Cultivating the spirit: Catholic educators, primary education and pedagogy in Early Third Republic France

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the Early Third Republic (c. 1880–1914), the role of Catholic educators was called into question by the convergence of two different calls for change within French society. As the government of the Third Republic sought to reform primary-school instruction, there were renewed debates in French society about the role of Catholic institutions. Cast as untrained and partisan teachers by advocates of Republican educational reform, Catholic teachers and pedagogues sought to assert their place among modern educators. A close reading of late nineteenth-century Catholic pedagogical materials reveals, however, that objections to Republican education came from its content and not its form. The education of the senses, the progression from known to unknown, and the introduction of children to abstract concepts were all pedagogical techniques that could be reconciled with Catholic educational practice. In response, advocates for the role of Catholicism in primary education stressed their role in shaping future citizens and sought to establish their credentials as educators. This case study, which focuses on French primary education, speaks to the growth in international pedagogical norms in the late nineteenth century and the dynamism of French Catholicism’s attempts to reconcile tradition and modernity.