Penelope
with
the
Suitors
by
Pintoricchio,
about
1509,
National
Gallery
NG911
Fixing
the
French:
Education,
Political
Economy
and
Le
Comité
d'Instruction
Publique
de
la
Convention
Nationale,
1792‐93
King’s
College
London
M.A.
Early
Modern
History
Dissertation
15,333
words
Contents
Introduction
1
Definitions:
Political
Economy,
Public
Instruction
10
Condorcet
18
Sieyès
28
Conclusion
39
Bibliography
48
INTRODUCTION
In
the
procès­verbal
(official
report)
of
the
National
Convention’s
session
for
21
January
1793
is
a
declaration
that
three
areas
of
priority
were
to
be
given
permanent
status
on
the
ordre
du
jour
of
the
French
Revolutionary
government:
war,
finance,
and
l’organisation
de
l’instruction
publique.1
Officially
at
least,
matters
relating
to
the
reorganisation
of
the
education
system
–
which
had
been
stagnating
since
the
collapse
of
the
Ancien
Régime
four
years
earlier
–
appeared
to
form
part
of
a
triumvirate
of
main
priorities
for
France
at
the
start
of
1793.
The
purpose
of
this
thesis
is
to
explore
the
nature
of
this
political
priority
of
‘public
instruction’
and
if
it
was
realized.
This
will
be
attempted
in
two
ways:
more
specifically
by
investigating
the
attempts
to
orchestrate
a
working
French
educational
system
between
1792
and
1793;
more
generally
by
examining
these
attempts
against
the
increasing
influence
of
French
political
economic
ideas
during
the
late
18th
century.
Essentially,
the
thesis
will
consider
two
plans
for
organizing
education
that
were
presented
to
the
Convention
in
these
two
years
by
members
of
the
Comité
d'Instruction
Publique,
an
official
body
inaugurated
in
October
1792.
It
will
be
posited
that
a
desire
to
improve
France’s
prosperity
was
one
of
the
main
sources
of
motivation
for
educating
or
moulding
the
population,
and
it
is
in
the
deliberations
of
the
political
figures
affiliated
to
the
Comité
d'Instruction
Publique,
which
held
593
séances
(meetings)
on
the
topic
of
instituting
a
new
educational
system
between
1792
and
1795,
that
the
central
debates
on
establishing
the
structures
and
methods
that
would
facilitate
this
process
can
be
found.
In
short,
if
the
official
report
states
that
public
instruction
was
a
priority
for
the
National
Convention,
the
aim
of
this
1
Procès­verbaux
du
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
de
la
Convention
Nationale,
ed.
J.
Guillaume
(Paris:
Imprimerie
Nationale,
1891,
6
vols.),
vol.1,
Annex
A
to
Séance
45,
p.300.
Hereby
referred
to
as
Procès­
verbaux.
This
first
volume
of
Guillaume’s
collection
is
the
most
commonly
referenced
throughout
this
thesis.
References
that
relate
to
other
volumes
of
Guillaume’s
work
will
be
made
explicitly.
1
thesis
will
be
determine
what
the
priorities
were
of
the
committee
tasked
with
organizing
it.2
The
purpose
of
this
introduction
is
to
highlight
and
address
the
array
of
problems
that
arise
when
attempting
to
answer
the
questions
raised
above.
There
are
obvious
difficulties,
for
example,
with
the
initial
assertion
from
the
National
Convention
that
public
instruction
could
share
the
political
spotlight
with
the
overbearing
tasks
of
funding
and
fighting
war.
The
revolutionary
journalist
and
notorious
Terrorist
Jean‐Paul
Marat,
for
example,
demanded
that
questions
on
education
should
be
abandoned
in
favour
of
more
immediate
political
concerns
in
December
1792.3
A
brief
investigation
of
the
perceived
hollowness
of
the
priority
of
public
instruction,
however,
can
in
fact
help
justify
this
thesis.
Firstly,
it
is
a
widely‐held
(and
not
untrue)
belief
that
war
was
an
all‐
consuming
burden
on
Revolutionary
France,
and
not
just
in
terms
of
men
and
matériel.
The
attentions
of
the
politicians
in
Paris
were
frequently
diverted
from
other
matters,
such
as
education,
when
responding
to
military
crises
or
other
major
political
events.4
R.R.
Palmer,
who
has
written
extensively
on
the
topic
of
instruction
in
France,
has
argued
that
the
“bewildering
conditions
of
distraction,
interruption,
postponement
and
confusion”
that
hampered
efforts
to
enact
and
execute
legislation
on
education
were
caused
by
“more
pressing
issues”.5
But
describing
French
attempts
at
government
as
paralysed,
and
attempts
to
change
education
as
stillborn
because
of
the
Revolutionary
2
A
previous
Committee
on
Public
Instruction
operated
under
the
Legislative
Assembly
between
1791‐92.
For
brevity’s
sake,
all
mentions
of
“the
Committee”
or
“le
Comité”
in
this
thesis
refer
to
the
Committee
on
Public
Instruction
appointed
by
the
National
Convention
which
ran
from
1792‐95.
3
Keith
Michael
Baker,
Condorcet:
From
Natural
Philosophy
to
Social
Mathematics
(London
and
Chicago:
Chicago
University
Press,
1975),
p.319.
Marat’s
“immediate
political
concerns”
were
probably
with
the
trial
and
impending
execution
of
Louis
Capet.
