CHAPTER IV.

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF FRANCE.*

General view of the system-Administration: central, academic, and departmental—The councils-Tendencies of centralization—Origin of scholastic institutions-Statistical summary 1887-88: enrollment and attendance, finances-Teachers of public primary schools: qualifications, appointments, discipline, salaries, provision for training, pensions-Professors of secondary and superior instruction: classification, salaries— Courses of study: primary, secondary, superior—Organization and management of schools: classes of primary schools, distribution of teachers and pupils among the different grades, secular vs. church schools, buildings and grounds, internal conduct, text-books, etc.-The lycées: boarding vs. scholastic departments, the day's routineCommunal colleges-Secondary schools for girls—Statistical summary of secondary institutions--Institutions for superior instruction: facultés of the State, extension of functions and resources under the Republic, organizing measures, classes of students, fees, degrees, statistical summary-Special schools-Private facultés-Auxiliary associations-Educational activity of Paris.

Area, 204,092 square miles. Population (actual) May 29, 1886, 37,930,759; domiciled, or legal, 38,218,903.

Ciril divisions. For purposes of civil government France is divided into eighty-six departments, each having its local legislative assembly which is formed by election. The departments are subdivided into arrondissements, and these into cantons. The smallest civil divisions comprised within the cantons are communes.

The chief executive officer of a department is the préfet. He is the intermediary between the central power and officials of all orders within the limits of his department. The arrondissements are simply administrative divisions. A canton is a district entitled to one representative in the departmental council. A commvine is a district having an elective local council presided over by a mayor appointed by the government. Paris forms an exception, having a special form of local government. In 1886, the total number of communes was 36,121. They were classified by population as follows:

* The sources from which the information contained in this article is chiefly derived are the laws determining the operations of the system, reports of the special commission on statistics of primary instruction, reports of the ministers of public instruction on secondary and superior instruction, and official journals.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE SYSTEM.

It would be difficult to convey an idea of the present educational system of France without reference to the Imperial University established by Napoleon in 1808. From this organization the system derives much of its external form and many of its constituent parts. Napoleon gave, to the university the monopoly of education. It was the "state teaching." This monopoly was gradually relinquished after the fall of the Emperor, and since the passage of the educational law of March 15, 1850, the word university has not been employed as the legal designation of the organized system of public education. In common language, however, the system is still often called "the university."

The agencies for public education and the official machinery by which their operations are regulated form at present a great department of public affairs under the control of a cabinet officer, the minister of public instruction and fine arts,2 an office created August 26, 1824. The department comprises an administrative section, three scholastic sections, i. e., primary, secondary, and superior, and a section of fine arts. The last has the oversight of public art schools, museums, public buildings, etc. The minister of public instruction also shares with other ministers authority over a number of special schools of art or technology. For example, over the Polytechnic School (École polytechnique), with the minister of war; the Superior School of Mines (École supérieure des mines), with the minister of public works, and the famous School of Arts and Manufactures (École centrale des arts et manufactures), with the minister of commerce, of industry, and of colonies.

The jurisdiction of the minister is not confined to institutions maintained by the state, but extends in a measure to private schools and to the special schools maintained by municipalities, trade guilds, etc. These last form a very interesting feature of the educational provision of the country. Paris is especially liberal in this respect, maintaining a great number of commercial and industrial art and science schools, where after the labors of the day artisans pursue the study of special subjects relating to their vocation. Among provincial cities, Lyons, Toulouse, and Limoges are particularly rich in such provision.3

There are also municipal schools for higher departments of knowledge, the most important of which is the Free School of Political Science (École libre des sciences politiques), maintained at Paris since 1872.

To the department of the minister of public instruction and fine

See in this connection circular addressed by Jules Ferry to superior council, Statistique de l'enseignement supérieur, 1878-88, p. 114.

"The incumbent of the office at the present time (February, 1839) is Léon Bourgeois; the minister whose name was signed to the latest official reports, viz, for 1886-87 and 18-7-88, was A. Fallières.

3 For very full accounts of this provision see reports of English Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, especially Volume I.

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arts belong also the great astronomic and meteorologic bureaus main

tained by the State.

The minister controls the operations of the system through a series of officials belonging either to the central administration or to local administrative districts.

A. CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION,

The central administration includes the cabinet of the minister, a general director and assistant bureaus, whose duties relate to the secretaryships and accounts of the service; a general director for each of the three scholastic divisions, for the section of fine arts, and for the oversight of public buildings.

General inspectors are also appointed to supervise the operations of the system throughout the country.

The inspection of primary instruction is confided to six of these officials. Three other general inspectors are charged, one with the supervision of the internal conduct of normal schools, and national professional, i. e., technical and trade schools; a second, with the supervision of manual training in normal schools; and the third, with the supervision of gymnastics and military drill in the various classes of primary schools. The inspection of instruction in music, vocal and instrumental, of living languages, and of design in the normal schools and in the superior primary schools is confided to special inspectors. There are also four general inspectresses of infant schools.

