system of destroyed by tion. object from a sense of policy, if from no better impulse. The CHAP. I. reformers, in the natural course of political insanity, plundered the church before the revolutionists overthrew the throne. The The whole Constituent Assembly followed up this act of iniquity by re- education quiring from the clergy an oath, which they knew the greater the revolu part must conscientiously refuse to take. The whole system of education throughout France was thus subverted, before the work of proscription and massacre began; and, to complete the wreck, the National Convention, by one sweeping decree, suppressed all colleges and faculties of theology, medicine, arts, and jurisprudence, throughout the republic. struction the revolu rand's Public instruction, however, had been one of the first Public inblessings which were promised under the new order of things; promised by and accordingly plan after plan was pompously announced, as tionists. short-lived constitutions and short-sighted legislators succeeded one another. The Constituent Assembly promised an establish- Talleyment of primary schools in the chief place of every canton; scheme. secondary ones in the capital of every district; department schools in the capitals of these larger divisions; and, finally, an Institute in the metropolis: the whole under a Commission of Public Instruction. Public tuition was not to begin before the age of six; till which time, it was said, mothers might be trusted to put in practice the immortal lessons of the author of Emilius: and girls were left wholly to their parents. Religion made no Religion part of the scheme*; and instead of teaching children faith, hope, and charity, their duties toward God and man, the Declaration of Rights was to be cast into a catechism for their omitted. * Except, indeed, that there were to be seminaries for the new national clergy, where they were to be taught surveying, mensuration, the knowledge of simples, a little medicine, and a little law! 30 I. scheme. Religion proscribe:l. CHAP. use. This plan, which was the work of Talleyrand, was thrown aside when the Constituent Assembly, having completed, as they supposed, the work of demolition, made way for the Legislative Assembly, which was to erect a new edifice from the Condorcet's ruins. A second project was then presented by Condorcet. Revealed religion was, of course, proscribed from his scheme; and the miserable sophist said that this proscription ought to be extended to what is called natural religion also, because the theistic philosophers were no better agreed than the theologians in their notions of God, and of his moral relations to mankind. All prejudices, he said, ought now to disappear; and therefore it must now be affirmed, that the study of the ancient languages would be more injurious than useful. The physical sciences were the basis of his plan; and he advised that scientific lessons should be given in public weekly lectures, and that the miracles of Elijah and St. Januarius should be exhibited, in order to cure the people of superstition. A time, he said, undoubtedly would come, when all establishments for instruction would be useless: however, as they were necessary at present, girls as well as boys were to be received in the public schools. The Scheme of orators of the National Convention went farther: they mainConvention. tained, that domestic education was incompatible with liberty; that the holy doctrine of equality would have been proclaimed in vain if there were any difference of education between the rich and the poor; that, of all inequalities, the inequality of knowledge was the most fatal; and that every thing which elevated one man above another in the scale of intellect was studiously to be destroyed. All children, therefore, of both sexes,.. the boys from the age of five till that of twelve, the girls from five to eleven,..ought to be educated in common at the expense of the republic; there was room enough for lodging them all in the palaces and castles of the emigrants; the boys the National I. should be employed in tilling the earth, in manufactures, or in CHAP. picking stones upon the highways; hospitals were to be annexed to the schools, where the children were in rotation to wait upon the sick and the aged; and they were never to hear of religion. One democratic legislator proposed, that those parents who chose to have their children educated at home should be vigilantly observed; and if it were discovered that they brought them up in principles contrary to liberty, that a process should be instituted, and the children taken from them, and sent to the houses of equality. This implied some choice on the part of the parents, though it would have made the choice a cruel mockery: but it was contended that liberty could not exist if domestic education were tolerated; and when the clause was proposed that parents might send their children to these schools, it was carried as an amendment that they must send them, be- Domestic cause it was time to establish the great principle, that children proscribed. belong to the republic more than to their parents. This, said one of their blasphemous declaimers, would complete the Gospel of Equality! It was even maintained, that education ought to commence before birth; and the philosophical statesmen of regenerated France were called upon to form rules for women during the time of gestation, and to enact laws for midwives and for nurses*! education * "L'ouvrage que l'on demande," said Gregoire, speaking in the name of the Committee of Public Instruction, " doit donc tracer des regles de conduite pour le temps de la grossesse, des couches, de l'allaitement," &c. Petit went farther back: according to him, "l'education en general doit aller chercher l'homme dans l'embryon de l'espece; les peres, les meres surtout, doivent d'abord fixer son attention."