4
Another
interesting
observation
to
make
is
that
a
number
of
politicians
(including
both
Condorcet
and
Sieyès)
elected
to
the
Comité
in
October
1792
did
not
take
their
place
until
February
1793,
because
they
chose
to
serve
instead
on
the
committee
responsible
for
formulating
the
constitution,
and
the
Convention
had
decreed
that
“Personne
ne
pourra
être
membre
de
deux
comites”
(Procès­verbaux,
p.ii)
5
R.R.
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity:
Education
and
the
French
Revolution
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1985),
p.83
2
wars
strikes
a
somewhat
simplistic
chord.
It
is
incorrect
to
assume
that
nothing
could
get
or
indeed
ever
got
done.
Palmer,
on
this
issue,
mentions
the
fact
that
even
in
a
time
of
war
and
economic
hardship
as
desperate
as
1793,
the
Convention
still
“made
generous
subsidies
to
the
arts
and
sciences”,6
whilst
one
could
also
consider
the
constitution,
adopted
on
24
June
1793,
which
regarded
“communal
education”
so
important
that
it
was
to
become
a
right
guaranteed
to
all
French
citizens.7
The
point
to
suggest
here
is
that
attempts
to
regenerate
education
during
the
period
of
the
National
Convention
can
actually
appear
significant,
initially
in
practice
(in
terms
of
the
aforementioned
subsidies),
but
predominantly
more
in
theory,
as
shown
by
the
activities
and
output
of
the
Committee
of
Public
Instruction,
around
which
this
thesis
is
based.
The
concept
of
theorizing
about
educational
matters
is
very
different
to
one
of
ignoring
them
completely
because
of
other
political
interruptions,
even
if,
as
we
shall
see,
such
theorizing
lead
to
very
little
(if
any)
real
benefit.
To
this
end,
the
introductory
statement
on
priorities
originating
from
the
National
Convention
and
recorded
in
the
procès­verbal
can
be
judged,
for
the
time
being
at
least,
as
not
merely
empty
rhetoric.
The
strength
of
the
idea
of
organising
public
instruction
in
1792
and
1793
makes
it
a
worthy
topic
of
pursuit
and
analysis.
A
second
problem
with
the
Convention
asserting
in
1793
that
public
instruction
was
one
of
the
main
priorities
of
the
Revolutionary
government
is
that
there
are
few
instances
of
French
early
modern
or
modern
history
where
the
subject
of
education
does
not
appear
to
be
a
major
or
general
concern,
leading
us
to
the
predictable
question:
why
1792­93?
The
cahier
de
doléances
of
1789,
for
example,
which
were
submitted
in
6
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.176
7
Procès­verbaux,
Séance
91,
pp.504‐5.
This
addition
to
the
constitution
was
one
that
Robespierre
had
demanded
in
the
Moniteur
on
21
June,
which
is
his
famous
“nurseries
of
republicanism”
excerpt.
Robespierre
demanded
that
communal
education
be
added
to
the
constitution
because
“the
colleges
were
the
nurseries
of
republicanism,
they
formed
the
spirit
of
the
nation
and
made
us
worthy
of
liberty.”
As
we
shall
see
in
the
conclusion,
“communal
education”
became
a
rather
suspicious
attempt
at
political
indoctrination
by
the
government,
rather
than
a
method
of
education.
3
droves
in
response
to
Louis
XVI’s
convening
of
the
Estates‐General,
were
“full
of
suggestions
for
the
schools”,8
whilst
the
“immediate
success”
of
Rousseau’s
Émile
in
1762,
fired
in
part
no
doubt
by
the
publicity
garnered
from
the
burning
of
the
book
in
Paris
and
Geneva,
speaks
volumes
about
public
demand
for
educational
innovation
much
earlier
in
the
18th
century.9
Could
these
two
sets
of
evidence
not
tell
us
more
about
educational
ideas
and
practices
in
France?
On
a
further
point,
this
study
is
particularly
concerned
with
the
idea
that
improving
France’s
political
economy
was
the
impetus
for
reforming
education.
The
penchant
for
developing
ideas
about
political
economy
in
France
was
certainly
not
limited
to
just
1792‐93.
What
is
the
difference,
one
might
ask,
between
educational
ideas
as
part
of
the
economic
question
in
the
1770s
or
1780s,
and
similar
attempts
for
similar
concerns
just
a
few
years
later?
In
other
words,
if
this
thesis’
task
has
been
set
to
investigate
education
during
the
relatively
brief
timescale
of
1792‐
93,
a
significant
justification
for
anchoring
the
study
at
this
particular
juncture
in
history
is
required.
The
justification
for
focusing
on
1792‐93
will
be
presented
in
two
stages:
one
practical,
one
illustrative.
Between
1891
and
1907,
James
Guillaume
collated
together
the
Procès­
verbaux
of
the
aforementioned
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
de
la
Convention
Nationale.
Within
Guillaume’s
six
volumes
are
the
minutes
of
each
of
this
political
body’s
séances,
along
with
relevant
appendices
such
as
the
reports
sent
by
the
Committee
to,
and
instances
of
reference
to
the
Committee
in
the
procès­verbaux
of,
the
Convention.
This
rich
source
of
documents
unveils
several
things.
The
most
obvious
revelation
is,
of
course,
what
was
discussed
and
decreed
by
the
Committee.
Whilst
it
is
impossible
to
verify
the
accuracy
of
the
recorded
minutes,
and
while
these
are
not
transcripts
of
what
8
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.5
9
P.D.
Jimack,
‘Introduction
to
Émile’
in
J.J.
Rousseau,
Émile,
tr.
Barbara
Foxley
(London:
J.M.
