Western Civilization - History Of European Society

Daily Life in the Nineteenth Century451

such preparation. Private (tuition paying) schools often

stressed religious studies, while state schools in both

the French and German models insisted upon strictly

secular education. The master of a famous British

school for the elite, Rugby School, stated his mission

this way: “It is not necessary that this should be a

school of 300 or 100, or of 50 boys, but it is necessary

that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen.” The

French Ministry of Education, in contrast, removed

Christianity from the classroom and the curriculum,

teaching instead a secular moral philosophy. Most

schools taught a little mathematics, more history (espe-

cially the national history), some geography (particu-

larly as colonial empires grew), little literature, less

science (sometimes omitted entirely), and a great deal

of Latin and Greek, which were requirements for

higher education. Classics remained the key to a uni-

versity education throughout the century; although

Oxford and Cambridge relaxed their Greek require-

ment at the turn of the century, proficiency in Latin re-

mained sine qua non(indispensable) at universities well

into the twentieth century.

The foremost consequence of compulsory educa-

tion laws was the birth of nearly universal literacy. The

vast majority of Europeans were illiterate in 1800. This

varied somewhat from one region to another, differed

for men and for women, and followed the standards of

social class or occupation, but the result was usually the

same: Most people could neither read nor write. Studies

of marriage records—by checking the signatures on

wedding certificates—reveal the scope of illiteracy (see

table 23.8). In 1800, 53 percent of the women married

in England signed with an “X.” As late as 1870, 58 per-

cent of Italian men and 77 percent of Italian women

still married with an “X.” Other studies have shown how

illiteracy varied by a family’s social position or occupa-

tion. A study of French army recruits in the 1830s found

that illiteracy was rare among the sons of professionals

(less than 1 percent) or civil servants (2.4 percent), but

high among the sons of factory workers (58.9 percent),

peasants (83.5 percent), or domestic servants (96.0

percent). Similar variations occurred within the regions

of a country. A study of Italian illiteracy in 1911 found

it low in the more prosperous north (Piedmont, 11 per-

cent; Lombardy, 13 percent) but high in the poorer

south (Sicily, 58 percent; Calabria, 70 percent).

The Life Cycle: Marriage and the Family

European law in the nineteenth century still permitted

marriages at an early age. British law allowed girls to

DOCUMENT 23.3

Conservative Arguments Against

Compulsory Public Education

The French Ministry of Education, under the direction of a
historian named Victor Duruy, did much to modernize educa-
tion during the 1860s. Duruy gave libraries to primary
schools, improved the salaries of teachers, sharply increased
the number of schools for girls, expanded adult education, and
reformed teacher training. Duruy supported the ideas of free
and compulsory education, but he was a generation ahead of
his time; conservative opposition to compulsory schooling was
too strong, and such laws were not adopted until the 1880s.
The following document was prepared in Duruy’s Ministry of
Education to summarize the conservative arguments.

The arguments against obligatory education can
be listed under seven different headings:

1. It is a limitation upon paternal authority.
   The State has no right to intervene in the family to
   diminish the power of its head.


2. The obligation of a father to send his son to
   a public school cannot be reconciled with freedom
   of conscience, because the child is vulnerable to a
   religious education contrary to the faith which his
   father wishes to give him.


3. It is a diminution of the resources of the
   family: the child of the poor person performs a
   host of small jobs which attenuate misery for them
   both. Thus the government intervenes in the
   workplace... and reduces productivity.


4. Making education obligatory gives the gov-
   ernment the sort of power which it should not
   have.


5. Given the present state of the schools, it is
   economically impossible to open them to all chil-
   dren.


6. The forced presence in the schools of chil-
   dren who refuse to learn and disrupt other students
   will destroy discipline.


7. Finally, compulsory education, if it is not
   also free education, will create a heavy new tax on
   peasants and workers.

French Ministry of Education Yearbook (1863), trans. Steven C.
Hause. In M. Chaulanges et all, eds.,Textes historiques,
1848–1871: le milieu du XIXe siècle.Paris: Delagrave, 1975.