedagogy.

The idea of general philosophy is this: “Everything comes solely

from God. In God is the unique principle of all things.”

It is a vague pantheism which consists in believing that all the

objects of nature are the direct manifestations of the divine

activity.

“The end, the destiny of each thing, is to publish abroad its

being, the activity of God which operates in it, and the manner

in which this activity is combined with the thing.” From these

premises Frœbel is logically brought to this psychological

statement, that everything is good in man, for it is God who acts

in him. He pushes his optimism so far as to say:--

“From his earliest age the child yields himself to justice and

right with a surprising tact, for we rarely see him avoiding them

voluntarily.”

The pedagogical conclusion is easy to guess: Education shall be

essentially a work of liberty and of spontaneity. It ought to be

indulgent, flexible, supple, and restricted to protecting and

overseeing.

“The vocation of man, considered as a reasonable intelligence,

is to let his nature act in manifesting the action of God, who

operates in him; to publish God outwardly, to acquire the knowledge

of his real destiny, and to accomplish it in all _liberty_ and

_spontaneity_.”

These last two words are repeated _ad nauseam_. Frœbel goes so

far as to say that there can be no general form of education to

impose or even to recommend, because account must be taken of the

nature of each child, and the free development of his individuality

provoked by inviting him to action and to personal exertion. The

choice in the manifestation of the exterior form of education ought

to be left to the intelligence of the educator, and there ought to

be almost as many ways of educating men as there are individuals,

with their own natures aspiring to a personal development.

532. LOVE FOR CHILDREN.--Frœbel, and this is perhaps his best

quality, loves children tenderly. He speaks of them with touching

accents, but he does not fail to mingle with his affection for them

his habitual symbolism. The child is not for him simply the little

real being that he has under his eyes. He sees him through mystic

veils, so to speak, and, as it were, crowned with an aureole:--

“Let the child always appear to us as a living pledge of the

presence, of the goodness, and of the love of God.”

533. UNITY OF EDUCATION.--Frœbel is always bitterly complaining of

the fragmentary and scrappy character of the ordinary education.

His dream was to introduce unity into it. In this respect he

separates himself squarely from Rousseau. The different stages of

life form an uninterrupted chain. “Let life be considered as being

but one in all its phases, as forming one complete whole.”

534. DIFFERENT STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN.--Frœbel, in _The

Education of Man_, considers in succession the different periods

of life. The first three chapters treat of the _first stages of

development_ in man,--the nurseling, the child, the young boy. We

here find pages full of charm, upon the education of the child by

the mother, and upon the progress of the faculties; but pretentious

considerations and whimsical interpretations too often come to

spoil the psychology of Frœbel.

“The child,” he says, “scarcely knows whether he loves the flowers

for themselves, for the delight which they give him, ... or for the

vague intuition which they give him of the Creator.”

Farther on he speaks of introducing the child to colors, and from

this exercise he at once draws moral conclusions: the child loves

colors because he comes by means of them “to the knowledge of an

interior unity.”

535. THE NATURALISM OF FRŒBEL.--The elements of education according

to Frœbel are, with religion; the artistic studies, mathematics,

language, and, above all, nature. “Teachers should scarcely let a

week pass without taking to the country a part of their pupils.

They shall not drive them before them like a flock of sheep....

They shall walk with them as a father among his children, or a

brother among his brothers, in making them observe and admire the

varied richness which nature displays to their eyes at each season

of the year.”

536. NEW EXPERIMENTS IN TEACHING.--The institute of Keilhau did

not long prosper. In 1829 it was necessary to close it for lack of

pupils. Frœbel lacked the practical qualities of an administrator.

In 1831 he tried in vain to open a new school at Wartensee in

Switzerland. The attacks of the clerical party obliged him to

abandon his project. After several other attempts he was elected

director of an orphan asylum at Burgdorf; and it was there that

he resolved to devote his pedagogical efforts to the education of

early childhood.

The little village of Burgdorf had the honor, within a period of

thirty-five years, of offering an asylum to Pestalozzi and to

Frœbel, and of being the scene of their experiments in pedagogy.

537. THE KINDERGARTENS.--The master conception of Frœbel, the

creation of the _Kindergarten_, was only slowly developed in his

mind. It was only in 1840 that he invented the term. Of course,

given the imagination of Frœbel, and his tendency to symbolism,

_children’s garden_ ought to be taken in its allegorical sense. The

child is a plant, the school a garden, and Frœbel calls teachers

“gardeners of children.”[225]

But before giving a name to his school for early childhood, Frœbel

had long cherished the idea of it. In 1835, at Burgdorf, he

attempted to realize it; in 1837, at Blankenburg, near Rudolstadt,

he founded his first infant school.

538. ORIGIN OF THE KINDERGARTEN.--Without wishing to belittle the

originality of Frœbel’s creation, it is right to say that it was

suggested to him in part by Comenius. The philosopher Krause had

pointed out to him the importance of the writings of the Slavic

educator. He studied them, and the _Kindergarten_ certainly has

some relations of parenthood with the _schola materni gremii_.

There is, however, one essential difference between the idea of

Comenius and that of Frœbel,--the first confided to the mother the

cares which the second relegates to the teachers of the children’s

gardens.

It is said that it was from seeing a child playing at ball that

Frœbel conceived the first idea of his system. We know what

importance he attached to the spherical form and to play. The first

principle of his _Kindergarten_ was then that the child ought to

play, and to play at ball.

But Frœbel enveloped the simplest ideas in prolix and whimsical

theories. If he recommends the ball, it is not for positive

reasons, nor because it is an inoffensive play, very appropriate to

the need of movement which characterizes the child. It is because

the ball is the symbol of unity. The cube, which was to succeed the

ball, represents diversity in unity. It is also because the word

_ball_ is a symbolic word, formed from letters borrowed from the

German words _Bild von all, picture of the whole_.

Frœbel came to attribute an occult meaning to the different letters

of words. He thought he found in the figures of the year 1836, the

date of his first conception of the _Kindergarten_, the proof that

that year was to open to humanity a new era, and he expressed his

views in an essay entitled: _The Year 1836 requires a Renovation

of Life_. In this we read such things as these: “The word marriage

(German _Ehe_) represents by its two vowels =e=-=e=, life; these

two vowels are united by the consonant _h_, thus symbolizing a

double life which the spirit unites; again, the two halves thus

united are similar and equal each to each: =e=-_h_-=e=.” And

farther on: “What does the word _German_ (_Deutsch_) signify? It

is derived from the word _deuten_ (signifying to manifest), which

designates the act by which self-conscious thought is clearly

manifested outwardly.... To be a German is then to raise one’s self

as an individual and as a whole, by a clear manifestation of one’s

self, to a clear consciousness of self.”

539. THE GIFTS OF FRŒBEL.--Under the graceful name of gifts, Frœbel

presents to the child a certain number of objects which are to

serve as material for his exercises. The five gifts are contained

in a box from which they are taken in succession, as the children

are in a condition to receive them. In the original plan of Frœbel,

these gifts were: 1. the ball; 2. the sphere and the cube; 3. the

cube divided into eight equal parts; 4. the cube divided into

eight rectangular parallelopipeds, in the form of building-bricks,

which the child will use as material for little constructions;

5. the cube divided in each of its dimensions, that is, cut into

twenty-seven equal cubes; three of them are subdivided into two

prisms, and three others into four prisms, by means of an oblique

section, single or double.[226] And to these gifts Frœbel added

other objects, such as thin strips of wood and little sticks for

constructing figures; and bits of paper for braiding, folding,

dotting, etc.

The conception of Frœbel does not rest, as one might think, on

the adaptation of the objects which he chooses in succession,

to the faculties of the child. It is not this at all which

interests him. The order which he has adopted is derived from

another principle. According to him, the form of bodies has an

intimate relation with the general laws of the universe. There is,

consequently, a methodical gradation to be observed, according

to the intrinsic character of the objects themselves, for the

purpose of initiating the child into the laws of the divine thought

symbolized in the sphere, in the cube, in the cylinder, etc. Frœbel

was greatly irritated at those of his scholars who misunderstood

the philosophical import of his “gifts,” and who saw in them only

plays. “If my material for instruction possesses some utility,”

he said, “it does not owe it to its exterior appearance, which

has nothing striking and offers no novelty. It owes it simply

to the way in which I use it, that is, to my method and to the

philosophical law on which it is founded. The _justification of my

system of education is entirely in this law_; according as this law

is rejected or admitted, the system falls or continues with it. All

the rest is but material without any value of its own.”

It is this “material,” however, which for Frœbel had no value, that

his admirers have above all preserved of his method, without longer

caring for the allegorical sense which he attached to it.

540. APPEAL TO THE INSTINCTS OF THE CHILD.--That which makes,

notwithstanding so much that is whimsical, the lasting merit of

Frœbel’s work, that which justifies in part the admiration which

it has excited, is that he organized the _salle d’asile_, the

infant school, and that he realized for it that which Pestalozzi

had attempted for the elementary school. He knew how to make an

appeal to the instincts of the youngest child, to combine a system

of exercises for the training of the hand, for the education of the

senses, to satisfy the need of movement and activity which develops

itself from the first day of life, and, finally, to make of the

child a creator, a little artist always at work.

For the old education, which he calls “a hot-house education,” and

in which the instruction, premature through language, smothers in

their germs the native powers of the child, in order to excite his

memory and his judgment by artificial means,--for this education

he substitutes a free and cheerful education which cultivates the

faculties of the child by love, and which makes a just estimate of

his instincts. Books are suppressed, and lessons also. The child

freely expands in play.

541. THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY.--With Frœbel, play became an essential

element of education. This ingenious teacher knew how to make

of it an art, an instrument for the development of the infant

faculties.

“The plays of the child,” he said, “are, as it were, the germ of

the whole life which is to follow, for the whole man develops and

manifests itself in it; in it he reveals his noblest aptitudes

and the deepest elements of his being. The whole life of man has

its source in that epoch of existence, and whether that life is

serene or sad, tranquil or agitated, fruitful or sterile, whether

it brings peace or war, that depends on the care, more or less

judicious, given to the beginnings of existence.”

542. PRINCIPAL NEEDS OF THE CHILD.--Gréard, in a remarkable study

on the method of Frœbel, reduces the aspirations of the child to

three essential instincts:--

1. The taste for observation:--

“All the senses of the child are on the alert; all the objects

which his sight or his hand encounters attract him, interest him,

delight him.”

2. The need of activity, the taste for construction:--

“It is not enough that we show him objects; it is necessary that

he touch them, that he handle them, that he appropriate them to

himself.... He takes delight in constructing; he is naturally

geometrician and artist.”

3. Finally, the sentiment of personality:--

“He wishes to have his own place, his own occupation, his own

teacher.”

Now Frœbel’s method has precisely for its object the satisfaction

of these different instincts.

“To place the child before a common table,” says Gréard, “but with

his own chair and a place that belongs to him, so that he feels

that he is the owner of his little domain; to excite at the very

beginning his good will by the promise of an interesting game;

to develop in succession under his very eyes the marvels of the

five gifts: to teach him in the first place, from concrete objects

exposed to his sight, balls of colored worsted and geometrical

solids, to distinguish color, form, material, the different parts

of a body, so as to accustom him to _see_, that is, to seize the

aspects, the figures, the resemblances, the differences, the

relations of things; then to place the objects in his hands, and to

teach him to make with the balls of colored worsted combinations

of colors agreeable to the eye, to arrange, with matches united

by balls of cork, squares, angles, triangles of all sorts, to set

up little cubes in the form of crosses, pyramids, etc.;--then,

either by means of strips of colored paper placed in different

directions, interlaced into one another, braided as a weaver would

make a fabric, or with the crayon, to drill him in reproducing,

in creating, designs representing all the geometrical forms, so

that to the habit of observation is gradually joined that of

invention; finally, while his hand is busy in concert with his

intelligence, and while his need of activity is satisfied, to take

advantage of this awakened and satisfied attention to fix in his

mind by appropriate questions some notions of the properties and

uses of forms, by relating them to some great principle of general

order, simple and fruitful, to mingle the practical lesson with

moral observations, drawn in particular from the incidents of the

school--this, in its natural progress and its normal development,

is the method of Frœbel.”

543. DEFECTS IN FRŒBEL’S METHOD.--There is ground for thinking,

notwithstanding all, that Frœbel’s method is a little complicated,

a little artificial, and that it sometimes proceeds in opposition

to the natural disposition of children. Their soul, he said,

cannot in the first period of its development, recognize itself,

apprehend itself, save in the perception of the simplest forms of

the exterior world, presented in a concrete manner. Now nature of

herself does not offer these elementary forms; it is necessary to

know how to extract them from the infinite diversity of things. And

Frœbel found these simple forms in the sphere, the cube, and the

cylinder.

But these forms, we reply, are but abstractions; it does not

suffice to say that the cube and the sphere are material and

palpable,--they are none the less the product of abstract thought

on this account; nature does not present these simple geometrical

forms; everything in them is complex. Now the nascent thought is

employed at first on real things, on the living and irregular forms

of animals and vegetables; then in this case, the mind proceeds

naturally from the complex to the simple, from the concrete to the

abstract. It seems, on the contrary, that Frœbel begins with the

abstract in order to arrive at the concrete.

In the school of Frœbel other defects have been developed. An

abuse has been made of the exercises in imitation and invention.

The child has been made to produce marvels of construction which

take too much of his time and demand of him too much effort. It

has been forgotten that these employments should be preparatory

exercises,--means, and not the end of education.

544. THE LAST ESTABLISHMENTS OF FRŒBEL.--Towards 1840, the ideas of

Frœbel began to become popular. His methods attracted attention.

Then he wished to transform his school at Blankenburg into a model

establishment. He addressed an appeal to the German nation in

favor of his work, but it was only slightly successful. Obliged in

1844 to close his institute, through lack of resources, he then

travelled through Germany in order to make known his methods. He

did not derive from his journey the profit that he expected from

it, and, discouraged, he returned once more to Keilhau, where he

opened a course in method, or a normal course, for the use of young

women who were preparing themselves for the education of infants.

This association with women, in which Frœbel lived till his death,

exercised a profound influence on the development of his system.

A much greater share of attention was given to the practical

exercises, and the mathematics was put in the background.

In 1850 he obtained through the intervention of the Baroness von

Marenholtz, one of his most ardent admirers, the lease of the

Castle of Marienthal, and to this he transferred his establishment.

A long period of activity seemed opening before him. He personally

directed the games of the children, and trained the teachers; but

he died suddenly in 1852.

545. FRŒBEL AND DIESTERWEG.--However, before his death, Frœbel

was able to witness the growing success of his work. Each day he

received eminent adhesions; for example, that of Diesterweg.[227]

It was through the mediation of the Baroness von Marenholtz that

Frœbel and Diesterweg, the celebrated director of the normal school

of Berlin, became acquainted. Diesterweg was a strong and practical

spirit, who contributed much to the development of instruction in

Prussia. At first he had a contempt for Frœbel, whom he treated

as a charlatan; but on his first conversation with him he changed

his opinion. He was taken to the school-room in which Frœbel was

teaching; but wholly intent on his work, Frœbel did not observe

the presence of the visitor. Diesterweg was impressed by seeing

this old man devoting himself entirely to his little pupils, and

his prejudices disappeared. To a certain extent he became the

propagator of Frœbel’s ideas. He agreed with him on his general

conception of the needs of the child, and of the province of woman

as the earliest educator.

546. SUCCESS OF FRŒBEL’S WORK.--Frœbel had other imitators. Like

Pestalozzi, he inspired a large number of minds by his writings,

and through the zeal of Madame von Marenholtz, and of some other

disciples, his practical work prospered. The _Kindergartens_ have

been multiplied in many places, and particularly in Austria.

547. THE PÈRE GIRARD (1765-1850).--The Père Girard is the most

eminent educator of modern Switzerland. Less celebrated than

Pestalozzi and Frœbel, he yet has this advantage over them, of

having been better prepared for his profession as an educator.

After having finished a thorough and complete course of classical

study, he for a long time taught the same subjects in the same

school. He acquired experience and wrote his treatises only in an

advanced age, at a time when he was in complete possession of his

ideas. He was in fact seventy-nine years old when he published

his book _On the Systematic Teaching of the Mother Tongue_. It is

a work of mature thought, and sums up a whole lifetime of labor.

Less addicted to system than Frœbel and Pestalozzi, the Père Girard

still carries mere system too far, and makes a misuse of the

principle which consisted in making of all the parts of instruction

the elements of moral education.

548. LIFE OF THE PÈRE GIRARD.--Girard was born in Friburg in 1765.

His pedagogic instinct manifested itself at an early hour. While

still very young he aided his mother in instructing his fourteen

brothers and sisters. Like Frœbel, he was passionately fond of

religious questions. One day as he had heard his preceptor say

that there was no salvation outside of the Roman Church, he sought

his mother in tears, and asked her if the Protestant tradesman who

brought her fruit each day would be damned. His mother reassured

him, and he always remained faithful to what he called “the

theology of his mother,”--a tolerant and broad theology which

brought on him the hatred of the Jesuits.

At the age of sixteen he entered the order of the Gray Friars,

and completed his novitiate at Lucerne. He then taught in several

convents, in particular at Wurtzburg, where he remained four years

(1785-1788). He returned to Friburg in 1789, and for ten years he

devoted himself almost exclusively to his ecclesiastical functions.

But his vocation as an educator was even then indicated by some

things that he had written.

In 1798, under the influence of the ideas of Kant, whose

philosophical doctrine he had ardently studied, he published a

_Scheme of Education for all Helvetia_, addressed to the Swiss

minister Stapfer, who was also the patron of Pestalozzi.

It was only in 1804, that Girard devoted himself entirely to

teaching, the very year in which Frœbel began his work. He was

appointed to direct the primary school at Friburg, which had just

been entrusted to the Gray Friars. Girard received the title of

“prefect of studies,” and for nineteen years, from 1805 to 1823, he

exercised his functions as a teacher in that school. Very small in

the beginning, the school had a remarkable growth. There was added

to it even a school for girls. At first Girard had Gray Friars

for colleagues; but he soon replaced them with lay teachers, who

obeyed him better and devoted themselves more entirely to their

task. The teacher of drawing was a Protestant.

549. SUCCESS OF THE SCHOOL AT FRIBURG.--A disciple and an admirer

of Girard, the pastor Naville, has related in his work on _Public

Education_[228] the brilliant results obtained by Girard in his

school at Friburg.

“He had trained a body of youth the like of which perhaps no city

in the world could furnish. It was not without a profound emotion

that the friends of humanity contemplated a spectacle so new and

so touching. That ignorant and boorish class, full of prejudices,

which everywhere abounds, was no longer met with at Friburg....

The young there developed graces of an amiable deportment which

were never marred by anything disagreeable in tone, speech, or

manner. If, seeing children approaching you covered with rags, you

approached them thinking that you were about to encounter little

ruffians, you were wholly surprised to have them reply to you with

politeness, with judgment, and with that accent which bespeaks

genteel manners and a careful education.... You will find the

explanation in the school, when you observe the groups where these

same children exercise by turns, as in playing, their judgment

and their conscience. Three or four hours a day employed in this

work gave the young that intelligence, those sentiments, and those

manners which delighted you.”

550. THE LAST YEARS OF THE PÈRE GIRARD.--Notwithstanding the

success of his instruction, the Père Girard was obliged to abandon

the charge of his school in 1823. His loss of position was the

result of the intrigues of the Jesuits, whose college had been

re-established in 1818. He left Friburg amid universal regrets, and

retired to Lucerne, where he taught philosophy till 1834. At that

date he returned to his native city and lived a life of seclusion.

It was then that he wrote his pedagogical works. But through his

disciples, and particularly through the pastor Naville, the methods

of the Père Girard were known before he had published anything.

551. TEACHING OF THE MOTHER TONGUE.--Let us now examine the general

spirit of the pedagogy of Girard. It is in the theoretical work

which he published in 1844, and which was crowned by the French

Academy in the same year, that we must look for the principles

of his method. It consisted in “choosing a study which may be

considered as one essential part of the instruction common to all

the classes of society, and which nevertheless is fit for calling

into exercise all the intellectual powers.” This study was the

mother tongue, which Girard employed for the moral and religious

development of children.

Villemain, in his report on the books of Girard, has clearly

defined the purpose of the common school as conceived by the

educator of Friburg:--

“Where the period of instruction is necessarily short and its

object limited, a wise choice of method is the thing of first

importance, for upon this choice will depend the education itself.

If that method is purely technical, if its exclusive object is

reading, writing, and the rules of grammar and computation, the

child of the common people will be poorly instructed and will not

be educated at all. A difficult task burdens his memory without

developing his soul. A new process is placed at his disposal, one

workshop more is open to him, so to speak; but the trace left by

that instruction will not be deep, will sometimes even be lost

through lack of application and exercise, and will not have acted

on the moral nature, too often absorbed eventually by a monotonous

devotion to duty or the excessive fatigue of bodily labor. The

only, the real people’s school, is then that in which all the

elements of study serve for the culture of the soul, and in which

the child grows better by the things which he learns and by the

manner in which he learns them.”

552. ANALYSIS OF THIS WORK.--The book of Girard is divided into

four parts. The first contains _general considerations_ on the

manner in which the mother teaches her children to speak, upon the

purpose of a course of instruction on the mother tongue, and on the

elements which should compose it.

The second part is entitled: _The Systematic Teaching of the Mother

Tongue considered solely as the Expression of Thought_. It is

language considered in itself; but Girard desires that the word

should always be united to the thought. It is not necessary that

the teaching of grammar should be reduced to verbal instruction; it

should also serve to develop the thought of pupils.

In the third part, the _Systematic Teaching of the Mother Tongue

considered as the Means of Intellectual Culture_, Girard considers

everything which can contribute to the development of the faculties.

In the fourth part, the _Systematic Teaching of Language employed

for the Culture of the Heart_, Girard shows how the teaching of

language may assist in moral education.

A fifth part, _Use of the Course in the Mother Tongue_, is, so to

speak, the material part of the book, and, as it were, the outline

of the great practical work of Girard, the _Educative[229] Course

in the Mother Tongue_.

553. THE GRAMMARIAN, THE LOGICIAN, THE EDUCATOR.--In other terms,

Girard places himself in succession at four different points of

view in the teaching of language:--

“Four persons,” he says, “ought to concur in constructing the

course in the mother tongue: the grammarian, the logician, the

educator, and, finally, the man of letters.”

The task of the grammarian is to furnish the material of the

language and its proper forms.

The logician will teach us what must be done in order to cultivate

the intelligence of the young.

The educator will ever be inspired by this grand truth: “Man acts

as he loves, and he loves as he thinks.” He will try to grave in

the souls of children all the beautiful and grand truths which can

awaken and nourish pure and noble affections.

Finally, the man of letters has also his part in the course in

language, in the sense that pupils, besides being required from the

beginning of their studies to invent propositions and sentences,

will have a little later to compose narratives, letters, dialogues,

etc.

554. THE GRAMMAR OF IDEAS.--Elementary instruction should have for

its purpose the development of the mind and the judgment. It is no

longer a question of cultivating the memory alone and of causing

words to be learned. The Père Girard would have grammar made an

exercise in thinking.

