with the ideas of Rousseau. For Rousseau gave utterance, with amazing eloquence, to the thoughts that were suited to the radical spirit of the age.

255. La Chalotais's Essay on National Education

(Paris, 1763. Extracts taken from Compayré)

Louis René de Caradeuc de la Chalotais was a French magistrate and statesman, and one of the striking personalities of the pre-revolutionary period. In 1763 appeared La Chalotais's Essai d'éducation nationale, a practical and philosophical discussion of the problem of the education of a people. The volume was warmly approved by the political philosophers of the period; was translated into several languages; and was deeply influential later on in France in shaping the attitude of the State toward education. The

following brief extracts give some idea as to La Chalotais's reasoning and proposals.

TEACHERS AND PURPOSE

I do not presume to exclude ecclesiastics, but I protest against the exclusion of laymen. I dare claim for the nation an education which depends only on the State, because it belongs essentially to the State; because every State has an inalienable and indefeasible right to instruct its members; because, finally, the children of the State ought to be educated by the members of the State.

It is certain that in the education which was given at Sparta, the prime purpose was to train Spartans. It is thus that in every State the purpose should be to enkindle the spirit of citizenship; and, in our case, to train Frenchmen, and in order to make Frenchmen, to labor to make men of them.

MORAL AND POLITICAL IDEAS

The greatest vice of education, and perhaps the most inevitable, while it shall be entrusted to persons who have renounced the world, is the absolute lack of instruction on the moral and political virtues. Our education does not affect our habits, like that of the ancients. After having endured all the fatigues and irksomeness of the college, the young find themselves in the need of learning in what consist the duties common to all men. They have learned no principle for judging actions, evils, opinions, customs. They have everything to learn on

matters that are so important. They are inspired with a devotion which is but an imitation of religion, and with practices which take the place of virtue, and are but the shadow of it.

NATURAL INSTRUCTION

I wish nothing to be taught children except facts which are attested by the eyes, at the age of seven as at the age of thirty.

The principles for instructing children should be those by which nature herself instructs them. Nature is the best of teachers.

Every method which begins with abstract ideas is not made for children.

Let children see many objects; let there be a variety of such, and let them be shown under many aspects and on various occasions. The memory and the imagination of children cannot be overcharged with useful facts and ideas of which they can make use in the course of their lives.

Most young men know neither the world which they inhabit, the earth which nourishes them, the men who supply their needs, the animals which serve them, nor the workmen and citizens whom they employ. They have not even any desire for this kind of knowledge. No advantage is taken of their natural curiosity for the purpose of increasing it. They know how to admire neither the wonders of nature nor the prodigies of the arts.

Education, according to La Chalotais, should be divided into two periods - the first from five to ten years, and the second from ten to seventeen. For these two periods he would have studies, as follows:

STUDIES

First period. The exercises proposed for the first period are as follows: learning to read, write, and draw; dancing and music, which ought to enter into the education of persons above the commonalty; historical narratives and the lives of illustrious men of every country, of every age, and of every profession; geography, mathematical and physical recreations; the fables of La Fontaine, which, whatever may be said of them, ought not to be removed from the hands of children, but all of which they should be made to learn by heart; and besides this, walks, excursions, merriment, and recreations; I do not propose even the studies except as amusements.

Second period. The course of study for the second period should consist of French and Latin literature, or the humanities; a continuation of history, geography, mathematics, and natural history; criticism, logic, and metaphysics; the art of invention; and ethics. He would also add "the English language for science, and the German for war."

TEXTBOOKS

I would have composed for the use of the child histories of every nation, of every century, and particularly of the later centuries, which should be written with greater detail, and which should be read before those of the more remote centuries. I would have written the lives of illustrious men of all classes, conditions, and professions, of celebrated heroes, scholars, women, and children.

La Chalotais put great dependence on elementary books, which might, he thought, be composed within two years, if the king would encourage the publication of them, and if the Academies would put them up for competition.

These books would be the best instruction which the masters could give, and would take the place of every method. Whatever course we may take, we cannot dispense with new books. These books, once made, would make trained teachers unnecessary, and there would then be no longer any occasion for discussion as to their qualities, whether they should be priests, or married, or single. All would be good, provided they were religious, moral, and knew how to read; they would soon train themselves while training their pupils.

THE STATE AND EDUCATION

It is the State, it is the larger part of the nation, that must be kept principally in view in education; for twenty millions of men ought to be held in greater consideration than one million, and the peasantry, who are not yet a class in France, as they are in Sweden, ought not to be neglected in a system of instruction. Education is equally solicitous that letters should be cultivated, and that the fields should be plowed; that all the sciences and the useful arts should be perfected; that justice should be administered and that religion should be taught; that there should be instructed and competent generals, magistrates, and ecclesiastics, and skillful artists and citizens, all in fit proportion. It is for the government to make each citizen so pleased with his condition that he may not be forced to withdraw from it.