Dent,
1974),
p.xxiv
4
was
said
verbatim,10
the
assumption
has
been
made
that
they
are
as
close
as
it
is
possible
to
get
to
uncovering
the
discussions
conducted
between
the
Committee’s
members,
even
if
it
is
very
difficult
to
establish
the
dynamics
of
the
séances,
or
who
held
real
influence
or
power
in
the
deliberations.11
The
Procès­verbaux
are
able
to
reveal
fascinating
content,
such
as
the
claims
of
Durand‐Maillane,
who
argued
that
developments
in
science
can
be
“fatal
to
a
nation”,
and
that
Rome
was
“never
happier
than
when
doing
agriculture”.12
A
further
discovery,
and
one
that
is
made
with
reference
back
to
earlier
parts
of
this
introduction,
is
that
it
is
easy
to
identify
the
effects
of
“bewildering
distraction”
on
the
Revolutionary
government’s
three
“main
priorities”.
By
comparing
the
regularity
of
meetings
with
a
timeline
of
major
events,
it
can
be
shown
that
members
clearly
took
leave
of
the
Committee
whenever
something
politically
important
happened
elsewhere.13
Most
importantly
of
all,
however,
is
that
contained
in
the
reports
sent
to
the
Convention
are
the
many
grandiose
plans
for
the
French
educational
system,
the
production
of
some
of
which
are
what
Guillaume
calls
the
Committee’s
tâche
essentielle.14
These
plans,
numerous
in
number
and
devised
by
politicians
of
both
notorious
and
more
reserved
stock,
detail
what
those
in
the
higher
echelons
of
the
Revolutionary
government
believed
to
be
the
correct
method
of
instituting
education
in
France.
This
thesis
will
introduce
and
attempt
to
illustrate
the
influence
of
political
economic
ideas
on
two
of
these
educational
plans:
that
authored
by
10
By
this
I
mean
that
the
Procès­verbaux
generally
take
the
form
of
e.g.
“Citizen
x
remarked
on
the
statue
to
be
erected
at
Versailles”
and
are
not
full
transcripts
of
the
speeches
made.
However,
the
content
of
such
speeches
is
usually
included
in
a
printed
version
appended
to
the
official
report.
11
Palmer,
for
instance,
has
stated
that
Sieyès,
Daunou
and
Lakanal
dominated
the
Committee
following
the
great
insurrection
of
May
and
June
1793.
It
is
not
inherently
obvious
from
the
Procès­verbaux
that
this
was
the
case.
12
Procès­verbaux,
Appendix
B
to
Séance
36,
p.127
13
The
trial
of
the
king
appears
to
have
distracted
the
members
of
the
Comité
d'Instruction
Publique
to
such
an
extent
that
no
séances
were
held
from
28th
December
1792
until
25th
January
1793,
four
days
after
Louis’
execution.
Similarly,
a
hiatus
in
meetings
occurred
around
the
insurrection
moral
of
late
May
1793.
14
Guillaume,
Procès­verbaux,
p.xiii.
I
use
the
word
‘some’
because
only
a
select
few
of
these
plans
are
presented
in
the
name
of
the
Committee
(including
those
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès).
The
other
plans
were
privately
sponsored
by
members
of
the
Convention
but
are
still
reproduced
in
the
appendices
of
the
Procès­verbaux.
5
the
marquis
de
Condorcet,
presented
to
the
Convention
by
Gilbert
Romme
in
December
1792
(i.e.
just
before
the
Convention
declared
public
instruction
a
priority),
and
that
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
author
of
Qu'est­ce
que
le
tiers
état
?,
whose
plan
was
formulated
in
conjunction
with
Pierre
Daunou
and
Joseph
Lakanal,
and
presented
to
the
Convention
(by
Daunou)
in
June
1793
(i.e.
after
this
declaration
on
priorities
had
been
made).15
Both
of
these
plans
are
covered
by
the
first
volume
of
Guillaume’s
collection,
amongst
a
total
of
93
individual
séances.
Specific
justification
for
selecting
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
will
be
posited
at
the
introductions
to
their
respective
chapters,
but
initially
at
least,
it
is
Guillaume’s
tremendous
effort
at
collating
the
documents
relating
to
the
Comité
that
makes
the
period
of
1792‐93
such
an
enticing
proposition
to
study,
and
this
also
fulfils
the
practical
element
of
justifying
the
sources
selected
for
this
project.
The
most
crucial
observation
to
make
on
these
educational
plans
at
this
stage
is
to
highlight
the
fact
that
neither
were
ever
put
into
practice
by
the
Revolutionary
government.
That
is
to
say,
they
did
not
even
get
to
a
stage
of
practical
realization
where
they
could
be
deemed
as
either
successful
or
unsuccessful
attempts
to
form
a
new
French
educational
system.16
The
issue
of
non‐implementation
has
two
bearings
on
this
thesis.
One
is
that
we
are
clearly
dealing
more
in
the
domain
of
ideas
on
education
rather
than
actual,
quantifiable
results.
The
second
effect
of
this
issue
forms
part
of
the
illustrative
justification
for
choosing
the
timeframe
between
1792
and
1793.
This
is
because
the
attempts
at
educational
reform
at
this
point
are
an
example
of
a
process
that
appears
to
repeat
frequently
in
the
French
Revolution.
It
is
the
notion
of
an
inherent
15
Jean‐Henri
Hassenfratz,
speaking
at
the
Jacobin
club
the
day
after
publication
of
the
plan,
revealed
Sieyès
as
its
“father,”
declaring
that
“il
faut
que
vous
sachiez
que
Lakanal
n’en
est
pas
l’auteur;
le
père
de
ce
projet
est
le
prêtre
Sieyès”
(Procès­verbaux,
Annex
to
Séance
93,
p.525)
16
Interestingly,
Sieyès
had
previously
been
critical
of
“philosophers”
whose
“plan[s]
of
action
that
they
aim
to
follow
to
secure
the
people’s
interest…
[are]
no
more
than
a
project.”
