History of the education of the girls in France

This article described the history of the education of the girl S in France. Its matter is former to the advent of the Mixité in a laic context.

In Occident, it is only at the 20th century which the girls could claim with the same education as the boys in France. However, they already received in the last centuries an education, different certainly, but not non-existent.

The Middle Ages

In Western medieval Europe, principles of virtue, piety and propriety which one tried to inculcate to the girls find oneself, inter alia, in the Livre for the teaching of his/her daughters of Geoffroy of the Turn-Landry, a didactic treaty written by noble French for his daughters in the last third of the 14th century.

With the Rebirth

An education before any nun

To the 16th century, the education of the girls is limited above all to a religious point of view. One teaches them the house works and catechism so that they can then raise their children chrétiennement. The religion passes through the woman and is transmitted of mother as a girl. Very few women leave this religious education. This one still shows the place very important of the Church, but also the role of the woman, who is only seen like mother and wife. She does not have yet a role in the company.

The humanistic thought

Jean-Louis Sharp, Of the institution of the Christian woman , 1523. This work is read much in the European humanistic mediums. The need is then recognized for educating the girls, but the question remains whole: what to learn to them? The first virtue for Vivès is the " pudicité" , which corresponds to the vision of a reserved woman. But he asks also a certain culture, to train the future wife and the future mother. This one must be able

to go pleasant to her husband by his charms and its conversation
to help it in the government of the domestic affairs
to know to raise his/her children chrétiennement.

Sharp thus recommends a teaching of the reading and writing, but does not neglect the house works: to hold the needle and to make the kitchen, even for the princesses. But it nevertheless distinguishes aristocratic work (embroidery, Dentelle) from more popular work (to slip by, to sew). It recommends also the separation of the girls and the boys. Lastly, in the theoretical debate which consists in knowing if the women must learn Latin, Vivès is reserved enough. He recommends the study of the letters for the noble girls who are there suited.

In practice: convents and elementary schools

It is two precise necessary where the education of the girls takes place:

convents: it is the form of the most widespread education in the nobility. The girls learn there catechism, the reading and the writing. Some rare convents, like the moniales of Tarascon, allow the training of Latin. The girls decide then themselves to remain with the convent or to marry. The quality of this female monastic teaching is real and does not cease growing during XVIe then 17th century.
elementary schools: co-educationals school are very current in the north of France. They relate to girls of the poor nobility and lower middle class of the campaigns. But they were condemned by the Church as by the humanistic current because of their co-education, and their number does nothing but decrease during the century.

Moreover some rare cases of autodidacts are known: Marguerite de Navarre, sister of François Ier, included/understood Latin and spoke several languages. She represents the ideal of the female culture of the Rebirth. She maintains a small court artists and famous intellectuals. It is the same for Marguerite de Valois, which usually spoke Latin.

Chronology of the education of the girls after the revolution

December 15th 1805 Napoleon i creates by decree the Maisons of education of the Legion of honor.
July 23rd 1836: the law Pelet encourages each commune to have at least an elementary school for girls.
March 15th 1850: the law Falloux also lays down the objective of an elementary school of girls in each commune of more than 800 inhabitants. The obligatory program includes/understands, the training of the reading, the writing, the rudiments of calculation, an education moral and religious and for the girls, the “needlework” Two thirds of the girls is provided education for.
October 1st, 1862: opening of the first vocational school for young girls by Madam Elisa Lemonnier, a school of seam.
April 10th 1867: the law Victor Duruy organizes female primary school education.
August 9th 1879: the law Paul Bert makes obligation at the departments to create a teacher training school boys and of girls.
December 21st 1880: the law Camille Sée relates to the opening of colleges of young person-girls.
March 18th 1882: decree of Alexandre Laissac, mayor of Montpellier, in the Herault, for the creation of the first college of young girls of France.
March 28th 1882: the Law Ferry on the compulsory education from 6 to 13 years for the children of the two sexes.
October 30th 1886 law Goblet: co-education is accepted in the schools of the communes of less than 500 inhabitants, for economic reasons above all.
1924 : the decree Leon Bérard unifies the secondary school programs for the girls and the boys. The girls are not obliged any more to present itself to the baccalaureat as free candidates.
July 11th 1975: the law Haby makes co-education school obligatory.

The first graduate is Julie-Victoire Daubié of Fontenoy-the-Castle which obtains the baccalaureat on August 16th 1861 with Lyon. Today, eight schools, two colleges and a college bear its name to France.

See too

Co-education
Secularity

Random links: