The Law of 1833 specified that elementary education should consist of reading, writing, and arithmetic, plus religious instruction. In 1850, the curriculum was broadened to include history, nature study, geography, drawing and music.

Around the same time similar subjects were being added to American elementary schools. History and geography came into their own in order to satisfy and feed the rising tide of patriotism and nationalism, and in the case of the United States, to perform the additional function of Americanizing the large numbers of immigrants entering the country from the 1840's onward. Nature study, in part, was a reflection of the growth of science in the 19th century, and also of modern psychological and educational theories which began to suggest the value of observation and study by the child of the world close at hand.

In France, the system of higher elementary schools offered an avenue to some for further study of elementary school subjects, along with such new courses as surveying, agriculture, and commerce.

With the establishment of a widespread system of public elementary schools in the 1880's came a significant shift in the orientation of the elementary school. Religion was no longer to be taught in the school, and supervision or control of the public school by church authorities was ended.

The goals of the public elementary school were stated in a circular of July 27, 1882, and are still quoted:

The primary school's ideal is not to teach a great deal, but to teach it well. Children leave school with a limited knowledge, but what they have been taught they know thoroughly; their learning is restricted, but not superficial. They do not possess a half-knowledge . . .; for what makes any education complete or incomplete is not the amount of information imparted, but the manner in which it is imparted.

Primary schools, owing both to the age of the pupils and to the careers that they are to follow, have neither the time nor the means for the same course of studies as that taken in secondary schools; what primary schools can do is to see that their pupils derive as much benefit and usefulness from their simpler studies as pupils in grammar schools do from secondary education; the idea is that all pupils in public schools should leave them with a certain fund of knowledge suited to their future needs and that they should above all, have acquired the habit of constructive thought, an open and alert mind, clear ideas, judgment, reflection, order and accuracy in thought and speech. "The aim of education," as has very rightly been said, "is not to teach all that can possibly be known about the various subjects, but to give a thorough grounding in what it is essential to know about them." "

› Reprinted in Debiesse, op. cit., p. 62–63.

The aims of the elementary school were further illustrated in the section on teaching methods in the same circular:

Method. Once the aim of education is thus defined, the method to be followed is self-evident. It cannot be confined to the progressive mastery of mechanical techniques nor to the teaching of the rudimentary means of communication, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Nor must there be a succession of dull lessons, merely laying before the pupils the various items of the curriculum.

The only possible method for primary education is to allow teacher and pupils to speak freely, each in his turn, keeping up a continual flow and exchange of ideas, varied, undogmatic and imperceptibly growing more complex. The teacher must always start from something which the children know, and then, passing from the known to the unknown, from easy to difficult things, lead them by oral questions and written exercises to discover for themselves the consequences of a principle, the applications of a rule, or, on the other hand, the principles and rules which they have already unconsciously applied in practice.

In all education, the teacher must begin by using tangible and visible objects making the children look at them and touch them, confronting them with material things: then, gradually, he accustoms them to considering those objects in abstract terms, comparing, generalizing and reasoning without help of concrete examples.

Thus primary teachers can succeed only if they appeal constantly to the attention, judgment and spontaneous intelligence of their pupils. It is essentially a matter of intuition and of appreciating the importance of practical considerations. The intuitive teacher counts primarily on children's natural common sense, the power of evidence, human beings' innate capacity to understand at a glance, and without being shown, not all the facts, but the simplest and most essential facts. With regard to practical considerations, teachers must never forget that primary school children have not time to waste on idle discussions, erudite theories, matters of purely academic interest, and that five to six years at school is all too short a time to provide them with the small stock of knowledge indispensable to their needs and, above all, to enable them to keep that knowledge and build upon it later. . .

...

This confidence in the latent powers of intelligence which are only waiting to be developed, and the absence of any pretension to really scientific training, are appropriate in all elementary teaching but are particularly necessary in public primary schools which have to consider, not a few individual children, but the whole of the child population. Primary school teaching has to be collective and simultaneous; teachers cannot concentrate on a few children, their duty is to the whole class: it is on the results obtained by the class as a whole and not on those achieved by a few promising individuals that a teacher's worth should be judged. However different the levels of intelligence in a class, the teacher should be able to impart a minimum of knowledge and practical ability to all pupils, with a few very rare exceptions. Many pupils will of course easily progress beyond that minimum, but if it is not reached by all the rest of the class, this will mean that the teacher has not really understood his task or has not carried it out properly.