We do not fear to assert, in general, that in the condition in which Europe now is, the people that are the most enlightened will always have the advantage over those who are less so.

256. Outline of Condorcet's Plan for Organizing Public
Instruction in France

(Synopsis of the law; trans. from Professor Vallet de Viriville's Histoire d'Instruction Publique. Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. xxII, pp. 652-53) On April 20-21, 1792, Condorcet submitted to the French Legislative Assembly a Report on behalf of the Committee on Public

Instruction on the need for organizing a complete democratic system of public instruction for France, to insure the perpetuation of liberty and equality, together with a detailed bill (Projet de Décret) for carrying out the plan. The bill is long, but the following synopsis of it gives a very good idea as to the nature of the proposals.

The plan instituted five grades of schools, in which the instruction was to be progressive: (1) Primary Schools; (2) Secondary Schools; (3) Institutes; (4) Lyceums; (5) a National Society of Arts and Sciences. The Primary School receives children at the age of six years. Every village containing over four hundred inhabitants must be provided with one. Tuition will be given in the rules of arithmetic, the first elements of morality, the rudimentary knowledge of natural science and economy, essential either to agriculture, arts, or commerce, according to the rural or manufacturing occupations of the population. Religion will be taught in the churches by the respective ministers of their different creeds. A small collection of books will be furnished to each school for the use of the children.

In Secondary Schools, the tuition comprehends grammar; the history and geography of France, and the neighboring countries; drawing; the principles of the mechanical arts; some instruction in moral and social science, with the explanation of the chief laws and regulations of agreements and contracts; the elements of mathematics, natural philosophy, natural history applied to the arts, manufactures, and commerce. Every secondary school will have a library, some models of machinery, and some philosophical instruments. There will be one at least in every district, or a school for every four thousand inhabitants.

Institutes. The studies are divided into four classes, 1. Mathematical and physical sciences. 2. Moral and political science. 3. Application of the sciences to the arts. 4. Literature and the fine arts. Every institute is furnished with a library and a collection of machines and scientific instruments, with a botanic, and agricultural garden; these three collections are public. There will be at least one institute in each department.

Lyceums. The same plan and arrangements as in the Institutes, but on a grander scale, in the extent and profundity of the studies. There should be nine lyceums in France, distributed in different parts of its territory.

National Society of Arts and Sciences. It was actually the Institute enlarged and connected by a close and direct link to instruction and practical science. Its duty was to direct, oversee, simplify, and increase general education. This supervision and directorship was to transmit from the highest to the lowest, from grade to grade, to the inferior ranks of the hierarchy. The law recognized beside these establishments, five societies to encourage the progress of science, letters, and art, but with limited range.

Ways and Means. Instruction in all its degrees outlined was to be gratuitous, and the appropriations necessary for this purpose were estimated at twenty-nine millions of francs. From this sum a periodical allowance of one million three hundred thousand francs was

to be devoted to the Elèves de la patrie. Condorcet ranks under this term, those penniless children who distinguish themselves, at the beginning, or at any point whatever in their studies, and to whom the state furnished aid in the form of a stipend, in order to permit them to pursue, sheltered from need, the degrees of scientific apprenticeship remaining to be overcome.

257. Founding of the Polytechnic School at Paris

(Report of English Commissioners on Military Education. London, 1857. Compiled from a Report and Appendix)

Of the more permanent fruits of the educational work of the Convention (1792-95), the founding of a number of higher technical institutions and bureaus, many of which have continued to the present time, stand as memorials. Among these, the Polytechnic School, founded October 22, 1795, was one of the most important creations. The following story of its founding and work gives an interesting picture of this early technical school.

The origin of the Ecole Polytechnique dates from a period of disorder and distress in the history of France which might seem alien to all intellectual pursuits, if we did not remember that the general stimulus of a revolutionary period often acts powerfully upon thought and education. It is, perhaps, even more than the Institute, the chief scientific creation of the first French Revolution. . . .

The school and its plan were both owing to an immediate and pressing want. It was to be partly military and partly civil. Military, as well as civil education, had been destroyed by the revolutionists. The committee of public safety had, indeed, formed a provisional school for engineers at Metz, to supply the immediate wants of the army on the frontier, and at this school young men were hastily taught the elements of fortification, and were sent direct to the troops, to learn as they best could, the practice of their art. "But such a method," says the report accompanying the law which founded the school, "does not