430. The Legislative Assembly and Condorcet. ВЂ” Of

all the educational undertakings of the Revolution, the most

remarkable is that of Condorcet. His Rapport presented to

the Legislative Assembly, in behalf of the committee on

public instruction, April 20 and 21, 1792, reprinted in 1793

by order of the Convention, did not directly have the honor

of a public discussion ; but it contained principles and solu-

tions which are found in the deliberations and legislative

acts of his successors. It remained, during the whole dura-

tion of the Convention, the widely accessible source whence

the legislators of that time, like Romme, Bouquier, and Lak-

anal, drew their inspiration.

431. Condorcet (1743-1794). — Condorcet was admira-

bly qualified for the task which the Legislative Assembly

imposed on him, in charging him with the organization of

public instruction. During the first years of the Revolution

he had employed his leisure (he was not a member of the

Constituent Assembly) in writing five Memoir es on instruc-

tion, which appeared in a periodical called the Biblioth&que

de Vhomme jmblic. The Rapport which he submitted to the

Assembly was a sort of resume' of his long reflections. Con-

dorcet brought to this work, not the indiscreet imagination

of an improvised educator, but the authority of a competent

thinker, who, if he had no personal experience in teaching,

had at least reflected much on these topics and was con-

scious of all their difficulties. Besides, he devoted himself

to his work with the ardor of an enthusiastic nature, and

with the serious convictions of a mind that had carried

farther than any one else the religion of progress and zeal

for the public good.

432. General Considerations upon Instruction. — All

the Revolutionists have sung the praises of instruction, of

380 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

which they were the passionate admirers. Condorcet is its

reflective partisan. He did not love it more than the others,

but he comprehended it better, and better stated why it

should be loved. He first takes up the ideas of Talleyrand,

and shows that without instruction, liberty and equality

would be chimeras : —

"A free constitution which should not be correspondent

to the universal instruction of citizens, would come to destruc-

tion after a few conflicts, and would degenerate into one of

those forms of government which cannot preserve the peace

among an ignorant and corrupt people."

Anarchy or despotism, such is the future of peoples who

have become free before having been enlightened.

As to equalit} 7 , without falling into the chimeras of an in-

struction which should be the same for all, and which should

reduce all men to the same level, Condorcet desires to realize

it so far as it is possible. He desires that the poorest and

the humblest shall be sufficiently instructed to belong to him-

self, and not to be at the mercy of the first charlatan who

comes along, and also to be able to fulfill his civil duties, to

be an elector, a juror, etc.

433. Instruction and Morality. — The instrument of

liberty and equality, instruction, in the opinion of Condorcet,

is, in addition, the real source of public morality and of

human progress. If it were not correspondent to the

advances in knowledge, a free and impartial constitution

would be hostile rather than favorable to good morals.

" Instruction alone can give the assurance that the princi-

ple of justice which the equality of rights ordains, shall not be

in contradiction with this other principle, which prescribes

that only those rights shall be accorded to men which they

can exercise without danger to society."

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 381

But it is moral reasons still more than political motives

that make instruction the condition of virtue. Condorcet

has shrewdly seen that the vices of the people come chiefly

from their intellectual impotency.

" These vices come," he says, " from the need of escaping

from ennui in moments of leisure, and in escaping from it

through sensations and not through ideas."

These are notable words which should never be lost sight

of by the teachers and moralists of the people.

To cause gross natures to pass from the life of the senses

to the intellectual life ; to make study agreeable to the end

that the higher pleasures of the spirit may struggle success-

fully against the appetites for material pleasures ; to put

the book in the place of the wine bottle ; to substitute the

library for the saloon ; in a word, to replace sensation by idea,

— such is the fundamental problem of popular education.

434. Instruction and Progress. — Condorcet was a

fanatic on the subject of progress. Up to the last moment

of his life he dreamed of progress, its conditions, and its

laws. Now the most potent means of hastening progress is

to instruct men ; and here is the final reason why instruction

is so dear to him.

These are grand words : —

"If the indefinite improvement of our species is, as I be-

lieve, a general law of nature, man ought no longer to regard

himself as a being limited to a transitory and isolated exis-

tence, destined to vanish after an alternative of happiness or

of misery for himself, and of good and evil for those whom

chance has placed near him ; but he becomes an active part

of the grand whole, and a fellow-laborer in a work that is

eternal. In an existence of a moment, and upon a point in

space, he can, by his works, compass all places, relate him-

82 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

self to all the centuries, and continue to act long centuries

after his memory has disappeared from the earth." And

further on : "For a long time I have considered these views

as dreams which were to be realized only in an indefinite

future, and for a world where I should not exist. A happy

event has suddenly opened an immense career to the hopes

of the human race ; a single instant has put a century of dis-

tance between the man of to-day and him of to-morrow."

