Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Plural socialism
- 2 The social question
- 3 Revolutionary inspirations
- 4 Religion and the early socialists
- 5 Socialists and education: to repulse the barbarians
- 6 The “new woman”
- 7 Association: dream worlds
- 8 Worker associations before 1848
- 9 Association: socialist hopes in the Second Republic
- 10 Association: the conservative reaction in the Second Republic
- 11 Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Socialists and education: to repulse the barbarians
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Plural socialism
- 2 The social question
- 3 Revolutionary inspirations
- 4 Religion and the early socialists
- 5 Socialists and education: to repulse the barbarians
- 6 The “new woman”
- 7 Association: dream worlds
- 8 Worker associations before 1848
- 9 Association: socialist hopes in the Second Republic
- 10 Association: the conservative reaction in the Second Republic
- 11 Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Education was the panacea to all social reformers in these years, not least to socialists, but there was considerable disagreement about who was to be educated and what sort of education should be delivered. Those who wrote about an ideal community, particularly Fourier and Cabet, devoted detailed chapters on what the young should be taught. Many early socialists, including the Saint-Simonians, the Fourierists, Cabet, Guépin, Jeanne Deroin, Pauline Roland and Eugène Niboyet devoted their time to the actual education of others. Socialists were interested in education in a broad cultural sense but, specifically, they addressed those aspects that were relevant to sorting out social problems. Even the utopians, Fourier and Cabet, favoured vocational education. Socialists focused on basic learning, and paid particular attention to practical, and especially vocational training. They wanted to educate working people so that they could command an adequate wage to sustain life and keep them from immoral or criminal alternatives. Leisure was seen as almost as much a danger for the “popular classes” as was poverty. Socialists were keen on part-time education, particularly evening classes for workers. They founded vocational schools, where girls and boys learned a trade along with the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. They favoured reformatories for young offenders, in which the boys learned aspects of agricultural or industrial occupations alongside literacy. Socialist enthusiasts for education wanted to bring learning to those excluded from the current systems. They concentrated on the needs of workers, and especially girls, including the training of female teachers for girls’ schools.
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- Chapter
- Information
- French Socialists before MarxWorkers, Women and the Social Question in France, pp. 54 - 74Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2000