As indicated in a decree of January 18, 1887, (Article 27) the specific elementary subjects to be taught were as follows: ethics and civic education; reading and writing; arithmetic and the metric system; history and geography, with particular reference to France; elements of natural science; drawing and singing; and manual work, principally as applied to agriculture. In addition, there was to be physical education for all and needlework for girls."1

Some 36 years later, changes were made through the law of June 20, 1923, which modified the timetables and syllabuses and introduced some new teaching methods. The syllabuses were lightened and graded and the regulations of 1923 stated that "the worker, the citizen and the man are not three different beings, but three aspects of one and the same being. There is no real education if one does not strive at the same time to cultivate the human being and prepare him for life." 42 Ministerial instructions issued in 1938 further stressed that schools must prepare young people for "tasks, duties, struggles and joys of life as a whole. Their physical qualities have to be developed and also their emotional and intellectual gifts which go to make workers, citizens and men." 48

Additional modifications of various syllabuses were made in 1945 (history, geography, arithmetic, nature study); in 1947 (terminal class-grades 7, 8); and in 1953 (science for rural areas). Such changes have been described as minor adaptations to changing conditions rather than indicating any basic shift in orientation of the elementary school."

The curriculum of the public elementary school is specified by the national government, either through laws passed by the parliament or by decrees issued by the executive part of the government; in addition, the Ministry of National Education issues ordinances which are binding on all schools.

Recent statements of French educational authorities indicate a continuance of the belief that the character of French education requires uniform curriculums and methods. These same authorities point out however, that there is a trend toward allowing some adaptation of the curriculum to local needs. Thus, recent changes in the eighth year of the rural elementary schools allow science to be tied in with practical aspects of agriculture, with the hope of improving local practices in agriculture.45

a France: Annuaire de l'Education Nationale 1960. op. cit., p. 41.

4 Quoted in Brandicourt, M. "The French Primary School System." Educational Keview: Journal of the Institute of Education, University of Birmingham (England). No. 8, November 1955. p. 31.

43 Ibid.

Ibid.

UNESCO. World Survey of Education II: Primary Education, op. cit., p. 384–5.

The 8-year elementary school is divided by years into the following periods for grades 1 through 8:

7,8.

9, 10.

11..

12, 13......

2nd, 3rd-elementary (cours élémen- 2 years.

taire).

4th, 5th-middle course (cours moyen).

6th-higher (cours supérieur).......

2 years.

1 year.

7th, 8th-school leaving or terminal 2 years. (classes de fin d'études).

The curriculum for the 8 years of the French elementary school, shown in the following table, was established by ministerial decrees of October 17, 1945, and July 24, 1947, and modified by a decree of November 23, 1956:

Table 10.-Elementary school curriculum: by age and grades, and number of class hours per week for each subject 1

1 This curriculum appears in: France: Annuaire de l'Education Nationale 1960. Paris: Publié par le Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, 1960. p. 41-42. The change made in 1956 was to provide 5 hours per week of time within the school day to do homework assignments. This time was secured by taking 1⁄2 hour or 4 hour per week from several different subjects.

2 Applied science for the boys in rural areas includes the study of soil, crops and cattle breeding. Applied science, for both rural and urban girls, includes domestic economy, diet, housekeeping and child care.

Little time is devoted to science or to the social sciences (history and geography), the major portion of the class hours being spent on study

Table 11.-Hours per week and percent of total school time devoted to elementary school subjects

1

1 UNESCO/International Bureau of Education. Preparation and Issuing of the Primary School Curriculum. Paris: 1958. p. 163. (Publication No. 194).

* Handwork and practical work are associated with drawing and with science, and domestic science is associated with science.

of the native language, French. The following table, based on information supplied by French educational authorities, has been constructed by UNESCO specialists to indicate the portion of the total elementary school time devoted to each subject.

Typically one teacher will handle all the subjects within a particular grade of the elementary school. In some of the larger areas, such as Paris, there are special teachers for music or for domestic science who serve in several schools.

46

Some attempt is made in nursery school to teach reading, but writing really begins in the first grade as script writing, not printing.* Much time in the elementary school is spent on the study of the French language, including reading, writing, spelling, and grammar. It is felt that the nature of the French language necessitates this emphasis. The textbooks used are not always of recent origin. Certain editions have a life span of 50 years." This in effect reflects an attitude of the French that not everything new is good, nor is everything old necessarily useless.

In spite of the emphasis on language, a recent report of the Ministry of National Education cites a falling off in spelling proficiency among those entering the first year (6e) of the academic secondary school.

Education in France, No. 9, March 1960. p. 49. 47 Boorsch, op. cit., p. 36.