Sieyès
saw
an
“administrator”
or
executive‐type
figure,
whose
concern
“[was]
with
the
possibility
of
realizing
the
philosopher’s
good
intentions,”
as
inherently
more
useful
to
society.
(idem.
‘Views
of
the
Executive
Means
Available
to
the
Representatives
of
France
in
1789’
in
idem.,
Political
Writings,
tr.
and
ed.
Michael
Sonenscher
(Indianapolis:
Hackett,
2003),
p.7
6
desire
for
the
government
to
create
massive
organizational
projects
from
scratch
to
coordinate
and
control
the
institutions
and
activities
relevant
to
political
life
and,
more
often
than
not,
the
complete
and
abject
failure
to
implement
these
projects.
It
is
hypothesized
that
the
Revolutionary
government’s
attempts
to
administer
the
renewal
of
the
French
education
system
in
1792
and
1793
–
which
essentially
took
the
form
of
constructing
vast,
detailed
plans
that
prescribed
a
flattening
of
the
existing
order
in
favour
of
starting
afresh
–
is
indicative
of
a
tendency
to
relentlessly
pursue
the
attainment
of
perfect
institutions
complete
with
perfect
citizens,
to
the
detriment
of
actual
or
concrete
progress,
or
even
worse,
the
government’s
own
political
survival.
This
incessant
desire
for
perfection
also
occurs
in
other
aspects
of
French
political
life,
for
example
in
the
massive
delays
caused
by
dispute
over
implementation
of
the
constitution,
or
the
organization
of
France
into
départements
(successful,
of
course,
but
based
on
rational,
perfect
design),
or
in
the
rigorous
and
vicious
pursuit
of
the
populace
who
spoke
patois,
and
the
subsequent
attempts
to
force
them
to
speak
a
standardized
French,
which
Grégoire
described
as
the
desire
to
create
a
“perfectly
pure”
and
“rational”
language.17
This
hypothesis
construes
that
a
more
effective
method
might
have
been
to
adopt
a
practical
approach
to
planning
education
by
reforming
institutions
already
in
existence,
rather
than
trying
to
create
an
entirely
new
system
based
on
rationality.
In
this
thesis,
this
approach
is
likened
to
the
role
of
le
bricoleur
or
the
fixer,
a
term
first
used
by
Claude
Lévi‐Strauss
and
elaborated
upon
by
Keith
Michael
Baker.
The
bricoleur
is
one
who
defines
his
projects
“in
terms
of
what
he
has,
his
activities
are
preconstrained
by
the
nature
of
the
materials
he
has
collected.”18
In
other
words,
a
bricolage
approach
17
David
A.
Bell,
The
Cult
of
the
Nation
in
France:
Inventing
Nationalism,
1680­1800
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
2001),
p.175‐7
18
Keith
Michael
Baker,
Inventing
the
French
Revolution
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1990),
p.19.
Baker
uses
the
word
bricolage
to
describe
the
art
of
intellectual
history.
7
to
education
in
the
French
Revolution
would
consist
of
reforms
to
pre‐existing
educational
establishments
such
as
the
colleges
and
universities
administered
by
religious
orders
and
funded
by
private
endowments,
not
wholesale
destruction
of
them
in
order
to
bring
in
untested,
unproven
replacements.
It
could
be
argued
that
the
adoption
of
such
an
approach
might
have
garnered
more
success
than
the
actual
outcomes
of
the
educational
plans
of
1792‐93
which,
as
we
shall
see,
amounted
to
very
little.
Of
course
this
construction,
based
on
the
usefulness
of
hindsight,
is
a
crude
approach
to
judging
the
accomplishments
of
educational
projects
in
France
between
1792‐93,
but
it
does
not
discount
the
fact
that
the
original
hypothesis,
that
the
French
appeared
to
prefer
‘revolution’
over
‘reform’,
still
appears
valid.
Indeed,
this
supposition
seems
to
echo
the
sentiments
of
Robert
Gildea
in
Children
of
the
Revolution,
a
work
that
looks
at
the
formation
of
a
French
national
character
in
the
post‐1799
era.
In
describing
the
restoration
of
the
Bourbon
monarchy
in
1815
as
the
point
of
failure
of
the
Revolution,
Gildea
points
to
a
repeated
sense
of
“unfinished
business”
for
the
progeny
of
revolutionaries,
who
would
attempt
again
and
again,
for
example
in
1830,
1848
and
1871,
to
perfect
the
Revolution
and
achieve
the
Republic
“completely,
permanently,
[and]
better
than
before.”19
The
choice
of
1792‐93,
therefore,
is
because
it
is
symptomatic
of
a
wider
problem,
and
it
is
a
good
case
study
in
the
pursuit
of
justification
for
a
theory
which
attempts
to
explain
failure
in
the
French
Revolution:
there
was
a
need
for
revolutionary
bricoleurs,
not
architects.
A
final
problem
of
critical
importance
to
address
is
in
defining
two
of
the
terms
used
in
the
title
of
this
project,
those
of
‘public
instruction’
and
‘political
economy’.
Whilst
this
introduction
has
used
the
terms
liberally,
it
has
not
firmly
established
their
meanings.