“The grammars in use,” he says, “are intended simply to teach

correctness in speaking and writing. By their aid we are able

finally to avoid a certain number of faults in style and

orthography.... This instruction becomes a pure affair of memory,

and the child becomes accustomed to pronounce sounds to which he

attaches no meaning. The child needs a _grammar of ideas_.... Our

_grammars of words_ are the plague of education.”

In other terms, grammar should be made above all else an exercise

in thinking, and, as it were, “the logic of childhood.”

555. DISCREET USE OF RULES.--The Père Girard does not proscribe

rules. The teaching of language cannot do without them; “but there

is,” he says, “a proper manner of presenting them to children, and

a just medium to hold.”

In the teaching of grammar we must follow the course which the

grammarians themselves have followed in order to construct their

science: “The rules were established on facts. It is then to

facts that they must be referred in instruction, in order that by

this means children may be taught to do intelligently what they

have hitherto done through blind imitation.... Few rules, many

exercises. Rules are always abstract, dry, and for this very reason

poorly adapted to please children, even when they can comprehend

them. We ought, then, in general, to make a very sparing use of

them.”

So the Père Girard particularly recommends practical exercises,

oral instruction, the continual use of the blackboard, the active

and animated co-operation of all the members of the class, rapid

interrogation, the Socratic method, the abuse of which, however, he

criticises.[230]

556. MORAL ARITHMETIC.[231]--The Père Girard, like almost all the

men who have conceived an original idea, has fallen into the love

of systematizing. He believed that not only language, but all the

branches of study might contribute to moral education.

“He conceived,” says Naville, “that by means of a selection of

problems adapted to the development of the social affections in the

family, the commune, and the State, one might give to arithmetic

such a wholesome direction that it might be made to contribute, not

only to making the child prudent and economical, but even more to

extend his views beyond the narrow circle of selfishness, and to

cultivate in him beneficent dispositions.”[232]

557. MORAL GEOGRAPHY.--It is in the same spirit that he claimed

to find in the study of geography a means of contributing to the

development of the moral nature.

“According to my honest conviction, every elementary work for

children ought to be a means of education. If it is limited to

giving knowledge, if it is limited to developing the faculties of

the pupil, I can approve the order and the life which the author

has known how to put into his work; but I am not satisfied with

it. I am even offended to find only a teacher of language, of

natural history, of geography, etc., when I expected something much

greater,--an instructor of the young, training the mind in order to

train the heart.... Geography lends itself as marvellously to this

sublime purpose, although in a sphere a little narrower.”[233]

558. EDUCATIVE COURSE IN THE MOTHER TONGUE.--Girard is not content

to state his doctrine in his book _On the Systematic Teaching

of the Mother Tongue_; but in the four volumes of his _Educative

Course_ (1844-1846) he has applied his method. Full of new and

radical views, original in the arrangement of material as in

its system of exposition, revolutionary even in its grammatical

terminology, this book is a mine from which we may borrow without

stint, only we shall not advise wholesale adoption: there is matter

to take and to leave.[234]

559. ANALYSIS OF THIS WORK.--The title indicates the general

character of the work. In his _Cours éducatif_, Girard does not

separate education from instruction. The purpose is to develop the

moral and religious sentiments of the child, no less than to teach

him his native language.

The first lessons in grammar ought to be lessons in things. The

child is made to name the objects which he knows,--persons,

animals, things,--and through these he is made to acquire notions

of nouns, common and proper, of gender and number. He is then

induced to find for himself the physical, intellectual, and moral

qualities of objects, and by this means is made familiar with

qualifying adjectives. Care is taken, moreover, while causing each

quality to be named, as farther on while causing each judgment to

be expressed, to ask the child, “Is this right? Is this wrong?”

The agreement of adjective with noun is learned by practice. The

child is drilled in applying adjectives to the nouns which he has

found, and _vice versa_.

Once in possession of the essential elements of the proposition,

the child begins the study of the proposition itself, and finally

the study of the verb. Girard makes it a principle always to

have the conjugations made by means of propositions. At first,

however, he employs in simple propositions only the indicative, the

infinitive, the imperative, and the participle; he postpones till

later the study of the conditional and the subjunctive. It is to

be noted, in addition, that he brings forward simultaneously the

simple tenses of all the conjugations.

The order followed by Girard is wholly different from that of the

ordinary grammars. This is how he explains it:--

“In their first part, the grammars set out in a row the nine sorts

of words, and thus give in rapid succession their definitions,

distinctions, and variable forms, which introduces a legion of

terms wholly unknown to the child. The second part of these

grammars takes up these words again in the same order, so as, in

an uninteresting way, to regulate their use in construction,--a

tedious and arid system, which affords the child no interest.”

Elsewhere, speaking of his own work, he writes:--

“My work differs essentially from the grammars which are put in

the hands of children. When we write on language for adults, we

may adhere to definitions, distinctions, rules, and exceptions,

and formulate statements regarding their proper use; but he who

writes for children ought to have the education of the mind and

heart in view, and regulate on that basis the course and form of

instruction. The course ought to be rigorously progressive, and

the pupils ought, from beginning to end, to assist themselves in

constructing a grammar of their own.”

“So, instead of making generalizations on the noun, adjective,

verb, etc., and of connecting with these parts of speech all that

relates to them, we must apply ourselves to the substance of

language, passing step by step from the simple to the complex, and

teaching children to think, in order to teach them to comprehend

and to speak the language of man. The little details cannot

appear till later, and as occasion requires. From this there

necessarily results a displacement of grammatical material which

has been industriously collected and arranged. Hence, also, a great

parsimony in definitions and abstract distinctions which repel

children.”

560. EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE OF THE PÈRE GIRARD.--The influence

of the Père Girard was not extended simply to Switzerland. It

has radiated abroad. His ideas have been disseminated in Italy,

propagated by the Abbé Lambruschini and by Enrico Mayer. A journal

even has been founded to serve as the organ of the “Girardists” of

the Peninsula. In France, Michel, in the _Journal de l’éducation

pratique_, and Rapet in different works,[235] have commended to

public attention the methods of the Swiss educator. Finally, it

may be remarked that the principles very recently set forth by

the _Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique_ (1880), on the

teaching of French in the elementary classes of the lycées, are in

great part the echo of the pedagogical doctrine of the Père Girard.

[561. ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.--1. In this study we have the third

exposition, in historical order,--Rousseau, Pestalozzi,

Frœbel,--of the doctrine of nature as applied to education. This

doctrine may be summarized as follows:--

The existing order of things is conceived as an animated

organism, and is personified under the term Nature. All living

things, such as plants, animals, and men, are products of

the creative power that is immanent in nature, and each is

predetermined to an upward development in the line of growth.

This growth is an unfolding from within outward, and each

individual thing, as a child, has reached the term of its

development when it has grown into the type of its kind. In

the case of the human species, this growth is best when it is

_natural_, and it is natural to the degree in which it takes

place without the deliberate intervention of art. This process

of development is Nature’s work, and its synonym is education.

Education is best when it is most _natural_, that is, when it

suffers least from human interference. The question of the

relative parts to be played by Nature and by Art in education has

given rise to two schools of educators.

2. In Frœbel’s application of this doctrine, the original

conception is obscured by three circumstances: 1. his deism;

2. his mysticism or symbolism; 3. his dependence on artificial

agents, his “gifts,” and his belief in the potency of

abstractions.

3. The _Kindergarten_ has introduced many ameliorations into

primary instruction, and its tendency is to make child-life happy

through self-activity. Its shortcomings are that it undervalues

the acquisition of second-hand knowledge, obscures the

distinction between work and play, and indisposes, and perhaps

unfits, the pupil to contend with real difficulties.[236]

4. The effect of this new movement in primary instruction

upon educational science has been wholesome. It has induced

a closer study of child nature, has enlisted the sympathies

and affections in support of elementary instruction, and has

profoundly modified the conception of the primary school.

5. Whether the _Kindergarten_ is to be maintained apart, as an

institution _sui generis_, or whether it is to lose its identity

by the absorption of its spirit into the primary school, is a

question for the future. Probably the latter result will follow.

6. The misuse of a good thought is seen in the attempt of the

Père Girard to give a distinct moral value to every school

exercise. It is the verdict of experience that the moral value

of science is greatest when it is taught simply as science, and

that the direct teaching of ethics should be conducted on an

independent basis.]

FOOTNOTES:

[222] _Comment Gertrude instruit ses enfants_, translated by Darin,

p. 204.

[223] See the _Aphorisms_ published by Frœbel in 1821.

[224] See the French translation by Madame de Crombrugghe, Paris,

1881. Also, the English translation by Josephine Jarvis, New York,

1885.

[225] Consequently it is wrong to take Frœbel’s expression in the

sense that he wished to establish by the side of each school a

garden, a lawn planted with trees and adorned with flower-beds. See

Gréard, _L’instruction primaire à Paris_, 1877, p. 73.

[226] The disciples of Frœbel have modified in different manners

his system of gifts. See, for example, the _Jardin d’enfants_, by

Goldammer, French translation by Louis Fournier, 1877.

[227] See on Diesterweg the article by Pécaut, in the _Dictionnaire

de Pédagogie_.

[228] _De l’éducation publique._ Paris, 1833, p. 158. Naville

(1784-1846) founded in 1817, at Vernier, near Geneva, an institute

where he applied with success the educative method of the Père

Girard.

[229] I am aware that this term is not found in the latest Webster,

but I see no other way of expressing the force of the word

_éducatif_, which seems to signify the disciplinary, or rather the

culture, value of a study. (P.)

[230] See Chap. III. of Book III. paragraph 1st. _Just medium

between two extremes._

[231] Here is an example from Père Girard’s arithmetic:--

“A father had the habit of going every evening to the dram-shop,

and often left his family at home without bread. During the five

years that he led this life, he spent, the first year, 197 francs,

the second, 204 francs, the third, 212 francs, and the fourth, 129

francs. How many francs would this unfortunate father have saved if

he had not had a taste for drink?” (P.)

[232] Naville, _De l’Éducation publique_, p. 411.

[233] _Explication du plan de Fribourg en Suisse_, 1817.

[234] See the interesting articles of Lafargue in the _Bulletin

pédagogique de l’enseignement secondaire_, 1882.

[235] Messieurs Rapet and Michel were associated in the publication

of the _Cours éducatif de la langue maternelle_.

[236] “Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to that striving

of the will, that conflict with difficulty, which we call effort.

Easy, pleasant work does not make robust minds, does not give men

a consciousness of their powers, does not train them to endurance,

to perseverance, to steady force of will, that force without which

all other acquisitions avail nothing.” Dr. Channing.

CHAPTER XX.

WOMEN AS EDUCATORS.

WOMEN AS EDUCATORS; MADAME DE GENLIS (1746-1830); PEDAGOGICAL

WORKS; ENCYCLOPÆDIC EDUCATION; IMITATION OF ROUSSEAU; MISS

EDGEWORTH (1767-1849); MISS HAMILTON (1758-1816); MADAME CAMPAN

(1752-1822); COMMENDATION OF HOME EDUCATION; PROGRESS IN

INSTRUCTION; INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION; MADAME DE RÉMUSAT

(1780-1821); OUTLINE OF FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY; THE SERIOUS IN

EDUCATION; PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT; MADAME GUIZOT (1773-1827);

LETTERS ON EDUCATION; PSYCHOLOGICAL OPTIMISM; NATURE OF THE

CHILD; PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALISM; MADAME NECKER DE SAUSSURE

(1765-1841); MADAME NECKER DE SAUSSURE AND MADAME DE STAËL;

PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION AND ROUSSEAU; ORIGINALITY OF MADAME NECKER

DE SAUSSURE; DIVISION OF PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION; DEVELOPMENT OF

THE FACULTIES; CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION; EDUCATION OF WOMEN;

MADAME PAPE-CARPENTIER (1815-1878); GENERAL CHARACTER OF HER

WORKS; PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MADAME PAPE-CARPENTIER; OBJECT LESSONS;

OTHER WOMEN WHO WERE EDUCATORS; DUPANLOUP AND THE EDUCATION OF

WOMEN; ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.

