Resumen de Instruction publique, éducation nationale et liberté d' enseignement en Europe occidentale au XIXe siècle
Throughout the nineteenth century, determining the best ways of improving popular education was seen by contemporaries as crucial to the future of national societies. From the beginning of the French Revolution, the issue of educational reform played a central role in the debate on public services and on the way in which the state could serve the general interest without abusing its powers. Thus, it offers historians an opportunity to shed light, by comparative means, on the relationship between law and habit, government decision and social demand, popular claims and the interests of the ruling classes. This article successively focuses on three problems arising from the original function played by this issue throughout the nineteenth century. First, attention is drawn to its links with new conceptions of the role played by the state, which monitors education, acts on the educational system and controls the use of the freedom that is a necessary condition of progress, in this field as in others. The commonplace view is that the state thought it preferable for the masses to be inculcated with moral standards rather than knowledge, as morality was seen as a better safeguard against the threat of revolution; however, this view requires critical examination. Eventually, as the ¿imperial societies' gained in vigour and influence, the Nation was increasingly regarded as a sacred ideal, and the state, which, in theory at least, remained liberal, emerged as a more and more watchful organizer of teaching. From a comparative point of view, the debate in France aimed at little more than a compromise between authority and liberty, owing to the intransigence of the Catholic Church. The state seemed to fear that sharing its authority would weaken its legitimacy, diminish its capacity to maintain law and order, and, after 1870, limit its ability to defend the freedom of conscience. Conversely, in the United Kingdom, religious passions led political authorities to leave educational reform in the hands of private citizens and philanthropic institutions. The same comparative approach highlights the importance of two periods that appear as turning points: the 1830s and the 1870s. During the former decade, many countries, ranging from the United Kingdom to Greece, either created special government offices in charge of monitoring education or passed new legislation that provided a framework for government intervention. In the course of the latter decade, as Prussia's wealth made a deep impression, these and other governments launched reforms based on the Prussian model and sought to generalize school attendance. In the end, however, the autonomy and power of administrative authorities increased less than the share of the state budget devoted to education. It is legitimate to wonder whether these reforms reinforced the state's ascendancy over the individual mind and whether they can account for the passive acceptance by many citizens of various brands of propaganda in the course of the twentieth century. However, this article suggests that historians should not exaggerate the power of the school. Like that of other institutions, its action neither automatically nor comprehensively mirrors the legislator's intentions. Whereas laws and official regulations reflect a unified conception, variations in local dispositions account for a far greater degree of political and cultural diversity. Studying the history of education in nineteenth-century Europe not only leads one to appreciate the distance between government intention and the manifold modes of popular resistance, but reveals the very diverse means by which the population at large was able to adapt official programmes to contradictory interests and aspirations.
