France -- Civilization; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Meanwhile, the innate vices of the primitive system have lasted and,
and, among others, the worst of all, the internat[6344] under the
discipline of barracks or convent, while the university, through
its priority and supremacy, in contact with or contiguously, has
communicated this discipline at first to its subordinates, and afterward
to its rivals.--In 1887,[6345] in the State lycées and colleges,
there are more than 39,000 boarding-schools (internes) while, in the
ecclesiastic establishments, it is worse: out of 50,000 pupils there,
over 27,000 are internes, to which must be added the 23,000 pupils of
the small seminaries, properly so called, nearly all of them boarders;
in a total of 163,000 pupils we find 89,000 internes.[6346] Thus, to
secure secondary instruction, more than one-half of the youth of France
undergo the internat, ecclesiastic or secular. This is peculiar to
France, and is due to the way in which Napoleon, in 1806, seized on and
perverted all school enterprises.[6347]
Before 1789, in France, this enterprise, although largely trammeled and
impeded by the State and the Church, was not violated in principle nor
perverted in essence; still at the present day, in Germany, in England,
in the United States, it exists and is developed in accordance with its
nature. It is admitted to be a private enterprise,[6348] the collective
and spontaneous work of several associates voluntarily bound together,
old founders, actual and future benefactors, masters and parents and
even scholars,[6349] each in his place and function, under a statute
and according to tradition, in such a way as to continue functioning
indefinitely, in order to provide, like a gas company on its own
responsibility, at its own risk and expense, a provider of services for
those who want it; in other terms, the school enterprise must, like any
other undertaking, render acceptable what it offers thereby satisfying
the needs of its clients.--Naturally, it adapts itself to these needs;
its directors and those concerned do what is necessary. With hands free,
and grouped around an important interest evidently for a common purpose,
mutually bound and veritable associates not only legally but in feeling,
devoted to a local enterprise and local residents for many years, often
even for life, they strive not to offend the profound repugnance of the
young and of families. They therefore make the necessary arrangements
internally and with the parents.[6350]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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