These officials are the direct representatives of the minister, conducting their investigations in the portion of the country assigned to them according to his express direction, and reporting to him. The office of general inspector dates from the formation of the Imperial University, 1808. The service was extended to primary instruction in 1846, events having proved the weakness of a system wanting this provision.1

B. ACADEMIC AND DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION.

1. For purposes of educational administration, France is divided into sixteen districts (or including Algiers, seventeen), termed académies. Each académie comprises all the schools, colleges, and facultés i. e., groups of "university" professors for superior instruction, within its bounds. It is in fact a scholastic organization, in which there is a graded series of teaching bodies or institutions. At the head is the rector, who has control of the three orders of instruction, but particularly of secondary and superior instruction. He is assisted by an academic council. The rectors superintend the higher and secondary schools,

1 For full account of the origin and development of the central administration see Statistique de l'enseignement, 1876, and same, 1887-1888. Also Le conseil supérieur de l'instruction publique, monograph by M. R. Jallifier (Monographies pédagogiques. Tome I).

oversee the private schools, and control the primary schools. They convoke the facultés in their respective districts to devise courses of study, which are transmitted to the minister with the views of the rectors. (In the académie of Paris the nominal rector is the minister himself, who is represented by a vice-rector.)

2. The eighty-six departments of France form subordinate districts for educational administration within the académies.

In the chief city of each department resides an academic inspector, inspecteur d'académie, who is charged under the orders of the rector with the supervision of secondary instruction, and who shares with the prefect of the department the direction of primary instruction. The academic inspector and the prefect are assisted by a departmental council.

At Paris, at Marseilles, and at Lille an academic inspector is exclusively charged with the service of primary instruction under the title of director of primary instruction of the department.

At the majority of the chief towns of each departmental division and the chief places in many cantons, there are resident primary inspectors charged under the orders of the academic inspector with the direction and the control of primary instruction.

The division into académies was made by Napoleon, who purposed forming as many of these districts as there were lower courts, "courts of appeal." The articulation of departments and minor divisions and the graded series of officials are also derived from the Imperial University.

THE COUNCILS.

The councils belonging to the central administration.-The minister is assisted by an advisory council (comité consultatif) formed by his own. appointment from the company of general inspectors, honorary or acting, and from the highest officials pertaining to the three scholastic orders. This committee gives advice upon matters submitted by the minister. Traces of it appear to be found as early as 1804. Its formal constitution dates from a decree issued March 25, 1873, by Jules Simon, at that time minister of public instruction. It was organized in its present form by decree of May 11, 1880.

The Superior Council of Public Instruction is the great deliberative head of the educational organization. It is composed of sixty members, three-fourths of whom are chosen by their peers from the three orders of instruction, the remaining number being appointed by the Presi dent of the Republic upon the advice of the minister. The term of service is four years, with opportunity for reëlection. The council is eminently a representative body, even women who are inspectresses of infant schools or directresses of normal schools being eligible to membership.

Nine of the members appointed by the President and six elected members constitute a permanent section, which meets every week; the en

tire council holds two annual sessions, one in July, the other in December.

The permanent section deliberates upon matters which are to be submitted to the general council, and offers its advice upon the same. These matters relate to programmes and regulations for all classes of schools, the creation of university courses or facultés, of lycées, and of normal schools, the multiplication of chairs, text-books, and, in short, to all questions pertaining to studies, administration, discipline, and standards, which may be submitted by the minister. These questions are eventually deliberated in the general council, which prescribes the course of instruction in all public schools and determines the conditions under which private schools may be opened.

The council is also a final court of appeal from judgments rendered by the academic or departmental councils in certain cases of discipline or contention. The minister presides over the deliberations of the council.

This body resembles the council of the Imperial University. It is a survival, preserved under various forms since the fall of Napoleon. Its spirit has, however, been completely changed by its transformation into an elective body. Created as an instrument of arbitrary power, the council has become a safeguard against it.

Academic and departmental councils.-In each académie there is a council presided over by the rector and composed of members chosen for the most part by their peers, and representing the two higher orders of instruction, to whose interests the deliberations of the council are confined.

Finally, in each department there is a council of primary instruction composed of members of the superior council and primary school directors, under the presidency of the prefect, which deliberates, advises, and renders judgment in certain matters pertaining to primary schools.'

The administrative and supervisory service of the system, it is seen, emanates from the State, there being no independent local responsibility and supervision such as we are familiar with in this country.

The councils are indeed representative bodies, but not representative of the people; while the election of teachers and professors by their peers to serve in these assemblies is a great advance over Napoleon's policy of arbitrary appointments, it is widely removed from the policy of local initiative and local control which is more or less active in the school systems of all Anglo-Saxon peoples.

TENDENCIES OF CENTRALIZATION.

The tendency of this centralized system is toward uniformity in the constitution and operations of establishments belonging to the same scholastic department. This uniformity is absolute in respect to those

1 For full accounts of the service of administration as related to primary instinction, its origin, and historical development, see L'inspection à ses différents degrés, by Bertrand and Boniface (Monographies pédagogiques, Tome I).