The first comparative study of the spread of mass education around the world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this unique new book uses a bottom-up focus and demonstrates, to an extent not appreciated hitherto, the gulf between the intentions of the government and the reality on the ground. This book is divided into four…

Historians have long presented France's "civilizing mission" within its colonies in secular terms ignoring women's presence as both actors and subjects. This is particularly true in Algeria where the colonial government's explicitly prohibited proselytism. This article emphasizes women's roles pursuing both secular and religious goals in…

Analyzes the educational philosophy in Rousseau's "Emile" and its influence on the secularization of French moral education during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This critical analysis of Rousseau's naturalistic ethics covers the importance of home-life, habit-training, discipline, reason, physical needs, and historical…

Examines Jules Ferry's role in creating compulsory, free, public schools in France in the 1880s. (IRT)

Analyzes establishment of compulsory moral and civic instruction in France at the turn of the century using the recently developed research techniques of social history. Maintains that the application of social history techniques will provide new insights into historical and educational research. Includes an extensive bibliography of primary and…

This paper analyzes the challenges that Condorcet saw facing France and the ways he chose to respond to those challenges, thereby posing and resolving the problems of authority deriving from the state, the family, and the wisdom of enlightened men. Condorcet's design for a system of public schools was aimed at providing instruction for all French…