Teacher training inside or outside the university: the Belgian compromise (1815–1890)

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, educationists, professors and politicians in many European countries struggled with the question of whether secondary school teachers should be trained at the university, or in separate teachers’ colleges, where they would receive a proper vocational training. This article explores the development of the training of classics teachers in nineteenth‐century Belgium and characterises it as a compromise between the two options. When William I in 1816 established three state universities in the southern Netherlands, teacher training, which was offered during the French period at the specialised college in Paris, was not replaced. Very soon, certain German professors took the initiative of establishing philological‐pedagogical seminars to fill the gap. However, these seminars did not survive the chaos of the Belgian revolution and it took almost 20 years before teacher training courses were reintroduced in separate colleges attached to the universities. At first, the teachers’ college in Liège considered itself a counterpart of the famous Ecole normale supérieure de Paris and many practical rules were copied from the French example to create a similar atmosphere. However, from the 1860s, many professors made efforts to revive the German tradition of philological‐pedagogical seminars. The ultimate aim was to achieve a (Belgian) compromise between French vocational training at a separate teachers’ college and German scientific education at the university. Nevertheless, the college became increasingly criticised for being in two minds without anything to go on to. Moreover, from the start, teacher training also became involved in the ideological conflict between Catholics and liberals and in the language question between French and Dutch speakers. In both matters another compromise had to be reached. The increasing importance of a scientific education for future teachers led to the ending of teachers’ colleges and, to a certain extent, even of teacher training itself, through its transfer to the universities. From 1890, new teachers had to become scientists at the expense of pedagogical training. Through comparisons with the situation in neighbouring countries, the development in Belgium is put in a broader perspective.