562. WOMEN AS EDUCATORS.--One of the characteristic features of

the pedagogy of the nineteenth century is the constant progress in

the education of women. Woman will be better instructed, and at

the same time she will play a more important part in instruction.

Primary schools for girls did not exist, so to speak, in France, at

the commencement of this century. Fourcroy, who reported the bill

of May 1, 1802, declared that “the law makes no mention of girls.”

But through the efforts of the monarchy of July, and still more

of the liberal laws of the second and of the third Republic, the

primary instruction of girls will become more and more general.

Secondary public instruction will be created for women by the law

of December 20, 1880, and the equality of the two sexes, in respect

of education, will tend more and more to become a reality, through

the influence of governmental action as well as that of private

initiative.

But not less remarkable is the important part which women, by

their abstract reflections or by their practical efforts, have

taken in the progress of pedagogy. In the history of education,

the nineteenth century will be noted for the great number of

its women who were educators, some who were real philosophers

and distinguished writers, and others, zealous and enthusiastic

teachers.

563. MADAME DE GENLIS (1746-1830).--While she does not belong

to the nineteenth century by her pedagogical writings, Madame

de Genlis has certain rights to a foremost place in the list of

the educational women of our time. She had in the highest degree

the pedagogic vocation; only, that vocation became a mania and

was squandered on everything. Madame de Genlis wished to know

everything in order that she might teach everything. “She was more

than a woman author,” says Sainte-Beuve, wittily; “she was a woman

_teacher_; she was born with the sign on her forehead.”

Young girls of their own accord play _mamma_ with their dolls. From

the age of seven, Madame de Genlis played _teacher_.

“I had a taste for teaching children, and I became school-mistress

in a curious way.... Little boys from the village came under

the window of my parents’ country-seat to play. I amused myself

in watching them, and I soon took it into my head to give them

lessons.”

Twenty years later, the village teacher became the governess of the

daughters of the Duchesse de Chartres, and the _governor_ of the

sons of the Duke de Chartres (Philippe-Égalité).

564. PEDAGOGICAL WORKS.--The principal work of Madame de Genlis,

_Letters on Education_ (1782), treats of the education of princes

and also of “that of young persons and of men.” In giving it

that other title, _Adèle and Théodore_, the author indicated her

intention of rivaling Rousseau, and of educating a man and a woman

more perfect than Émile and Sophie.

Although she had a profoundly aristocratic nature, Madame de

Genlis, after the revolution of 1789, seemed for an instant to

follow the liberal current which was sweeping minds along. It was

then that she published the _Counsels on the Education of the

Dauphin_, and some parts of her educational journal, entitled

_Lessons of a Governess_. She never ceased to preach love of the

people to sovereigns, and in justice this must be said to her

credit, that she did not write merely for courtly people. She

protests, and with spirit, “that she is the first author who has

concerned herself with the education of the people. This glory,”

she adds, “is dear to my heart.” In support of these assertions,

Madame de Genlis cites the fourth volume of her _Théâtre

d’éducation_, which is, she says, “solely intended for the children

of tradesmen and artisans; domestics and peasants will there see a

detailed account of their obligations and their duties.”

565. ENCYCLOPÆDIC EDUCATION.--It has been said with reason

that Madame de Genlis was the personification of encyclopædic

instruction.[237]

“Her programme of instruction had no limits. She favors Latin,

without, however, thinking the knowledge of it indispensable. She

gives a large place to the living languages. At Saint Leu, her

pupils garden in German, dine in English, and sup in Italian. At

the same time she invents gymnastic apparatus,--pulleys, baskets,

wooden beds, lead shoes. Nothing takes her at unawares, her

over-facile pen stops at nothing; she is universal. A plan for

a rural school for children in the country is wanted, and she

furnishes it.”

566. IMITATION OF ROUSSEAU.--Madame de Genlis never ceased to

criticise Rousseau, and yet, in her educational romances, the

inspiration of Rousseau is everywhere present. How can we fail to

recognize a pupil of Rousseau in the father of Adèle and Théodore,

who leaves Paris in order to devote himself entirely to the

education of his children, to make himself “their governor and

their friend, and finally, to screen the infancy of his son and

daughter from the examples of vice”? And the methods manufactured

by Rousseau, the unforeseen lessons, the indirect means employed

to instruct without having the appearance of doing so,--Madame

de Genlis desires no others. Nothing is more amusing than the

description of the country-seat of the Baron d’Almane, the father

of Adèle and Théodore. It is no longer a country-seat; it is a

school-house. The walls are no longer walls; they are charts of

history and maps of geography.

“When we would have our children study history according to a

chronological order, we start from my bed-chamber, which represents

sacred history; from there we enter my gallery, where we find

ancient history; we reach the parlor, which contains Roman history,

and we end with the gallery of Monsieur d’Almane (it is the

Baroness who speaks), where is found the history of France.”

In her pedagogic fairyland, Madame de Genlis does not wish the

child to meet a single object which may not be transformed into

an instrument of instruction. Adèle and Théodore cannot take a

hand-screen without finding a geography lesson represented on it,

and drawn out at full length. Here are pictures worked in tapestry;

they are historical scenes; on the back of them care has been taken

to write an explanation of what they represent. At least, those

five or six movable partitions which are displayed in the apartment

on cold days have no instructive purposes? You are mistaken. There

is painted and written on them the history of England, of Spain,

of Germany, and that of the Moors and the Turks. Even in the

dining-room, mythology encumbers the panels of the room, and “it

usually forms the subject of conversation during the dinner.” In

that castle, bewitched, so to speak, by the elf of history, there

is not a glance that is lost, not a minute without its lesson, not

a corner where one may waste his time in dreaming. History pursues

you like a ghost, like a nightmare, along the corridors, on the

stairs, even on the carpet on which you tread, and on the chairs

upon which you sit. The true way to disgust a child forever with

historical studies is to condemn him to live for eight days in this

house-school of Madame de Genlis.

567. MISS EDGEWORTH (1767-1849).--It is with the Scotch philosophy

and the psychological theories of Reid and Dugald Stewart, that

were inspired in different degrees two distinguished women, who

honored English pedagogy at the beginning of this century,--Miss

Edgeworth and Miss Hamilton.

In her book on _Practical Education_, published in 1798,[238]

Miss Edgeworth does not lose herself in theoretical dissertations.

Her book is a collection of facts, observations, and precepts.

The first chapter treats of toys, and the author justifies this

beginning by saying that in education there is nothing trivial and

minute. It is first by conversations, and then by the use of the

inventive, analytical, and intuitive method, that Miss Edgeworth

proposes to train her pupils; and her reflections on intellectual

education deserve to be considered. In moral education she agrees

with Locke, and seems to place great reliance on the sentiment of

honor, and on the love of reputation. In every case she absolutely

ignores the religious feeling. The characteristic of her system is

that it makes “a total abstraction of religious ideas.”

568. MISS HAMILTON (1758-1816).--Miss Hamilton is at once more

philosophical and more Christian than Miss Edgeworth. It is from

the psychologist Hartley that she borrows her essential principle,

which consists in making of the association of ideas the basis of

education. Hartley saw in this the sovereign law of intellectual

development. But, on the other hand, she declares “that she follows

no other guide than the precepts of the Gospel.”

The principal work of Miss Hamilton, her _Letters on the Elementary

Principles of Education_ (1801),[239] has a more theoretical

character than the book of Miss Edgeworth. With her it is above all

else a question of principles, which, she says, are more necessary

than rules. We find but few reflections on teaching proper. She

borrows the very words of Dugald Stewart to define the object of

education:--

“The most essential objects of education are the following:

_first_, to cultivate all the various principles of our nature,

both speculative and active, in such a manner as to bring them

to the greatest perfection of which they are susceptible; and

_secondly_, by watching over the impressions and associations

which the mind receives in early life, to secure it against the

influence of prevailing errors; and, as far as possible, to engage

its prepossessions on the side of truth.”[240]

To cultivate the intellectual and moral faculties, Miss Hamilton

places her chief dependence, as we have said, on the principle of

the association of ideas. We must break up, or, rather, prevent

from being formed, all false associations, that is, all inaccurate

judgments. Order once re-established among ideas, the will will

be upright, and the conduct well regulated. In other terms, this

was to subordinate, perhaps too completely, the development of the

moral faculties to the culture of the intellectual faculties.

“It is evident,” says Miss Hamilton, “that all our desires are in

accord with ideas of pleasure, and all our aversions with ideas of

pain.”

The educator will then try to associate the idea of pleasure with

what is good and useful for the child and for the man.

Let us also note, in passing, the solicitude of Miss Hamilton for

the education of the people:--

“From most of the writers on education it would appear that it is

only to people of rank and fortune that education is a matter of

any importance.... My plan has for its object the cultivation of

the faculties that are common to the whole human race.”[241]

On this point her thought was the same as that of Miss Edgeworth,

whose father, in 1799, in the Irish Parliament, had caused the

adoption of the first law on primary instruction.

569. MADAME CAMPAN (1752-1822).--Twenty-five years’ experience,

either at the court of Louis XV., or in the school at

Saint-Germain, which she founded under the Revolution, or finally

in the institution at Écouen, the direction of which was entrusted

to her by Napoleon I., in 1807,--such are the claims which at

once assure to Madame Campan some authority on pedagogical

questions.[242] Let us add that good sense, a methodical and

prudent mind,--in a word, qualities which were reasonable rather

than brilliant,--directed that long personal experience.

“First I saw,” she said, “then I reflected, and finally I wrote.”

570. EULOGY ON HOME EDUCATION.--From a teacher, from the directress

of a school, we would expect prejudices in favor of public

education in boarding-schools. That which secures our ready

confidence, is that Madame Campan, on the contrary, appreciates

better than any one else the advantages of maternal education:--

“To create mothers,” she said, “this is the whole education of

women.” Nothing seems to her superior to a mother governess “who

does not keep late hours, who rises betimes,” who, finally, devotes

herself resolutely to the important duty with which she is charged.

“There is no boarding-school, however well it may be conducted,

there is no convent, however pious its government may be, which

can give an education comparable to that which a young girl

receives from a mother who is educated, and who finds her sweetest

occupation and her true glory in the education of her daughter.”

Madame Campan, moreover, reminds mothers who would be the teachers

of their own daughters, of all the obligations which are involved

in such a charge. Too often the mother who jealously keeps her

daughter near her, is not capable of educating her. In this case

there is only the appearance of home education, and as Madame

Campan wittily says, “this is no longer _maternal education_; it is

but _education at home_.”

571. PROGRESS IN INSTRUCTION.--Fénelon was Madame Campan’s favorite

author. On the other hand, there was some resemblance between the

rules of the school at Écouen and those of Saint Cyr. The spirit of

the seventeenth century lives again in the educational institutions

of the nineteenth, and Madame Campan continues the work of Madame

de Maintenon.

However, there is progress in more than one respect, and the

instruction is more solid and more complete.

“The purpose of education,” wrote Madame Campan to the Emperor,

“ought to be directed: 1. towards the domestic virtues; 2. towards

instruction, to such a degree of perfection in the knowledge of

language, computation, history, writing, and geography, that all

pupils shall be assured of the happiness of being able to instruct

their own daughters.”

Madame Campan desired, moreover, to extend her work. She demanded

of the Emperor the creation of several public establishments “for

educating the daughters of certain classes of the servants of the

State.” She desired that the government should take under its

supervision private institutions, and contemplated for women as

for men a sort of university “which might replace the convents and

the colleges.” But Napoleon was not the man to enter into these

schemes. The schools of “women-logicians” were scarcely to his

taste, and the teaching congregations, which he restored to their

privileges, the better served his purpose.

572. INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--One might believe that Madame

Campan, who had begun by being the teacher of the three daughters

of Louis XV., and who associated with scarcely any save the wealthy

or the titled, had never had the taste or the leisure to think of

popular instruction. It is nothing of the sort, as is proved by her

_Counsels to Young Girls, a work intended for Elementary Schools_.

“There is no ground for fearing that the daughters of the rich

will ever be in want of books to instruct them or of governesses

to direct them. It is not at all so with the children who belong

to the less fortunate classes.... I have seen with my own eyes

how incomplete and neglected is the education of the daughters of

country people.... It is for them that I have penned this little

work.”

The work itself has not perhaps the tone that could be desired, nor

all the simplicity that the author would have wished to give it;

but we must thank Madame Campan for her intentions, and we count

among her highest claims to the esteem of posterity the effort

which she made in her old age to become, at least in her writings,

a simple school-mistress and a village teacher.

573. MADAME DE RÉMUSAT (1780-1821).--Madame de Rémusat has written

only for women of the world. Herself a woman of the world, lady of

the palace of the Empress Josephine, she had no personal experience

in the way of teaching. She had nothing to do with the practice of

education save in supervising the studies of her two sons, one of

whom became a philosopher and an illustrious statesman, Charles

de Rémusat. The noble book of Madame de Rémusat, her _Essay on

the Education of Women_, does not commend itself by reason of

its detailed precepts and scholastic methods, but by its lofty

reflections and general principles.[243]

574. SKETCH OF FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY.--Let us first notice different

passages in which the author sketches by a few touches the

psychology of woman, and determines her sphere in life:--

“Woman is the companion of man upon the earth, but yet she exists

on her own account; she is _inferior_, but not _subordinate_.”

The expression here betrays Madame de Rémusat, and it would be

more accurate to say that woman is not inferior to man, that she

is his equal, but that in existing civil and social conditions she

necessarily remains subordinate to him.

But with what perfect justness the amiable writer characterizes the

peculiar qualities of woman!

“We lack continuity and depth when we would apply ourselves to

general questions. Endowed with a quick intelligence, we hear

promptly, we even divine and see just as well as men; but too

easily moved to remain impartial, too mobile to be profound,

perceiving is easier for us than observing. Prolonged attention

wearies us; we are, in short, more mild than patient. More

sensitive and more devoted than men, women are ignorant of that

sort of selfishness which an independent being exhibits outwardly

as a consciousness of his own power. To obtain from them any

activity whatever, it is almost always necessary to _interest them

in the happiness of another_. Their very faults are the outgrowths

of their condition. The same cause will excite in man emotions of

pride, and in woman only those of vanity.”

575. THE SERIOUS IN EDUCATION.--Madame de Rémusat, still more than

Madame Campan, belongs to the modern school. She desires for woman

an education serious and grave.

“I see no reason for treating women less seriously than men, for

misrepresenting truth to them under the form of a prejudice, duty

under the appearance of a superstition, in order that they may

accept both the duty and the truth.”

She does not in the least incline to the opinion of the

over-courteous moralist Joubert, who, with more gallantry than real

respect for women, said: “Nothing too earthly or too material ought

to employ young ladies; only delicate material should busy their

hands.... They resemble the imagination, and like it they should

touch only the surface of things.”[244]

Madame de Rémusat enters into the spirit of her time, and her

admiration for the age of Louis XIV. does not make her forget what

she owes to the new society, transformed by great political reforms.

“We are drawing near the time when every Frenchman shall be a

citizen. In her turn, the destiny of woman is comprised in these

two terms: _wife and mother of a citizen_. There is much morality,

and a very severe and touching morality, in the idea which ought to

be attached to that word _citizen_. After religion, I do not know

a more powerful motive than the patriotic spirit for directing the

young towards the good.”

It is no longer a question, then, of training the woman and the

man for themselves, for their individual destiny. They must be

educated for the public good, for their duties in society. Madame

de Rémusat is not one of those timid and frightened women who

feel a homesickness for the past, whom the present terrifies.

Liberal and courageous, she manfully accepts the new régime; she

proclaims its advantages, and, if she writes like a woman of the

seventeenth century, almost with the perfection of Madame de

Sévigné, her chosen model, she at least thinks like a daughter of

the Revolution.

576. PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT.--That which is not less remarkable is

the philosophical character of her reflections. She believes in

liberty and in conscience. It is conscience which she purposes

to substitute, as a moral rule, “for despotic and superficial

caprices.” It is no longer by the imperative term, _you must_, but

by the obligatory term, _you ought_, that the mother should lead

and govern her daughter.

“On every occasion let these words, _I ought_, re-appear in the

conversation of the mother.”

This is saying that the child ought to be treated as a free

being. The end, and at the same time the most efficient means, of

education, is the wise employment of liberty. While keeping the

oversight of the child, he must be left to take care of himself,

and on many occasions to follow the course that he will. By this

means his will will be developed, and his character strengthened;

and this is an essential point according to Madame de Rémusat.

“If under Louis XIV.,” she says, “the education of woman’s mind

was grave and often substantial, that of her character remained

imperfect.”

577. MADAME GUIZOT (1773-1827).--Madame Guizot first became known

under her maiden name, Pauline de Meulan. In the closing years

of the eighteenth century she had written several romances, and

had contributed to the review of Suard, the _Publiciste_. In 1812

she married Guizot, the future author of the law of 1833, who had

just founded the _Annals of Education_.[245] From this period, all

her ideas and all her writings were directed almost exclusively

towards ethics and education. She published in succession,

_Children_ (1812), _Raoul and Victor_ (1821), and, finally, her

masterpiece, the _Family Letters on Education_ (1826).

578. THE LETTERS ON EDUCATION.--To give at once an idea of

the merit of this book,[246] we shall quote the opinion of

Sainte-Beuve:--

“The work of Madame Guizot will survive the _Émile_, marking in

this line the progress of the sound, temperate, and refined reason

of our times, over the venturesome genius of Rousseau, just as in

politics the _Démocratie_ of De Tocqueville is an advance over

the _Contrat Social_. Essential to meditate upon, as advice, in

all education which would prepare strong men for the difficulties

of our modern society, this book also contains, in the way of

exposition, the noblest moral pages, the most sincere and the

most convincing, which, with a few pages from Jouffroy, have been

suggested to the philosophy of our age by the doctrines of a

spiritualistic rationalism.”

579. PSYCHOLOGICAL OPTIMISM.--The philosophical spirit is not

lacking in the _Letters on Education_. The whole of Letter XII. is

a plea in behalf of the relative innocence of the child. That which

is bad in the disorderly inclination, says the author, is not the

inclination, but the disorder:--

“The inclinations of a sentient being are in themselves what they

ought to be. It has been said that a man could not be virtuous

if he did not conquer his inclinations; hence, his inclinations

are evil. This is an error. No more could the tree produce good

fruit, if, in pruning it, the disorderly flow of the sap were not

arrested. Does this prove that the sap is harmful to the tree?”

It follows from these principles that discipline ought not to be

severe.

“Do you not think it strange,” exclaims Madame Guizot, “that for

centuries education has been, so to speak, a systematic hostility

against human nature; that to correct and to punish have been

synonymous; and that we have heard only of dispositions to break,

and natures to overcome, just as though it were a question of

taking away from children the nature which God has given them in

order to give them another such as teachers would have it?”

580. NATURE OF THE CHILD.--That which gives a great value to the

work of Madame Guizot is, that besides the general considerations

and the philosophical reflections, we there find a great number

of circumstantial experiences and detailed observations which are

admissible in a sound treatise on pedagogy. Like the psychology of

the child, pedagogy itself, at least in its first chapters, ought

to be conceived and written near a cradle. Madame Guizot forcibly

indicates the importance of the first years, where the future

destiny of the child is determined: “In those imperfect organs, in

that incomplete intelligence, are contained, from the first moment

of existence, the germs of that which is ever more to proceed from

them either for better or for worse. The man will never have, in

the whole course of his life, an impulse which does not belong to

that nature, all the features of which are already foreshadowed

in the infant. The infant will never receive a keen and durable

impression, however slight, an impress of whatever kind, whose

effects are not to influence the life of the man.”

At the same time that she sees in the infant the rough draft of

the man, Madame Guizot recognizes with a remarkable delicacy

of psychologic sense, that which distinguishes, that which

characterizes, the irreflective and inconsiderate nature of the

child. What is more just than this observation?

“We often deceive ourselves in attributing to the conduct of

children, because it is analogous to our own, motives similar to

those which guide ourselves.”

What better observation than the example which Madame Guizot cites

in support of this statement!

“Louise, by a sudden impulse, drops her toys, throws herself upon

my neck, and cannot cease kissing me. It seems that all my mother’s

heart could not sufficiently respond to the warmth of her caresses;

but by the same playful impulse she leaves me to kiss her doll or

the arm of the chair which she meets on her way.”

581. PHILOSOPHIC RATIONALISM.--Madame Guizot pushes rationalism

much farther than Madame de Rémusat, and still farther than Madame

Necker de Saussure. She is first a philosopher, then a Christian.

She more nearly approaches Rousseau. She would first form in the

minds of children the universal idea of God before initiating

them into the particular dogmas of positive religions. She bases

morals on the idea of duty, which is “the only basis of a complete

education.”

“I would place,” she says, “each act of the child under the

protection of an idea or of a moral sentiment.”

Recalling the distinction made by Dupont de Nemours between

_paternal commands_ and _military commands_, the first addressing

themselves to the reason, the others to be observed without protest

and with a passive obedience, she does not conceal her preference

for the use of the first, because she would form in the woman,

as in the man, a spirit of reason and of liberty. She absolutely

proscribes personal interest, and hence declares that “rewards have

always seemed to her contrary to the true principle of education.”

Let us say, lastly, without being able to enter into detail, that

the book of Madame Guizot deserves to be read with care. There

will be found in it a great number of excellent reflections on

instruction which ought to be substantial rather than extensive;

upon the reading of romances, and upon the theatre, which she does

not forbid; upon easy methods, which she condemns; and, finally, on

almost all pedagogical questions.[247]

582. MADAME NECKER DE SAUSSURE (1765-1841).--There are in the

history of education privileged moments, periods that are

particularly and happily fruitful. It is thus that within the space

of a few years there appeared in succession the books of Madame

de Rémusat, of Madame Guizot, and, the most important of all, the

_Progressive Education_ of Madame Necker de Saussure.[248]

A native of Geneva, like Rousseau, Madame Necker de Saussure has

endowed French literature with an educational masterpiece, which

for elevation of view and nobleness of inspiration, can take rank

by the side of the _Émile_. Though she may sometimes be too logical

and too austere, and while in general she is lacking in good humor,

and while she looks upon life only through a veil of sadness,

Madame Necker is an incomparable guide in educational affairs.

She brings to the subject remarkable qualities of perspicacity

and penetration, and a spirit of marked gravity. She takes a

serious view of life, and applies herself to training the noblest

qualities of the human soul. Profoundly religious, she unites a

“philosophical boldness to the submission of faith.” She is, in

some measure, a Christian Rousseau.

583. MADAME NECKER DE SAUSSURE AND MADAME DE STAËL.--The first work

of Madame Necker, _Notice of the Character and the Writings of

Madame de Staël_, already gives proof of her interest in education.

The author of the _Progressive Education_ here studies with care

the ideas of her heroine on education and instruction. It is plain

that she has profited by some of the solid reflections in the noble

book on _Germany_, and particularly by this opinion on the gradual

and progressive method of Rousseau and of Pestalozzi:--

“Rousseau calls children into activity by degrees. He would have

them do for themselves all that their little powers permit them

to do. He does not in the least force their intelligence; he does

not make them reach the result without passing over the route.

