Students versus the University in Pre-World War Paris

Abstract

In the nineteenth century rebellions of university students usually carried strong political overtones. French students traditionally allied themselves with advanced political groups to press for more liberal government; they appeared on the barricades in 1848. In the twentieth century, however, student rebels, while not necessarily eschewing political action, have tended to stress different issues. Dissatisfaction with the university itself, with the kind of knowledge being handed down to them, with the quality of life which that knowledge supports, seems to be a major element in student revolts. The cry is often not so much for a change of government as for a change in the ways of thinking which predominate in the society. Students feel that they are oppressed intellectually by the very institutions which are supposed to aid them to develop their minds freely. They rebel against the philosophy of their elders, not only on a political basis, but across a whole spectrum of ideas and attitudes. In this sense the rebellion of a small group of students at the Sorbonne before World War I was a harbinger of more recent student uprisings. The opposition to the university which existed at this time in student ranks was expressed, not in slogans or sit-ins, but in journals and periodicals. It was discussed by the intellectual community at large. As in our own time it came mainly from liberal arts students who were dissatisfied with their education and opposed to the principles underlying it. The main documents of the dissent are a series of articles published in 1910 under the pen name Agathon by the student Henri Massis and his young lawyer friend, Alfred de Tarde.1 They made three