Weber, E. (1976) ‘Civilizing in Earnest: Schools and Schooling’

Weber, E. (1976) ‘Civilizing in Earnest: Schools and Schooling’, in E. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Modern France, 1870-1914, Stanford, Stanford University Press, Chapter 18, 303-38.

1. Village school is considered ultimate acculturation process that “made the French people French” in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, under the Third Republic (303).
2. “It was only when what the schools taught made sense that they became important to those they had to teach” (303).
3. Early 19^th century French schools were rudimentary and improvised, with unqualified and unprofessional teachers; most students simply learned by rote.
4. Francois Guizot’s 1833 education law set the foundations of France’s modern school system and in particular of public education.
5. In 1881-6, Jules Ferry instituted compulsory free public elementary education, along with an elementary teaching program and inspection and control provisions. This coincided with a majority of adults speaking French, not only patois.
6. By the 1890s, more girls and women were schooled and were learning French.
7. In the 1880s schools experienced both better-trained teachers and more relevant curriculums.
8. As regional inequalities began to disappear in the 1890s, “another step in cultural homogenization was being taken” (323).
9. Improved behavior, morality and hygiene were also attributed to schools.
10. Schooling became a major agent of acculturation in shaping individuals to fit into the broader national community and develop sentiments of a new patriotism: a ‘unity of spirit’ toward their fatherland – France by adopting a ‘national pedagogy’, especially in history and geography courses (330-3).
11. The new schools played a critical role in national integration, national cohesion and acceptance of definition of a good citizen’s duty as being “to serve his country and to defend the fatherland” (336).
12. “Like migration, politics, and economic development, school brought suggestions of alternative values and hierarchies; and of commitments to other bodies than the local group. Thy eased individuals out of the latter’s grip and shattered the hold of unchallenged cultural and political creeds – but only to train their votaries for another faith” (338).