He wishes the faculties to be developed before the sciences are

taught.”

“What wearies children is to make them jump over intermediate

parts, to make them advance without their really knowing what they

think they have learned. With Pestalozzi there is no trace of these

difficulties. With him, children take delight in their studies,

because even in infancy, they taste the pleasure of grown men,

namely, comprehending and completing that on which they have been

engaged.”

Moreover, Madame Necker must have recognized her own spirit, her

preference for a severe and painstaking education, in this passage

where Madame de Staël vigorously protested against amusing and easy

methods of instruction:--

“The education that takes place through amusement dissipates

thought; labor of some sort is one of the great aids of nature; the

mind of the child ought to accustom itself to the labor of study,

just as our soul to suffering.... You will teach a multitude of

things to your child by means of pictures and cards, but you will

not teach him how to learn.”

584. PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION AND ROUSSEAU.--It is undeniable that

Madame Necker owes much to Rousseau; but she is far from always

agreeing with him.

For Rousseau, man is good; for her, man is bad. The first duty of

the teacher should be to reform him, to raise him from his fall;

the purpose of life is not happiness, as an immoral doctrine

maintains, but it is improvement; the basis of education ought to

be religion.

Even when she is inspired by Rousseau, Madame Necker is not long

in separating from him. Thus we may believe that she borrows from

him the fundamental idea of her book, the idea of a successive

development of the faculties, to which should correspond a

parallel movement in educational methods. Like the author of the

_Émile_, she follows the awakening of the senses in the infant.

She considers the infant as a being _sui generis_ “who lives only

on sensations and desires.” She sees in the infant a distinct

period of life, an age whose education has its own special rules.

But at that point the resemblances stop; for Madame Necker de

Saussure hastens to add that, from the fifth year, the child is

in possession of all his intellectual faculties. He is no longer

simply a sentient being, a robust animal like Émile; but he is

a complete being, soul and body. Consequently, education should

take account of his double nature. Moral education ought not to be

separated from physical education, and cannot begin too soon.

“It is a great error to believe that nature proceeds in the

systematic order imagined by Rousseau. With her, we nowhere discern

a commencement; we do not surprise her at creating, and it always

seems that she is developing.”

So, in education, we must know how to appeal, at the same time

and as soon as possible, to the different motives, instinctive or

reflective, selfish or affectionate, which sway the will.

Often, in practice, the two thinkers approach each other, and,

even in her protestations against her countryman, Madame Necker

de Saussure preserves something of Rousseau’s spirit. Thus, she

does not desire the negative education which leaves everything to

nature. The teacher ought not to _allow_ the child to do (_laisser

faire_), but _cause_ him to do (_faire faire_). But, at the same

time, she demands that the will be strengthened, so that education

may find in it a point of support; that the character be hardened;

that some degree of independence be accorded to the child; “that

in permissible cases he be allowed to come to his own decision;

and that half-orders, half-obligations, tacit entreaties, and

insinuations, be avoided.” Is not this retaining all that is just

and practical in Rousseau’s theory, namely, the necessity of

associating the special and spontaneous powers of the child with

the work of education? Madame de Saussure adopts a just medium

between the active education which makes a misuse of the master’s

instruction, and the passive education which makes a misuse of the

pupil’s liberty. She would willingly have accepted this precept of

Frœbel, “Let teachers not lose sight of this truth: it is necessary

that always and at the same time they give and take, that they

precede and follow, that they act and let act.”

585. ORIGINALITY OF MADAME NECKER.--Though she had reflected much

on the writings of her predecessors, it is nevertheless to her

personal experience and to her original investigations that Madame

Necker owes the best of her thought. She had herself followed the

advice which she gives to mothers, of “observing their children,

and of keeping a journal, in which a record should be made of each

step of progress, and in which all the vicissitudes of physical and

moral health should be noted.” It is a rich psychological fund, and

at the same time a perpetual aspiration after the ideal, which

makes the strength and the beauty of the _Progressive Education_.

With what penetrating insight Madame Necker has pointed out the

difficulty and also the charm of the study of children!

“It were so delightful to fix the fugitive image of childhood, to

prolong indefinitely the happiness of contemplating their features,

and to be sure of ever finding again those dear creatures whom,

alas, we are always losing as children, even when we still have the

happiness of keeping them!”

“We must love children in order to know them, and we divine them

less by the intelligence than by the heart.”

Thanks to the pronounced taste for the study of child nature, the

most just psychological observations are ever mingled, in the

_Progressive Education_, with the precepts of education, and it has

been truly said that “this book is almost a journal of domestic

education which takes the proportions of a theory.”

586. DIVISION OF THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION.--The _Progressive

Education_ appeared in 1836 and 1838 in three volumes. The first

three books treat of the history of the soul in infancy; the fourth

examines the general principles of teaching, independently of the

age of the pupil; the fifth studies the child of from five to seven

years of age; the sixth takes us to the tenth year; the seventh

shows “the distinctive marks of the character and the intellectual

development of boys, during the years which immediately precede

adolescence.” Finally, the last four books form a complete whole,

and treat of the education of women during the whole course of life.

587. DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACULTIES.--We cannot attempt in this place

to analyze a work so rich in ideas as the work of Madame Necker.

Let us limit ourselves to indicating the essential points in her

system of education. First, it is the preoccupation of training the

will, a faculty which is too much neglected by teachers, but which,

nevertheless, is the endowment which dominates life. Madame Necker

treats this subject in a masterly way in a chapter to which she

prefixes these words as a superscription:--

“Obedience to law constrains the will without enfeebling it, while

obedience to man injures it or enervates it.

“It is, above all, to place the interior education of the soul

above superficial and formal instruction.

“To instruct a child is to construct him within; it is to make him

become a man.”

588. CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION.--Whatever importance she

attaches to the active powers, Madame Necker does not neglect the

contemplative faculties. The imagination, next to the will, is the

faculty of the soul which has most often engrossed her attention.

“She has made it appear,” says a distinguished writer, “that this

irresistible power, when we believe it to have been conquered,

takes the most diverse forms; that it disguises its power and

arouses with a secret fire the most miserable passions. If

you refuse it space and liberty, it slinks away in the depths

of selfishness, and under vulgar features it becomes avarice,

cowardice, and vanity.”

“So it is necessary to see with what tender anxiety Madame Necker

watches its first movements in the soul of the child; with what

intelligent care she seeks to make of it from entrance upon life,

the companion of truth; how she surrounds it with everything which

can establish it within the circle of the good. The studies which

extend our intellectual horizon, the spectacle of nature in her

marvelous diversities, the emotions of the arts,--nothing seems

to her superfluous or dangerous for directing the imagination in

the way that is good. She fears to see it escape, through the lack

of pleasures that are intense enough, in the direction of other

routes.”[249]

In other terms, it is not proposed to repress the imagination,

still less to destroy it; but merely to guide it gently, to

associate it with reason and virtue, to awaken it to a taste for

the good, and to an admiration for nature.

“Show him a beautiful sunset, in order that nothing which can

enchant him may pass unnoticed.”

589. THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.--In her special studies on the

education of women, Madame Necker, who in other parts of her

work sometimes makes an improper use of vague declarations of

principles, without entering sufficiently into the details of

practical processes, has had the double merit of assigning to

the destiny of women an elevated ideal, and of determining with

precision the means of attaining it. She complains that we too

often adhere to Rousseau’s programme, that of an education which

relates exclusively to the conjugal duties of the woman. She

recommends that the marriage of young girls be delayed, so that

they may have time to become “enlightened spirits and intelligent

creatures”; so that they may acquire, not “an assortment of all

petty knowledges,” but a solid instruction, which prepares them

for the duties of society and of maternity, which make of them the

first teachers of their children, which, in a word, starts them

on the way towards that personal perfection which they will never

completely attain except by the efforts of their whole life.[250]

590. MADAME PAPE-CARPENTIER (1815-1878).--With Madame

Pape-Carpentier, we leave the region of theories to enter the

domain of facts; we have to do with a practical teacher. In 1846,

after several trials at teaching at La Flèche, her native city, and

at Mans, she published her _Counsels on the Management of Infant

Schools_. In 1847 she founded at Paris a _Mothers’ Normal School_,

which the next year, under the ministry of Carnot, became a public

establishment, and which, in 1852, under the ministry of Fortoul,

took the distinctive title _Practical Courses on Infant Schools_.

It is there that during twenty-seven years Madame Pape-Carpentier

applied her methods and trained a large number of pupils, more

than fifteen hundred, who have propagated in France and abroad

her teaching and her ideas. In 1847 she was removed from the

management of her normal school through intrigues; but her loss of

position was not of long duration. A little later she was appointed

inspector-general of infant schools.

591. GENERAL CHARACTER OF HER WORKS.--Madame Pape-Carpentier may

be considered as a pupil of Pestalozzi and of Frœbel. She was

specially occupied with elementary education, and carried into

her work a spirit of great simplicity. We must not demand of her

ambitious generalities nor views on abstract metaphysics; but she

excels in practical wisdom, and speaks the language of childhood to

perfection.

592. PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MADAME PAPE-CARPENTIER.--Among the

important works of Madame Pape-Carpentier we shall recommend the

following in particular:--

1. _Advice on the Management of Infant Schools_ (1845). In her

preface the author excuses herself for undertaking “a subject of

such gravity.” But she goes on to say that “no instruction has yet

been given the teacher on the education of the poor child,” and

she asks the privilege of speaking in the name of her personal

experience. This book, often reprinted, has become _Enseignement

pratique dans les salles d’asile_.[251]

2. _Narratives and Lessons on Objects_ (1858). This is a collection

of little stories, “simple as childhood,” which were tested before

children before being written, and in which Madame Pape-Carpentier

attempts to teach them things which are good: “I mean,” she says,

“things really, seriously good.”

3. _Pedagogical Discussions held at the Sorbonne_ (1867). During

the Universal Exposition of 1867, Monsieur Duruy had assembled

at Paris a certain number of teachers before whom pedagogical

discussions were held. Madame Pape-Carpentier took upon herself the

special task of explaining to them how the methods of the infant

school might be introduced into the primary school.

4. _Reading and Work for Children and Mothers_ (1873). Here Madame

Pape-Carpentier is especially intent on popularizing the methods

of Frœbel; she suggests ingenious exercises which can be applied

to children to give them skill in the use of their fingers, and to

inspire them with a taste for order and symmetry.

5. _Complete Course of Education_ (1874). This book, which would

have been the general statement of the pedagogical principles of

the author, was left incomplete. Only three volumes have appeared.

A few quotations will make known their spirit.

“To co-operate with nature in her work, to extend it, to correct

her when she goes wrong,--such is the task of the educator. In all

grades of education, nature must be respected.

“The child should live in the midst of fresh and soothing

impressions; the objects which surround him in the school should be

graceful and cheerful.

“Socrates has admirably said, ‘The duty of education is to give the

idea birth rather than to communicate it.’”

6. _Note on the Education of the Senses, and some Pedagogical

Appliances_ (1878). Madame Pape-Carpentier is very much interested

in the education of the senses, because, she says, “every child

born into the world is a workman in prospect, a future apprentice

to an occupation still unknown.” It is then necessary to perfect at

an early hour the natural tools he will need in order to fulfill

his task. The education of the senses will have its place some day

or other in the official programmes, and, for this sense-training,

instruments are just as necessary as books are for the culture of

the intellect.

593. LESSONS ON OBJECTS.--“The object-lesson is the new continent

on which Madame Pape-Carpentier has planted her standard.”

She herself wrote a number of works which contain models of

object-lessons; she has stated the theory of them, notably in her

discussions of 1867. It is even permissible to think that she has

made a wrong use of them. With her, the object-lesson becomes a

universal process which she applies to all subjects, to chemistry,

to physics, to grammar, to geography, and to ethics.