— An able writer has performed the useful task of bringing together in one work the various schemes of education which were attempted in France during the democratic tyranny and the military tyranny which succeeded it. The title of his book is, Le CHAP. I. None of these tempted in Follies and schemes like these were discussed by the National Convention in the intervals between their acts of confiscation and blood; and to this intolerable tyranny the fanatics schemes at- of liberty and equality designed to subject the people in the dearest and holiest relations of domestic life! But proscriptions and executions succeeded so rapidly that the various projectors were swept off before their projects could be attempted in practice; till at length, when the remaining members of that practice. Genie de la Revolution consideré dans l'Education; ou Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de l'Instruction Publique, depuis 1789 jusqu'à nos jours; ou l'on voit les Efforts reunis de la Legislation et de la Philosophie du Dix-huitieme Siecle pour aneantir le Christianisme. Paris, 3 T. 1817-1818. One legislator maintained that a nation which had recovered its freedom wanted none but stirring, vigorous, and robust men; it was such men that they should endeavour to form: and the revolution had already provided inexhaustible sources of instruction for them; for the best schools in which youth could receive a republican education were the public assemblies of the departments, districts, and municipalities, the tribunals, and, above all, the popular societies, ..meaning the jacobine clubs! Lequinio would have had a daily journal edited by a committee of philosophers, for the purpose of enlightening the simple country people, • • the people of Paris and the large towns being sufficiently enlightened. Lakanal required that there should be at least one theatre in every canton, where the women were to learn dancing, and the men to practise it. And Rabaut de St. Etienne, who had been a Protestant minister, proposed that the mayors of every canton should deliver moral lectures on Sundays in the national temple. These legislators confined their views to France; but Dupont, the atheist, hoped to see a school established at Paris for propagating atheism and anarchy throughout Europe. These are his words: "Avec quel plaisir je me represente nos philosophes dont les noms sont connus dans toute l'Europe, Petion, Sieyes, Condorcet, et autres, entourés dans le Pantheon, comme les philosophes Grecs à Athenes, d'une foule de disciples venus des differentes parties de l'Europe, se promenant a la mode des Peripateticiens, et enseignant, celui-la le systeme du monde, celui-ci perfectionnant le systeme social, montrant dans l'arrêté du 17 Juin le germe de l'insurrection du 14 Juillet, du 10 Août, et de toutes les insurrections qui vont se faire avec rapidité dans toute l'Europe, de telle manière que ces jeunes etrangers de retour dans leur pays puissent y repandre les mêmes lumières, et opérer, pour le bonheur de l'humanité les mêmes revolutions." I. Schools. nefarious assembly, after the death of Robespierre, had acquired CHAP. some feeling of personal safety, the Normal Schools were established, in which the art of teaching was to be taught. And Normal now, it was proclaimed, the regeneration of the human mind would be effected; now, for the first time upon earth, Nature, Truth, Reason, and Philosophy would have their seminary! The most eminent men in talents and science were to be professors in this institution: from all parts of the republic the most promising subjects were to be selected by the constituted authorities, and sent to the metropolis as pupils; and when they should have completed the course of human knowledge, the disciples of these great masters, thoroughly imbued with the lessons which they had received, were to return to their respective places of abode, and repeat them throughout the land, which would thus, in its remotest parts, receive light from Paris, as from the focus of intellectual illumination. Fourteen hundred young men were in fact brought from the country; and, that nothing might be lost to mankind, the conferences in which universal instruction was to be communicated were minuted in short-hand. So notable a plan excited great enthusiasm in Paris; it soon excited as much ridicule in the course of three months both pupils and pro-. fessors discovered in how absurd a situation they were placed; it was acknowedged in the National Convention that the scheme had altogether failed; and thus ended what was properly called the organized quackery of the Normal Schools*. * Every thing was to be done by.. analysis:-" Cette analyse, qui compte tous les pas qu'elle fait, mais qui n'en fait jamais un ni en arrière, ni à côté,..elle peut porter la même simplicité de langage, la même clarté dans tous les genres d'idées... Les sciences morales, si necessaires aux peuples qui se gouvernent par leurs propres vertus, vont être VOL. I. F |