(1811-1894)
[Illustration: JEAN VICTOR DURUY]
Duruy, whose monumental works upon Grecian and Roman history have been
worthily reproduced in England under the editorship of Professor
Mahaffy, and in America in sumptuous illustrated editions, was a
figure of the first importance both in the educational and in the
distinctly literary history of France, throughout nearly half the
present century. He became one of the "Immortals" in 1884, succeeding
to the chair of Mignet; but his 'History of Ancient Greece,' which was
published in 1862, had been already crowned by the Academy. His more
extensive 'History of the Grecian People,' published in 1885-1887, won
from the Academy the Jean Renaud prize of 10,000 francs.
He was born September 11th, 1811, of a family employed in the Gobelins
tapestry works in Paris. His predilection for study secured him an
opportunity to enter the College of Sainte-Barbe, whence he passed to
the Normal School.
When he was twenty-two he began teaching history, first at Rheims, and
then in the College of Henry IV. in Paris. Here he began his literary
work, mostly upon school-books, of which he wrote many, mainly
historical and geographical. He received the degree of Doctor of
Letters in 1853, and became successively Inspector of the Academy of
Paris, Master of Conferences at the Normal School, Professor of
History at the Polytechnic School, and Inspector-General of Secondary
Instruction. During the whole of this period he had been engaged with
secondary classes, and had become strongly impressed by the faulty
condition of the primary and secondary schools. In 1863 Louis Napoleon
put him at the head of the educational system of the empire as
Minister of Public Instruction. This appointment gave him the
opportunity to carry out numerous and important secularizing reforms
which brought him into sharp collision with the clerical party. He
held his post as minister for six years--six years of struggle with
the parsimonious disposition of the administration upon the one hand,
and with the hostile clericals upon the other.
The measures in which he was especially interested were the
reorganization of the Museum of Natural History, the extension of
scientific study, the introduction of the study of modern and
contemporary history in the lyceums (a dreadful experiment, according
to his opponents), gratuitous and compulsory primary education, the
improvement of the night schools, and popular classes for adults. He
was to a large extent successful in all these, except in the direction
of compulsory education. The efforts which he made to improve the
instruction given to young girls brought upon him the tempest. The
bishops, with Monsignor Dupanloup of Orleans at their head, raised a
veritable crusade, and Pope Pio Nono himself at length entered the
hostile ranks. Probably in part because of this conflict, he was
superseded in 1869 and was made a member of the Senate, from which he
retired to private life, and the prosecution of his literary labors on
the fall of the empire, in the following year. He died in 1894.
As an author his style is clear and direct. Among his numerous works
the most important are the two great histories, for which, as for
other achievements, honors were heaped upon him. In these he laid
particular stress upon the _milieu_--the conditions of place, time,
and race. Consequently he has therein written the history of the Greek
and Roman peoples, and not merely the history of Greece and Rome,--and
has pictured them, so far as possible, as they looked and felt and
thought and acted. He exhibits, for example, the growth of the
magnificent power of Rome, and its decadence; and shows the
all-conquering empire subdued to the manners, the gods, and the
institutions of the conquered. And worse:--"They had become enamored
of the arts, the letters, and the philosophy of Greece, and dying
Greece had avenged itself by transmitting to them the corruption which
had dishonored its old age."
The drift of his argument appears in this paragraph, in which he sums
up his story of the Eternal City:--"In the earlier portion of its
history may be seen the happy effects of a progressively liberal
policy; in the later the baneful consequences of absolute power,
governing a servile society through a venal administration."