However it may be, this is the course to follow according to her:

it is necessary to conform to the order in which the perceptions of

the intelligence succeed each other. The child’s attention is first

struck by color. Then he will distinguish the form of the object,

and would know its use, its material, and mode of production. It is

according to this natural development of the child’s curiosity that

the object-lesson should proceed.

Moreover, it can be given with reference to everything. Madame

Pape-Carpentier admits what she calls “occasional lessons”; but she

also thinks that object-lessons can be given according to a plan,

a fixed programme.

Madame Pape-Carpentier deserves, then, to be heard as an

experienced adviser in whatever relates to elementary instruction;

but that which we must admire in her still more than her

professional skill and her pedagogical knowledge, is an elevated

conception of the teacher’s work, and a lofty inspiration coming

from her devotion to children and her love for them.

“To educate children properly,” she said, “ought to be for the

teacher only the second part of his undertaking; the first, and the

most difficult, is to perfect himself.”

“What we are able to do for children is measured by the love we

bear them.”

594. OTHER WOMEN WHO WERE EDUCATORS.--If the education of women

has received an important development in our day, it is due, then,

in great part to the women who have shown what they were worth and

what they could do, either as teachers or as educators. And yet

the history whose principal features we have just traced remains

very incomplete. By the side of the celebrated women whose works we

have studied, we should mention Mademoiselle Sauvan, who, in 1811,

founded at Chaillot an educational establishment which she did not

leave till about 1830, to take the intellectual and moral direction

of the girls’ schools of Paris;[252] Madame de Maisonneuve, author

of an _Essay on the Instruction of Women_,[253] in which she sums

up the results of a long experience acquired in the management of

a private boarding-school.

But men have also contributed by their theoretical objections, or

by their practical efforts, to the progress of the education of

women. It would be of interest, for example, to study the courses

in secondary instruction of Lourmand (1834), and the _Courses in

Maternal Education_, of Lévi Alvarès (1820). “Monsieur Lévi,”

says Gréard, “makes the mother tongue and history the basis of

instruction. He himself sums up his methods in this formula of

progressive education: Facts, comparison of facts, moral or

philosophical consequence of facts; that is, seeing, comparing,

judging. This is the very order of nature.” Let us mention also the

work of Aimé Martin, _The Education of Mothers_,[254] which for

several years enjoyed an extraordinary reputation that it would be

rather difficult to justify.

595. DUPANLOUP AND THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.--A bishop of the

nineteenth century, Dupanloup, has assumed to rival Fénelon in the

delicate question of the education of women. Different works, and

in particular the one which he esteemed most, his _Letters on the

Education of Girls_, published after his death in 1879, give proof

of the interest which he took in these questions. These letters are

for the most part real letters which were addressed to women of the

time. Notwithstanding the variety and the freedom of the epistolary

form, the work may be divided into three parts: 1. the principles

of education; 2. the education of young women; 3. free and personal

study in the world. Dupanloup should be thanked for having summoned

woman to a true intellectual culture, and for not consenting to

have her faculties remain “smothered and useless.” Through the

revelations of the confessional and the spiritual direction of

a great number of women, Dupanloup knew exactly what a void an

incomplete education of the mind and heart leaves in the soul. He

is indeed willing to acknowledge that piety is not enough, and with

a certain breadth of spirit which drew upon him the censure of the

ultramontane press, he recommends the serious studies to women.

His counsels, however, are addressed only to women of the middle

classes, to those who, he says, “occupy the third story of houses

in Paris.” His book is rather a reminiscence of the seventeenth

century, of its manners and its habits of thinking, than a living

work of to-day, adapted to the needs of modern society.

[596. ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.--1. The formal discussion of woman’s

education by women marks an important epoch in the history of

education. Had the education of men been wholly, or even chiefly,

discussed by women, it cannot be doubted that it would have been

more or less partial and imperfect.

2. The formal discussion of infant education by women is scarcely

less important; for nothing less than maternal instinct and

affection can divine the nature and the needs of the child.

3. This study calls attention to the need of making the

education of women serious instead of ornamental. Plato based

his recommendation of the equal education of men and women

on equality of civil functions. In modern thought it is the

conception of equal rights and of equal abilities that tends to

prescribe the same course of intellectual training for both sexes.

4. The educational work of the two Englishwomen, Miss Edgeworth

and Miss Hamilton, can be studied with great profit. The first

excels in practical wisdom, and the second in philosophic insight.

5. _The Progressive Education_ of Madame Necker is a classic

which fairly ranks with the _Émile_ of Rousseau, and the

_Education_ of Herbert Spencer.]

FOOTNOTES:

[237] Gréard, _Mémoire sur l’enseignement secondaire des filles_,

p. 78.

[238] French translation by Pictet, 1801.

[239] French translation by Chéron, 2 vols., Paris, 1804.

[240] Stewart, _Elements_, p. 11.

[241] _Letters_, Vol. I. p. 11.

[242] See the two volumes published in 1824 by Barrière, on the

_Éducation, par Madame Campan_, followed by the _Conseils aux

jeunes filles_.

[243] The work of Madame de Rémusat was published in 1824, after

the author’s death, under the direction of Charles de Rémusat.

[244] Joubert, _Pensées_.

[245] The _Annales de l’éducation_ appeared from 1811 to 1814. It

is an interesting collection to consult. In it Guizot published

among other pedagogical works, his studies on the ideas of Rabelais

and Montaigne, afterwards reprinted in the volume, _Études Morales_.

[246] _Éducation domestique ou Lettres de famille sur l’éducation._

2 vols. Paris, 1826.

[247] See in the _Revue pédagogique_, 1883, No. 6, an interesting

study on Madame Guizot, by Bernard Perez.

[248] _L’Éducation progressive ou Étude du cours de la nature

humaine._ 3 vols. 1836-1838.

[249] Preface to the fifth edition of the _Progressive Education_.

Paris. Garnier.

[250] We must include in the educational school of Madame Necker de

Saussure one of her countrymen, the celebrated Vinet (1799-1847),

who, in his excellent book, _L’Éducation, la famille et la société_

(Paris, 1855), has vigorously discussed certain educational

questions.

[251] See the sixth edition, Paris, Hachette, 1877.

[252] See the work entitled _Mademoiselle Sauvan, première

inspectrice des écoles de Paris, sa vie, son œuvre_, par E. Gossot.

Paris, 1880.

[253] _Essai sur l’instruction des femmes._ Tours, 1841.

[254] The first edition is dated 1834. The ninth was published in

1873.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

THE PEDAGOGY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; VOTES OF THE

COUNCILS-GENERAL (1801); FOURCROY AND THE LAW OF 1802; FOUNDATION

OF THE UNIVERSITY (1806); ORGANIZATION OF THE IMPERIAL

UNIVERSITY; INTENTIONS OF THE DYNASTY; PRIMARY INSTRUCTION

NEGLECTED; ORIGIN OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION; BELL AND LANCASTER;

SUCCESS OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE; MORAL ADVANTAGES;

ECONOMICAL ADVANTAGES; ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS ON THE MUTUAL

SYSTEM; VICES OF THIS SYSTEM; STATE OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION;

GUIZOT AND THE LAW OF 1833; HIGHER PRIMARY SCHOOLS; CIRCULAR OF

GUIZOT; PROGRESS IN POPULAR INSTRUCTION; PROGRAMMES OF PRIMARY

INSTRUCTION; THE THEORISTS OF EDUCATION; JACOTOT (1770-1840); THE

PARADOXES OF JACOTOT; ALL IS IN ALL; THE SAINT-SIMONIANS AND THE

PHALANSTERIANS; FOURIER (1772-1837); AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857)

AND THE POSITIVISTS; DUPANLOUP (1802-1878); ANALYSIS OF THE

TREATISE ON EDUCATION; ERRORS AND PREJUDICES; THE SPIRITUALISTIC

SCHOOL AND THE UNIVERSITY MEN; ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.

597. THE PEDAGOGY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--An effort more

and more marked to organize education in accordance with the

data of psychology and on a scientific basis, and to co-ordinate

pedagogical methods in accordance with a rational plan; a manifest

tendency to take the control of education from the hands of the

Church in order to restore it to the State and to lay society; a

larger part accorded the family in the management of children; a

faith more and more sanguine in the efficacy of instruction, and

an ever-growing purpose to have every member of the human family

participate in its benefits,--such are some of the characteristics

of the pedagogy of the nineteenth century. Education tends more and

more to become a social problem; it is to be an affair of universal

interest. It is no longer to be merely a question of regulating

select studies for the use of a few who are the favorites of

birth and fortune; but science must be placed within the reach of

all, and through the simplification of methods and the universal

distribution of knowledge, it must be adapted to the democratic

spirit of the new society.

We have no intention to follow in this place, in all its details,

and in the diversity of its currents, this educational movement of

a century which has not yet said its last word; but we must limit

ourselves to calling attention to the points which seem to us

essential.

598. LAWS OF THE COUNCILS-GENERAL OF 1801.--Notwithstanding the

efforts of the Revolution, public instruction in France, during

the first part of the nineteenth century, was far from being

flourishing. There was urgent need of introducing reforms. The

Councils-General were summoned in 1801 to give their advice on the

organization of studies. That which is very noticeable in the State

papers of the Councils-General of 1801, is that the departmental

assemblies agree in demanding the establishment of a National

University. The Councils-General complain that the professors,

being no longer united by the ties of solidarity, as were the

members of the religious teaching congregations of the old régime,

march at random, without unity, without concerted direction.

They solicit, then, a uniform organization of instruction. They

even conceive the idea of an official instruction administered

exclusively by the State.

599. FOURCROY[255] AND THE LAW OF 1802.--We have not the space to

dwell long on the bill of Fourcroy, which became the law of 1802,

although this measure, it has been said, was amended twenty-three

times before being submitted to the Corps Législatif and to the

Tribunate.

Fourcroy did not sufficiently recognize the rights of the State.

Doubtless he did not go so far as to assert, with Adam Smith, that

education should be abandoned entirely to private enterprise; but

he thinks that the task of organizing the primary schools must be

left to the communes. In his opinion, that which prevented the

success of these schools was the attempt to impose too great a

uniformity on them. He demands that the teachers be chosen by the

mayors, or by the municipal councillors, who alone are cognizant

of the local interests. The primary school is the need of all.

Then let it be the affair of all. Fourcroy was mistaken. Primary

instruction became a reality in France only on the day when the

State vigorously put its hand on it.

On certain points, however, the law of 1802 prepared the way for

the approaching creation of Napoleon; for example, in giving to the

First Consul the appointment of the professors of the colleges,

and in placing the primary schools under the supervision of the

prefects.

600. FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY (1806).--The law of May 11,

1806, completed by the decrees of March 17, 1808, and of 1811,

established the University, that is, a teaching corporation, unique

and entirely dependent on the State:--

“There shall be constituted a body charged exclusively with

instruction and public education throughout the whole extent of the

Empire.”

Instruction thus became a function of the State, on the same basis

as the administration of justice or the organization of the army.

At the same time that it lost all autonomy, all independence, the

University gained the formidable privilege of being alone charged

with the national instruction.

“No one can open a school or teach publicly, without being a member

of the Imperial University and without having been graduated from

one of its Faculties.” “No school can be established outside of the

University, and without the authorization of its head.”

We know what protestations were excited, even on the start, by

the establishment of this University monopoly. “It was not enough

to enchain parents; it was still necessary to dispose of the

children. Mothers have been seen hastening from the extremities

of the Empire, coming to reclaim, in an agony of tears, the

sons whom the government had carried off from them.” Thus spoke

Chateaubriand, before lavishing his adulations on the restorer of

altars, and he added, with an extravagance of imagination which

recoils on itself, “Children were placed in schools where they

were taught at the sound of the drum, irreligion, debauchery, and

contempt for the domestic virtues!” Joseph de Maistre was more

just: “Fontanes,”[256] he said, “has large views and excellent

intentions. The plan of his University is grand and comprehensive.

It is a noble body. The soul will come to it when it can. Celibacy,

subordination, devotion of the whole life without religious motive,

are required. Will they be obtained?”[257]

601. ORGANIZATION OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY.--The Imperial

University comprised, like the present University, Colleges,

Lycées, and Faculties. The Colleges furnished secondary

instruction, like the Lycées, but less complete. There were a

Faculty of Letters and a Faculty of Sciences for each academic

centre; but these Faculties were very poorly equipped, with their

endowment of from five to ten thousand francs at most, and with

their few professors. The professors of the neighboring Lycée

(professors of rhetoric and mathematics) formed a part of the

establishment, and each Faculty included at most but two or three

other chairs.

Latin and mathematics formed the basis of the instruction in the

Lycées. The Revolution had not come in vain, since that which it

had vigorously demanded was now realized; the sciences and the

classical languages were put on a footing of equality.

602. DYNASTIC PREPOSSESSIONS.--That which absorbed the attention

of the founder of the Imperial University was less the schemes of

study than the general principles on which the rising generations

were to be nourished. In this respect the thought of the Emperor is

not obscure. He does not dissemble it. God and the Emperor are the

two words which must be graven into the depths of the soul.

“All the schools of the Imperial University will make as the basis

of their instruction: 1. the precepts of the Catholic religion; 2.

fidelity to the Emperor, to the imperial monarchy, the depository

of the happiness of the people, and to the Napoleonic dynasty,

the _conservator of the unity of France_, and of all the ideas

proclaimed by the Constitution.”

“Napoleon,” as Guizot says, “attempted to convert into an

instrument of despotism an institution which tended to be only a

centre of light.”

603. PRIMARY INSTRUCTION NEGLECTED.--Primary instruction never

occupied the attention of Napoleon I. The decree of 1805 contented

itself with promising measures intended to assure the recruitment

of teachers, especially the creation of one or more normal classes

within the colleges and lycées. Moreover, the Grand Master

was to encourage and to license the Brethren of the Christian

Schools, while supervising their establishments. Finally, the

right to establish schools was left to families or to religious

corporations, the budget of the Empire containing no item of

appropriation for the cause of popular instruction.

The Restoration was scarcely more generous towards the instruction

of the people. By the ordinance of February 29, 1815, it granted

_fifty thousand francs_ as encouragement to the primary schools.

Was this derisive liberality any better than complete silence and

neglect? A more important measure was the establishment of cantonal

committees charged with the supervision of primary schools.

These committees were placed, sometimes under the direction of

the rector, and at others under the authority of the bishop, at

the pleasure of the vicissitudes of politics. Certificates of

qualification were delivered to the members of the authorized

congregations, on the simple presentation of their letters of

permission. We can imagine what a body of teachers could be assured

by such a mode of recruitment.

In anticipation of the monarchy of July, which in its liberal

dispositions was to appear more regardful of popular education,

private initiative signalized itself under the Restoration by

the foundation of the _Society for Elementary Instruction_, and

also by the encouragement it gave to the first attempts at mutual

instruction.

604. ORIGIN OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION.--Two Englishmen, Bell and

Lancaster, have claimed the honor of having invented mutual

instruction. The fact is, neither of them invented it; they simply

gave it currency. It is in France, if not in India, that we must

look for the real origin of mutual instruction. We have seen that

Madame de Maintenon, Rollin, La Salle, and Pestalozzi, practised

it, and to a certain extent gave it currency. In the eighteenth

century Herbault had employed it in the hospital of La Pitié

(1747), the Chevalier Paulet at Vincennes (1774), and, finally, the

Abbé Gaultier,[258] also a Frenchman, had introduced the use of it

into London, in 1792, some years before Bell brought it from India.

605. BELL (1753-1832) AND LANCASTER (1778-1838).--Bell and

Lancaster are none the less the first authorized propagators of the

mutual method, or, as the English say, of the _monitorial system_.

Bell had used it at Madras, in imitation of the Hindoo teachers,

and in 1798 he introduced it into England. But at the same period,

a young English teacher, Lancaster, applied the same methods

with success, and, so far as it appears, through a suggestion

absolutely personal and original. Lancaster was a Quaker, and Bell

a Churchman, so that public opinion in England was divided between

the two rivals. The truth is that they had applied at the same time

a system which was known before their day, and which must naturally

have been suggested to all teachers who have too large a number

of children to instruct, as a result of the inadequacy of their

resources and the lack of a teaching force sufficiently large.

606. SUCCESS OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION IN FRANCE.--Mutual instruction,

which was maintained in certain schools of Paris till 1867, for

a long time enjoyed an extraordinary credit in France. Under the

Restoration, its success was so great that it became the fashion,

and even a craze. Patronized by the most eminent men of that day,

by Royer-Collard, by Laisné, by the Duke Decazes, by the Duke

Pasquier, mutual instruction became the flag of the liberal party

in the matter of instruction. Political passions became involved

in it. The new system came into competition with the traditional

instruction of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, and was

fought and denounced as immoral by all the partisans of routine.

“Mutual instruction was charged with destroying the foundation

of social order by delegating to children a power which ought

to belong only to men.... Men held for or against simultaneous

instruction, its rival, as if it were a question of an article of

the Charter.”[259]

607. MORAL ADVANTAGES.--The friends of mutual instruction, in

order to justify their enthusiasm, made the most of moral reasons.

What can be more touching, they said, than to see children

communicating to one another the little that they know? What an

excellent lesson of charity and of mutual aid! The Gospel has

said, _Love one another_. Was it not giving to the divine precept

a happy translation to add, _Instruct one another_! An attempt was

made, moreover, to introduce mutuality into discipline and into

the repression of school faults. The school, on certain solemn

occasions, was converted into a court for trying criminals. “All

this was done very seriously, and it was also very seriously felt

that these practices, passing from a class of children to a class

of adults, would contribute to introduce into society the habits of

a true and useful fraternity.”

608. ECONOMICAL ADVANTAGES.--To tell the truth, mutual instruction

was above all else “a useful expedient,” according to Rollin’s

expression. At a period when teachers were scarce, when the budget

of public instruction did not exist, it was natural that an

economic system which dispensed with teachers, and which reduced

to almost nothing the cost of instruction, should be hailed with

enthusiasm. Let us add that there was also an economy in books,

since “there was need of only one book, which pupils never used,

and which would thus last for several years.”

Jomard calculated that there were 3,000,000 children to instruct,

and that, according to the ordinary system, this would require the

expenditure of more than 45,000,000 francs.[260]

Now, according to the calculations of the Comte de Laborde,[261]

1000 pupils being able to be educated by one single teacher, by

the system of mutual instruction, more easily than 30 could have

been by the old system, a sum of 10,000 francs granted annually

by the State would suffice to educate in twelve years the entire

generation of poor children.[262]

609. ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS ON THE MUTUAL PLAN.--Bell defined

mutual instruction as “the method by means of which a whole school

may instruct itself, under the supervision of one single master.”

Here is the picture of a mutual school, as described by Gréard:--

“That was a striking spectacle at the first glance,--those long

and vast structures which contained a whole school, such as the

older generations of our teachers recollect still to have seen at

the Halle aux Draps. In the middle of the room, throughout its

entire length, were rows of tables having from five to twenty

places each, having at one end, at the right, the desk of the

monitor, and the board having models of writing, itself surmounted

by a standard or telegraph which served to secure, by means of

directions easy to read, regularity of movements; at the side of

the room, and all along the walls, there were rows of semi-circles,

about which were arranged groups of children; on the walls, on a

line with the eye, there was a blackboard on which were performed

the exercises in computation, and from which were suspended the

charts for reading and grammar; right at his side, within reach of

his hand, was the stick with which the teacher was provided for

conducting the lesson; finally, at the lower part of the room,

on a wide and high platform, accessible by steps and surrounded

by a balustrade, was the chair of the master, who, employing in

succession, according to fixed rules, voice, _bâton_, or whistle,

surveyed the tables and groups, distributing commendation or

reproof, and directing, in a word, like a captain on the deck of

his vessel, the whole machinery of instruction.”

In respect of systematic movements and exterior order, nothing

is more charming than the appearance of a school conducted on

the mutual plan. It remains to inquire what were the educational

results of the system, and whether the fashion which brought it

into favor was justified by real advantages.

610. VICES OF MUTUAL INSTRUCTION.--The monitor was the mainspring

of the mutual method. But what was the monitor? A child, more

intelligent, doubtless, than his comrades, but too little

instructed to be equal to his task. The mutual school did not open

till ten o’clock. From eight to ten there was a class for the

monitors. There they learned in haste what they were, for the rest

of the day, to teach to the other children. The purpose of the

master being to form good instruments as quickly as possible, they

were fitted up for their trade by the most expeditious methods.

“What sort of teachers could such a preparation produce? To teach

is to learn twice, it has been truly said; but on the condition

of having reflected on that which has been learned and upon that

which is to be taught. To convey light into the intelligence of

another, it is first necessary to have produced the light within

one’s self, a thing which supposes the enlightened, penetrating,

and persevering action of a mind relatively mature and trained.

From the class where they have just been sitting as pupils, the

monitors--masters improvised as by the wave of a wand,--passed to

the classes of children whom they were to indoctrinate” (Gréard).

The instruction, consequently, became purely mechanical. The

monitor faithfully repeated what he had been taught. Everything was

reduced to mechanical processes.

Let us observe, besides, that from the moral point of view, the

mutual system left much to be desired. The monitors, we are told,

did not escape the intoxications of pride. Even in the family they

became petty tyrants. Parents complained of their dictatorial

habits and their tone of authority.

However it may be, mutual instruction has rendered undeniable

services, thanks to the zeal of such teachers as Mademoiselle

Sauvan and Monsieur Sarazin; but its reputation went on diminishing

in proportion as the State became more and more disposed to make

sacrifices, and as it was possible to multiply the services of

teachers.[263]

611. THE STATE OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION.--Under the title, _Exhibit

of Primary Instruction in France_, a member of the University, P.

Lorain, published in 1837 a _résumé_ of the inquiry, which, by the

orders of Guizot, had been made in 1833 throughout the whole extent

of France, by the labors of more than 400 inspectors. Here are some

of the sad results of this inquiry: all the teachers did not know

how to write; a large number employed the mechanism of the three

fundamental rules without being able to give any theoretical reason

for these operations. “The ignorance was general.”

As under the old régime, the teacher practiced all the trades; he

was day-laborer, shoemaker, innkeeper.

“He had his wife supply his place while he went hunting in the

fields.”

The functions of the teacher, poorly rewarded, exposed to the risk

of a very slender tuition, enjoyed no consideration.

“The teacher was often regarded in the community on the same

footing as a mendicant, and between the herdsman and himself, the

preference was for the herdsman.”

Consequently, the situation of school-master was the most often

sought after by men who were infirm, crippled, unfit for any other

kind of work.

“From the teacher without arms, to the epileptic, how many

infirmities to pass through!”

612. GUIZOT AND THE LAW OF JUNE 28, 1833.--Primary instruction,

so often decreed by the Revolution, was not really organized in

France till by the law of June 28, 1833, the honor of which is due

in particular to Guizot, then minister of public instruction.[264]

Primary instruction was divided into two grades,--elementary and

higher. Henceforth there was to be a school for each commune, or at

least for each group of two or three communes. The State reserved

the right of appointing teachers, and of determining their salary,

which, it is true, in certain places, did not exceed two hundred

francs. Poor children were to be received without pay.

613. HIGHER PRIMARY SCHOOLS.--One of the most praiseworthy purposes

of the legislator of 1833 was the establishment of higher primary

instruction.