435. The Liberality of Condorcet. — Wrongly credited

with a despotic and absolute habit of mind, Condorcet is, on

the contrary, full of scruples and penetrated with respect as

regards the liberty of individual opinions. In fact, he care-

fully distinguishes instruction from education. Instruction

has to do with positive and certain knowledge, the truths of

fact and of calculation ; education, with political and religious

beliefs. Now, if the State is the natural dispenser of instruc-

tion, it ought, on the contrary, in the matter of education, to

forbear, and to declare itself incompetent. In other words,

the State ought not to abuse its power by imposing by force

on its citizens such or such a religious Credo, such or such

a political dogma.

"Public authority cannot establish a body of doctrine

which is to be exclusively taught. No public power ought

to have the authority, or even the permission, to prevent the

development of new truths, or the teaching of theories con-

trary to its particular policy or to its momentary interests."

436. Five Grades of Instruction. — Condorcet distin-

guishes five grades of instruction : 1. Primary schools proper ;

2. Secondary schools, that is, such as we now call higher

primary schools ; 3. Institutes, or colleges of secondary in-

struction ; 4. Lycees, or institutions of higher instruction ;

5. The National Society of Sciences and Arts, which corre-

sponds to our Institute.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 383

Two things are especially to be noted : first, Condorcet

establishes for the first time higher primary schools, and de-

mands one for each district, and in addition one for each town

of four thousand inhabitants ; then, for primary schools proper,

he takes the population as a basis for their establishment, and

requires one for each four hundred inhabitants. 1

437. Purpose and Plan of Primary Instruction. —

Condorcet has admirably defined the purpose of primary in-

struction : —

"In the primary schools there is taught that which is

necessary for each individual in order to direct his own con-

duct and to enjoy the plenitude of his own rights."

The programme comprised reading, writing, some notions

on grammar, the rules of arithmetic, simple methods of

measuring a Held and a building with exactness ; a simple

description of the productions of the country, of the processes

in agriculture and the arts ; the development of the first

moral ideas and the rules for conduct derived from them ;

finally, such of the principles of social order as can be put

within the comprehension of children.

438. The Idea of Courses for Adults. — Condorcet

was strongly impressed with the necessit}- of continuing the

instruction of the workman and of the peasant after with-

drawal from school : —

1 Public instruction as now organized in France is of three grades, as

follows: —

"Primary instruction, which gives the elements of knowledge, reading,

writing, and arithmetic. Secondary instruction, embracing the study of

the ancient languages, of rhetoric, and the tirst elements of the mathemati-

cal and physical sciences, and of philosophy. This is given in the lycees

and colleges, as well as in the smaller seminaries. Superior instruction,

designed to teach in all their completeness letters, the languages, the sci-

ences, and philosophy. This is given in the Faculties, in the College of

France, and in the larger seminaries." — Littre. (P.)

384 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

"We have observed that instruction ought not to abandon

individuals the moment the} - leave the schools ; that it ought

to embrace all ages ; that there is no period of life when it is

not useful and possible to learn, and that this supplementary

instruction is so much the more necessary as- that of infancy

has been contracted to the narrowest limits. Here is one

of the principal causes of the ignorance in which the poor

classes of society are to-day plunged ; they lacked not nearly

so much the possibility of receiving an elementary instruction

as that of preserving its advantages."

Consequently, Condorcet proposed, if not courses of in-

struction for adults, at least something very like them, —

weekly lectures, given each Sunday by the village teachers,

a kind of lay sermons.

"Each Sunday the teacher shall give a public lecture

which citizens of all ages will attend. In this arrangement

we have seen a means of giving to young people those neces-

sary parts of knowledge, which, however, did not form a part

of their primary education."

439. Professional and Technical Education. — But

Condorcet does not think his duty to the people done when

he has given them intellectual emancipation. He is very

anxious to give in addition to the sons of peasants or work-

men the means of struggling against misery, by diffusing

more and more among the masses of the people a technical

knowledge of the arts and trades. He deserves to be

counted among the adepts in professional instruction and in

industrial education. He asks that there be placed in the

schools "models of machines or of trades" ; and in all grades

of instruction, he recommends with a special solicitude the

teaching of the practical arts.

We fancy we are doing something new to-day when we

establish school museums. "Each school," says Condorcet,

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 385

•'shall have a small library, and a small cabinet in which

shall be placed some meteorological instruments or some

specimens of natural history."

440. The Education op Women. — Condorcet may be

regarded as one of the most ardent apostles of the education

of women. He wishes education to be common and equal.

He is evidently wrong when he dreams of a perfect identity

of instruction for the two sexes, when he forgets the partic-

ular destination of women, and the special character of their

education. But we have found so many educators disposed

to depreciate the abilities of woman, that we are happy to

find at last one voice that exalts them, even beyond

measure.

Let us recall, however, the excellent reasons which he

gives in support of his thesis on the equality of education.