The movement initiated by the Guizot law of 1833 in this capital area was combined with the provisions of the Falloux law.
Since 1850, public and private primary education was largely between the hands of the clergy. This was the case, above all, with the education of girls, provided by the sisters, who could replace the certificate of pedagogical capacity with a simple letter of obedience from the bishop.
More than a third of the boys attended the brothers' schools. Some estimate that at least two-thirds of working-class children received instruction from
the hands of the Church. Out of 110,000 masters and mistresses, there were, according to M. Reclus, 47,000 congregants.
In addition, lay teachers in public education were under the supervision of priests. It was the priest who, together with the mayor, drew up the list of children admitted free of charge. The lay teacher had to have the catechism recited in class.
Primary education was nonetheless weak in the countryside. Victor Duruy, minister of Napoleon III, had wanted compulsory schooling, but had to limit himself to the creation, by a law of 1867, of 12,000 new schools. The Belleville program in 1869 called for compulsory, secular and free primary education.
The conservative Republic improved the salaries of teachers. A law of 1878 created a Caisse des écoles. The League of Education with Jean Macé carried out the active propaganda that we know. It was up to Ferry, Minister of Public Instruction, to move on now.
He began by thinking of "executives". On the inspiration of Paul Bert, he created a Normal Primary School of teachers in each department (1879):until then, 67 departments lacked one. Normal primary schools for teachers had existed since Guizot; Ferry only needs to create 8 new ones. To train the female executives of the primary teacher training colleges, the Minister founded the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Fontenay-aux-Roses, which was set up by Félix Pecaut. For the training of the male executives of the primary normal schools of teachers, Ferry created the École Normale Supérieure of Saint-Cloud.
As for the reform of the primary schools proper, which constituted, by the repercussions it was to have on the mass of the French public, the nucleus and the heart of the "haute oeuvre", it gave rise to three bills. /P>
These three bills were the result of the dismantling of an enormous Paul Bert plan of 109 articles, too difficult to digest to pass all at once.
It was first a bill on the proficiency certificates in primary education. The certificate of capacity for primary education was required, which meant suppression of the privilege of the letter of obedience for the sisters (suppression only for the future, such was the correction made by the Senate, so that 30,000 sisters continued to teach without certification).
During the very violent discussion about the letter of obedience, Ferry took a stand against the thesis lent to his opponents, according to which teaching would be an industry like any other, a free industry, where the consumer would be alone judge the quality of the products.
The project became the law of June 16, 1881.
The second project related to free admission. Guizot and Duruy had already done so well in this respect that three-fifths of the pupils no longer paid the sum of 1 to 3 francs per month, in principle required. Should the obligation to pay be allowed to die out little by little, or should free be officially proclaimed? Ferry chooses the second solution.
The third project, finally, concerned compulsory education. He created a certificate of studies, the crowning achievement of primary education. It decreed sanctions against negligent parents. It withdrew from the ministers
of worship the rights of direction, supervision, inspection, which the 1 Falloux gave them in public schools. And above all, in the indication of the subjects that would be obligatory studied at the public school, the project substituted a moral and civic instruction to the mora and religious instruction, previously foreseen.