Paul Robin

Paul Robin (April 3rd 1837 with Toulon, France - 1912) is a libertarian Pédagogue French. “The official science of education does not find anything of to better do young teenagers to lock up them: the privileged people with the college, the vulgar ones with the workshop, the bet S in prison”.

Biography

Paul Robin is born in Toulon in a middle-class family, patriotic Catholique and .

Raise National university of Paris, it passes its licenses of mathematical sciences and physical sciences. He is briefly professor of Lycée (1861 - 1865), but enters in conflict with his administration on questions of popular education, for which he conceives an lively interest. In 1865, it leaves for Belgium where it ties contacts with militants of the International one, contributes to the creation of the Belgian section of HAS and is expelled to have taken part in the movement of support for a strike. It is withdrawn in Switzerland, in France (where it is imprisoned in July 1870, then in England. In London, he attends the militants of the Internationale and is even a time member of the General advice of the International one, with whom he breaks quickly to take the party of Bakounine against Marx. During its voluntary exile, he always saw lessons that he gives.

In 1879, it returns to France as inspector of teaching to the primary education named by Ferdinand Buisson, director of primary school education near the minister Jules Ferry. Robin had collaborated before in the Dictionary of pedagogy of Ferdinand Buisson.

Thanks to Ferdinand Bush, which brings a continuous support to him, Paul Robin takes the head, of 1880 to 1894, the Orphelinat Prévost , with Cempuis (Oise). In this establishment which depends on the General advice of the Seine, it puts into practice, on a great number of children, the theories on the integral education which it formulated since 1869-1870. This education, which wants to give to the children underprivileged classes the means of reaching education, is characterized, in addition to its atheism and its internationalism, by the concern harmoniously of developing the individual in his globality, as well on the physical level as intellectual or moral. Another very innovative aspect of work that Robin achieves in Cempuis, is the " coeducation of the sexes" , which educates girls and boys side by side, as in the natural families. The educational methods of Paul Robin, too revolutionists for their time, will be worth to him to be driven out of Cempuis, in 1894, following a very virulent press campaign carried out against him by the Free Word. Octave Mirbeau takes its defense then and denounces the collusion liberticide between Cartouche (corrupted republican politicians) and Loyola (the Catholic church retrogresses).

In 1896, Paul Robin founds the League for human Regeneration. At its head, it introduces in France the principles néo-Malthusians which it discovered in England and militates inlassablement for the birth control in the working class. He sees indeed in " prudence parentale" a means of emancipation of poorest. It develops also certain aspects eugenists. It publishes very many booklets of propaganda néo-Malthusian.

Paul Robin puts an end to his days in 1912.

Its values

Integral education

Robin is known as the pedagog who developed the principles of integral education; he into practice put these theories at the Orphanage of Cempuis of 1880 to 1894.

For Robin, education is not limited to the training of a trade: “Any child has right to become at the same time a worker of the arms and a worker of the head”. One needs initially a common and integral school and then only, one specialization according to the community project of each one.

Its political commitment

Robin attended the socialist mediums. He met Marx, Bakounine and belonged to the International association of the workers (A). However, its intellectual bonds and its personal friendship with Bakounine made it expel HAS by Marx since 1871. All its life, Robin remained faithful to his friendship for Bakounine and professed a real sympathy to the anarchistic ideas. Anti-autoritariste, he was truly internationalist and believed in the friendship between the people. One took pretext of sound " antipatriotisme" to revoke it in 1894 of the orphanage of Cempuis, ptétendant that there was danger to let Robin “spread ideas subversive from the social point of view and negative from the point of view of the defense of the country”.

On the teaching level, integral education is for Robin a political commitment. Work should be reorganized. By using technological advance, one can increase the time of leisure of each one. The workman, thanks to the knowledge and with the access to the satisfied culture, will be able to transform his state. Its condition will become completely human.

Education is thus a means to hasten the revolution.

Feminism

Its teaching work testifies to a true feminist engagement, even if the feminist mediums were long in recognizing it like one as of theirs. Integral education is addressed to the boys and with the girls on an equal footing, exempts to them same teaching and educates together them. The girls are not any more informed in optics of their future social function, unlike predecessors like Rousseau.

Robin is also engaged in the feminist action . The Neo-Malthusianism is a weapon with the service of the emancipation of the women, to which Robin wishes to see recognizing the statute of household heads. It makes conferences, distributes leaflets to make known “the effective means and nonpainful provides science to put children at the world only when they want it”. It creates a “anti-slavery league for the stamping from the girls”, a trade union of prostitutes and an agency for free Union, inter alia.

Eugenism and Neo-Malthusianism

It also introduced in France the thought néo-Malthusian from Great Britain, where it remained a few years. This theory is resulting from the old man Malthusianisme who puts in report/ratio the fast increase in the world population at the end of the XVIIIe century, with the insufficient increase in resources. However, for Robin, it should not merge with an anti-nataliste austere morals, obstacle with the pleasure and the love, like the old Malthusianism. Robin preaches the use of the modern means of Contraception and of the teaching innovations aiming to better raising the children. The objective of the Neo-Malthusianism is a true regeneration human by the birth control and innovating pedagogies, in particular libertarian.

Its teaching heritage

Physical education: The health of the body is a paramount condition for that of the spirit. In Cempuis, physical education represents a third of the time of activity. One there practices swimming (in the swimming pool that the pupils themselves built), the gymnastics, boxing without combat, the duck, the jump, it to climb, the race, the throw, horsemanship… These exercises are practiced with an aim of developing the force and the address without never making élitiste competition nor of sport. Excursions are also organized, as well as excursions and stays of summer at the seaside.

intellectual Education: “Let the child do itself his discoveries, await its questions, answer there sobrement so that its spirit continues its own efforts, keep you over all to impose ideas to him done everything, banal, transmitted by the unwise routine and abrutissante…” For Robin the only manner of learning is scientist and he wants to develop a rational spirit in the child, far from the “phantoms” of “religious imposture”. Observation, the " lesson of choses" is in the center of pedagogy, just like the pleasure of learning. One also studies, in Cempuis, of many artistic matters for the communication of the thought like the song, the drawing, the music, the theater… Opening the way with Freinet, Robin uses the most modern techniques of the time with for objective training the pupils per hour of the century when they must live.

moral Education: In Cempuis, a big part of education is based on the solidarity of the group and the direction of the responsibilities: no individual, but collective rewards; the large pupils help young people; each child has a material responsibility which serves the community… The educative community moults itself in " cempuisienne" family; , which continues to surround the orphans after their exit of the establishment. Moreover, the child must develop his critical spirit, not all to accept his “Masters”, to reject the " ideas fausses". The only practiced sanction is insulation so that the " fautif" can think of its control. Education " without Dieu" and " without Patrie" data with Cempuis, and reproached Paul Robin so much, conforms very narrowly to this pattern.

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