19
Robert
Gildea,
Children
of
the
Revolution
(London:
Allen
Lane/Penguin,
2008),
pp.2‐3
8
To
better
understand
how
ideas
about
education
in
France
interacted
with
those
of
political
economy
in
1792‐93,
we
need
to
define
and
contextualise
them
in
the
late
18th
century
period.
To
this
end,
what
follows
is
a
dissection
of
these
terms,
and
an
explanation
of
how
the
remainder
of
the
thesis
will
utilise
them.
Once
these
definitions
have
been
established,
we
will
proceed
first
to
an
analysis
of
Condorcet’s
plan
of
1792
with
specific
reference
to
‘public
instruction’
and
‘political
economy’,
before
attempting
a
similar
exploration
of
the
Sieyès
plan
of
1793.
Finally,
the
conclusion
to
this
thesis
aims
to
convey
a
judgement
on
three
things:
the
influence
and
practicality
of
the
plans;
how
they
relate
to
the
hypothesis
that
the
French
Revolution
sought
perfection;
and
how
this
thesis’
arguments
fit
into
the
wider
landscape
of
academic
work
on
this
subject.
9
DEFINITIONS:
POLITICAL
ECONOMY,
PUBLIC
INSTRUCTION
The
necessity
of
this
section
is
two‐fold.
Primarily,
it
has
been
utilised
to
codify
two
somewhat
complicated
terms
that
form
the
spine
of
the
thesis.
However,
in
addition,
there
is
a
clear
need
to
place
the
two
terms
in
their
historical
context.
The
disclaimer
to
convey
at
this
point,
however,
is
that
it
is
not
the
purpose
of
this
section
nor
this
thesis
to
describe
both
education
and
political
economy
in
either
the
French
Revolution
or
late
18th
century
France
as
a
whole.
For
one
reason,
such
a
remit
goes
beyond
the
limited
scope
available
for
this
work.
For
a
second,
research
on
such
topics
has
already
been
accomplished,
with
distinction,
by
a
number
of
historians.
The
two
objectives
of
the
chapter
are
thus
to
produce
working
definitions
for
the
terms
‘public
instruction’
and
‘political
economy’
so
that
they
can
be
used
to
analyse
the
educational
plans
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès;
and
to
briefly
précis
the
historical
background
to
these
terms
via
the
work
of
other
authors.
Since
this
thesis
focuses
heavily
on
the
official
output
of
the
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique,
it
would
appear
prudent
to
start
this
section
by
outlining
what
is
meant
by
the
term
‘public
instruction’.
In
actual
fact,
it
is
by
beginning
with
a
definition
of
the
more
familiar
term
‘political
economy’,
first
generally,
then
in
much
narrower
terms
with
reference
to
its
status
in
late
18th
century
France,
that
much
stronger
foundations
can
be
laid
to
better
understand
what
‘public
instruction’
is
taken
to
mean
within
the
perspective
of
this
thesis.
In
analysing
the
basic
tenets
of
political
economy,
Donald
Winch
traces
the
evolution
of
the
term
in
the
works
of
Adam
Smith,
who
considered
it
a
“branch
of
the
science
of
a
statesman
or
legislator.”20
For
Winch,
Smith’s
use
of
political
economy
when
describing
20
Adam
Smith,
The
Wealth
of
Nations:
Books
IV­V,
in
Andrew
S.
Skinner,
ed.,
idem
(London:
Penguin,
1999),
p.5
10
how
“the
mercantile
and
agricultural
systems”
affect
the
“formulation
of
government
policy”
reinforces
the
idea
that
political
economy
is
concerned
with
what
he
calls
the
“art
of
legislation”.21
In
defining
the
“practical
objectives”
of
political
economy,
Winch
points
to
the
two
examples
posited
by
Smith
in
book
IV
of
Wealth
of
Nations:
first,
to
provide
a
“plentiful
revenue
or
subsistence
for
the
people,
or
more
properly
to
enable
them
to
provide
such
a
revenue
or
subsistence
for
themselves”
[my
italics];
second,
it
is
the
role
of
political
economy
to
supply
the
state
with
enough
revenue
for
“publick
services”.22
With
these
underlying
intentions,
one
can
already
begin
to
see
the
implications
and
importance
of
political
economy
to
education
on
a
national
level,
or
indeed
vice‐versa.
If
the
first
practical
objective
of
political
economy
is
to
enable
the
population
to
provide
their
own
means
of
subsistence,
one
can
assume
that
instructing
or
moulding
citizens
to
such
an
extent
that
they
can
perform
such
a
task
would
be
a
major
component
of
this
priority,
and
this
is
particular
true
when
considering
the
addition
of
“more
properly”
and
“for
themselves”
to
Smith’s
initial
explanation.
In
addition,
educating
the
population
arguably
can
fall
under
the
remit
of
public
services,
and
if
that
is
the
case,
it
can
be
assumed
that
the
second
practical
objective
might
constitute
financial
or
other
support
for
educational
projects,
a
term
that,
defined
loosely,
may
not
be
limited
to
just
schooling
(for
example,
its
remit
could
include
the
promotion
of
certain
skills
or
crafts,
types
of
civic
instruction,
or
the
use
of
new
or
standardized
language).
Whilst
a
basic
link
between
political
economy
and
education
can
therefore
be
constructed
with
Smith’s
Wealth
of
Nations,
the
relationship
between
the
two
terms
can
be
made
much
more
concrete
when
looking
at
particular
developments
in
French
political
economy
over
the
course
of
the
late
18th
century.
This
involves
a
much
21
Donald
Winch,
Riches
and
Poverty:
An
Intellectual
History
of
Political
Economy
in
Britain,
1750­1834
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1996),
p.21
22
Winch,
Riches
and
Poverty,
p.21
11
narrower
definition
of
political
economy
than
that
gleaned
from
Smith,
but
one
that
alludes
heavily
to
the
aforementioned
idea
of
moulding
or
forming
citizens.
The
late
18th
century
period
of
French
history
is
interesting
to
political
economy
for
a
number
of
reasons,
the
most
obvious
of
which
is,
of
course,
the
precarious
condition
of
France’s
finances
following
various
internal
and
external
disasters
in
the
century,
such
as
the
loss
of
its
colonial
territories
to
Britain
after
the
Seven
Years
War,
the
poor
harvests
of
1769
and
1770,
and
the
excessive
Royal
borrowing
of
the
1780s
that
led
to
wild
speculation
on
the
Paris
bourse.
Indeed,
in
French
Revolution
lore,
economic
crisis
is
frequently
cited
as
the
instigator
of
the
events
of
1789.
John
Shovlin
writes
that
by
the
1760s,
these
economic
concerns
reflect
on
publishing,
given
that
new
French
works
on
political
economy
were
being
published
at
a
rate
faster
than
that
of
literary
novels
in
this
decade.23
But
even
though
we
are
able
to
infer
the
importance
of
political
economic
thought
in
France
through
figures
about
books,
and
even
though
it
seems
obvious
economic
questions
were
one
of
crucial
importance
to
the
French
because
of
the
unpredictable
financial
status
of
the
Royal
governments,
the
most
relevant
observation
Shovlin
makes
with
regard
to
the
objectives
of
this
thesis
is
that
the
political
economy
advanced
by
“ordinary
elites”
in
France
at
this
time
was
“animated
and
shaped
by
a
patriotic
impulse”.
That
is
to
say,
it
became
a
phenomenon
instigated
by
middle‐class
patriots
who
sought
to
create
“a
political
community
in
which
citizens
subordinated
their
private
interest
to
the
welfare
of
the
public.”24
At
this
juncture,
it
is
worth
pausing
to
unpack
Shovlin’s
conclusion
about
this
role
of
patriotism,
because
his
assertion
that
it
is
a
central
concept
in
the
shaping
of
French
political
economy
opens
up
a
lexicon
of
further
terms,
including
virtue,
luxury,
mœurs
(or
manners)
and
honour,
that
also
fit
23
John
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue:
Luxury,
Patriotism
and
the
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution
(New
York:
Ithaca,
2006),
p.2
24
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
pp.4‐5
12
around
the
definition
of
public
instruction,
and
will
allow
us
to
grasp
a
better
understanding
of
the
link
between
political
economy
and
education.
In
surveying
the
political
economic
ideas
advanced
over
the
course
of
18th
century
France,
Shovlin
initially
traces
a
prevalent
idea
in
French
thought
that
a
regeneration
of
agriculture
was
the
best
path
for
rescuing
France
from
its
state
of
corruption
(economic
problems)
brought
on
by
luxury
(concentrated,
excessive
wealth).
Agriculture
had
“irrefutable
associations
with
simplicity,
virtue
and
good
mœurs”
and
a
return
to
it
would
allow
“patriot
political
economists
to
square
the
circle:
to
stimulate
prosperity
while
fostering
civic
virtue.”25
These
rustic‐inspired
ideas
of
patriotism
and
civicism
were
prevalent
in
philosophical
works,
such
as
those
of
Rousseau,
who
had
opined
that
“the
best
motive
force
of
a
government
is
love
of
the
fatherland
and
this
love
is
cultivated
along
with
the
fields”,26
whilst
the
related
idea
of
land
as
the
source
of
wealth,
which
in
turn
led
to
the
argument
that
competition
was
the
only
legally
justifiable
way
to
govern
the
economy,
was
the
central
part
of
the
doctrine
of
the
Physiocrats,
historically
the
most
studied
group
of
economic
thinkers
in
this
period.27
However
this
encouragement
and
enthusiasm
for
agriculture
appears
to
significantly
stutter
in
the
1770s,
a
decade
depicted
as
one
of
“defeat,
decline
and
retrenchment
for
those
who
sought
to
regenerate
France
by
reinvigorating
agriculture”,28
so
that
by
the
1780s
a
new
addition
had
been
made
to
the
“classical
ideal”
of
the
citizen:
in
addition
to
being
“soldiers,
farmers
and
law‐makers”,
they
now
also
had
to
be
merchants.29
This
25
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.65
26
J.J.
Rousseau,
‘Plan
for
a
Constitution
for
Corsica’
in
idem.,
The
Plan
for
Perpetual
Peace,
on
the
Government
of
Poland,
And
Other
Writings
on
History
And
Politics,
tr.
and
ed.
Christopher
Kelly
(Hanover,
New
Hampshire:
University
Press
of
New
England,
2005),
p.156
27
For
specific
detail
on
the
Physiocrats’
doctrine,
see
for
example
Murray
Forsyth,
Reason
and
Revolution:
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès
(New
York:
Leicester
University
Press,
1987),
pp.52‐6
or
Elizabeth
Fox‐Genovese,
The
Origins
of
Physiocracy
(New
York:
Ithaca,
1976).
Shovlin
is
particularly
critical
of
the
relentless
focus
in
history
on
the
Physiocrats
at
the
expense
of
research
on
other
groups
and
thinkers.
28
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.118
29
Richard
Whatmore,
Republicanism
and
the
French
Revolution
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
2000),
p.31
13
acceptance
(or
perhaps
re‐acceptance)
of
mercantilism
in
political
economic
ideas
is
one
that
Shovlin
describes
as
an
attempt
by
the
middling
elites
to
accommodate
the
“economic
realities
which
constrained
national
success”,
whilst
trying
not
to
succumb
to
a
“wholly
mercantile
ethos”.30
To
rescue
French
prosperity
but
avoid
the
descent
into
mercantilism
–
or
even
worse,
luxury
–
there
was
a
need
to
create
virtuous,
moral
citizens,
with
a
particular
requirement
to
motivate
merchants
to
focus
on
concepts
of
honour,
awarded
through
social
distinctions,
just
as
much
as
they
had
previously
focused
on
profits.
French
elites,
having
tried
to
associate
a
return
to
agriculture
with
national
prosperity,
now
had
a
new
equation
to
solve:
the
rejection
of
luxury
with
a
need
for
national
prosperity,
and
this
meant
remaking
merchants,
farmers
and
entrepreneurs
as
patriots.31
It
is
this
notion
of
a
re‐emergence
of
the
importance
of
commerce
that
allows
us
to
at
last
frame
the
idea
of
‘public
instruction’
within
our
definition
of
political
economy.
The
pressing
need
for
a
moral,
honourable
citizenry
to
complement
the
political
economic
ideas
put
forward
by
elite
commoners
–
whose
main
motivation
was
now
a
patriotic,
national
prosperity
which
would
help
calm
their
anxieties
about
their
own
social
position
within
an
economically
transformed
nation
and
the
ability
of
France
to
“compete
in
the
international
system”32
–
in
turn
clearly
highlights
a
requirement
for
the
education
of
citizens
in
a
way
that
would
be
conducive
to
answering
France’s
economic
questions.
Politicians
such
as
Saint‐Just
believed
the
solution
to
such
a
conundrum
lay
in
the
reformation
of
manners,33
and
such
a
conclusion
indicates
why
education
is
of
such
pivotal
importance
to
ideas
about
political
economy
in
Revolutionary
France.
In
the
pursuit
of
the
virtuous
and
prosperous
republic,
manners
(moeurs)
had
to
be
reformed
30
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.213
31
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.129
32
Shovlin,
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.4
33
Whatmore,
Republicanism
and
the
French
Revolution,
p.93
14
in
both
an
economic
and
political
sense,
and
it
is
with
regards
to
the
question
of
how
to
go
about
educating
the
population
in
this
way
that
numerous
political
writers,
including
two
that
will
become
the
focus
of
this
thesis,
Condorcet
and
Sieyès,
began
formulating
plans
for
‘public
instruction’
that
would
shape
the
French
citizenry
in
1792
and
1793.34
The
term
‘public
instruction’,
when
attempting
to
give
a
basic
definition,
is
usually
juxtaposed
against
the
term
‘national
education’.
Since
Jean‐Paul
Rabaut
Saint‐Étienne,
in
1792,
described
national
education
as
having
“relatively
little
to
do
with
schooling”,35
we
can
infer
that
the
concern
of
public
instruction
is
with
what
we
would
traditionally
label
‘state’
education:
legislation,
curriculum
and
supervision
of
the
schools,
or
what
Palmer
more
abstractly
calls
the
formation
of
mind
(against
national
education’s
formation
of
character
or
spirit).36
But
designating
public
instruction
as
just
to
do
with
schooling
poses
some
significant
problems
for,
ironically,
the
Committee
on
Public
Instruction.
Although
a
significant
proportion
of
the
Committee’s
meetings
was
spent
on
the
topic
of
public
instruction
in
the
strictest
sense
–
for
example
types
of
school
and
selection
criteria
for
teachers
–
a
sizeable
amount
had,
to
appropriate
Rabaut
Saint‐
Étienne’s
remark
above,
relatively
little
to
do
with
schooling.
As
we
shall
see,
there
is
plenty
of
debate
within
the
Procès­verbaux
of
the
Committee
that
directly
relate
to
issues
about
France’s
schools,
but
the
Committee
also
deliberated
on
a
wide
range
of
topics
that
do
not
fit
neatly
into
the
term
public
instruction,
but
do
fall
under
the
more
general
concept
of
wider
ideas
on
education.
Instances
of
these
include
legislating
on
the
policing
of
plays,
a
decree
on
the
founding
of
the
Muséum
national
d'histoire
naturelle
based
on
the
existing
Jardin
des
plantes,
and
the
designation
of
two
commissaries
to
work
34
Whatmore,
Republicanism
and
the
French
Revolution,
p.95
35
Bell,
The
Cult
of
the
Nation
in
France,
p.162
36
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.304,
p.132
15
on
changes
to
the
system
of
weights
and
measures.37
Beyond
this,
however,
are
also
discussions
on
subjects
that
appear
to
have
very
little
to
do
with
education
at
all,
such
as
the
extraordinary
convening
of
the
Committee
at
the
painter
David’s
house
to
view
his
work
honouring
Louis
Lepeletier,
or
the
reading
of
a
report
on
the
Dieppe
canal.38
Most
tellingly
of
all,
however,
is
the
fact
that,
from
speech
to
speech
and
report
to
report,
the
members
of
the
Committee
appeared
to
freely
interchange
the
terms
instruction
and
éducation.
In
the
séance
of
2
March
1793,
for
example,
the
official
report
stated
that
François
Lanthenas
would
“speak
on
education”
the
following
Wednesday.
In
that
meeting,
on
6
March,
the
procès­verbal
states
that
Lanthenas
presented
a
plan
on
public
instruction.39
The
slippery
interpretation
of
public
instruction
in
Revolutionary
France
also
poses
problems
for
one
of
the
main
objectives
of
this
essay:
the
influence
of
political
economy
on
ideas
about
public
instruction.
As
has
been
shown
in
the
definition
of
political
economy
above,
the
economic
questions
of
late
18th
century
France
were
particularly
concerned
with
regenerating
the
virtue
of
the
population
as
a
way
of
ensuring
national
prosperity.
On
the
premise
that
concepts
of
honour
and
patriotism
had
to
be
taught
to
the
citizenry,
it
is
initially
assumed
that
these
would
fall
under
the
realm
of
national
education,
but
not
more
specifically
the
remit
of
public
instruction.
In
referring
again
to
the
strict
definition
of
public
instruction
cited
above,
the
role
of
schools
in
the
endeavours
of
political
economy
might
be
in
teaching
new
agricultural
methods
or
the
laws
of
commerce,
but
not
in
teaching
its
students
moral
concepts
such
as
how
to
be
virtuous.
In
actual
fact,
however,
in
the
educational
plans
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
the
impartation
of
manners
is
one
of
the
primary
objectives.
These
projects,
presented
in
the
name
of
the
Committee
on
Public
Instruction,
were
designed
to
37
Procès­verbaux,
Séance
54,
p.347;
Annex
D
to
Séance
87,
p.475;
Séance
41,
p.226
38
Procès­verbaux,
Séance
67,
p.398;
Séance
79,
p.444
39
Procès­verbaux,
Seance
59,
p.372
and
Séance
61,
p.376
16
legislate
well
beyond
the
remit
that
a
strict
definition
of
public
instruction
would
allow.
In
short,
even
though
public
instruction
is
officially
concerned
with
schooling,
it
is
well
within
reason
to
redefine
it,
in
the
context
of
this
essay,
to
also
include
the
methods
that
the
plans
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
attempted
to
use
to
educate
the
French
population
in
some
of
the
fundamental
tenets
of
patriotic
political
economy,
i.e.
the
concepts
of
virtue,
honour,
patriotism,
and
good
moeurs.
At
this
conclusion
of
defining
terms,
and
as
we
focus
our
attentions
on
the
first
of
the
educational
plans
that
this
thesis
will
examine
–
that
of
Condorcet
–
another
of
Rabaut
Saint‐Étienne’s
observations
appears
to
ring
particularly
true:
“the
teaching
of
the
arts
and
sciences
indirectly
improves
manners
and
perfects
the
human
spirit.”40
40
Procès­verbaux,
Annex
D
to
Séance
39,
p.172
17
CONDORCET
The
tenets
of
Condorcet’s
plan
for
education
in
France
were
presented
to
the
National
Convention
by
Gilbert
Romme
as
the
Rapport
sur
l’instruction
publique,
considérée
dans
son
ensemble,
suivi
d’un
project
de
décret
sur
les
principales
bases
du
plan
general
on
20
December
1792.
It
was
not
the
first
time
an
overarching
plan
for
public
instruction
had
been
attempted,
since
Talleyrand
had
offered
a
project
of
similar
magnitude
and
complexity,
although
with
clear
ideological
differences,
to
the
Constituent
Assembly
in
September
1791.
More
importantly,
it
was
not
the
first
instance
of
Condorcet’s
ideas
for
education
being
published
at
the
behest
of
the
government
of
the
day,
as
he
had
been
a
member
of
the
previous
Committee
on
Public
Instruction
operating
under
the
Legislative
Assembly,
which
had
tried
to
discuss
a
version
of
his
plan
the
previous
April.41
This
last
point
hints
at
the
confusing
status
of
the
Condorcet
plan,
as
it
existed
in
December
1792,
particularly
when
attempting
to
gauge
its
usefulness
as
a
historical
document.
The
first
need
of
this
section
is
therefore
to
seek
a
clarification
of
the
source
used.
In
the
second
séance
of
the
Comité
on
17
October
1792,
the
decision
was
made
to
revisit
Condorcet’s
original
plan
from
the
Legislative
Assembly,
revise
its
articles
on
primary
schools
and
present
them
as
a
newly
formed
plan
for
primary
education,
which
was
eventually
read
to
the
Convention
on
19
November.42
In
the
ensuing
discussions,
many
articles
remained
the
same,
but
some
were
changed
significantly,
such
as
the
sixth
article
of
titre
II,
which
read
in
Condorcet’s
original
from
April
that
“religion
would
be
41
Discussion
of
this
plan
was
cut
off,
predictably,
by
the
distraction
of
war.
This
first
version
of
Condorcet’s
plan,
which
I
refer
to
as
the
“April
version”
is
reproduced
Procès­verbaux
du
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
ed.
J.
Guillaume
(Paris:
Imprimerie
Nationale,
1889),
pp.
226‐246
(hereby
referred
to
as
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative).
Romme’s
report
on
education
in
December,
presented
in
tandem
with
the
“second
reading”
of
Condorcet’s
plan,
is
reproduced
in
Procès­
verbaux,
pp.202‐220.
42
Procès­verbaux,
Appendix
to
Séance
28,
pp.68‐73
18
taught
in
churches
by
respective
members
of
the
clergy”,
had
now
became
more
of
an
assertion
on
religious
equality,
stating
that
teaching
“would
be
available
to
all
regardless
of
religious
distinction”,
and
that
it
was
“only
that
which
concerns
religion
[that]
can
be
taught
in
churches.”43
The
problem
is
that
whilst
a
printed
edition
of
the
Condorcet
plan
as
it
was
in
April
1792
survives,
and
whilst
a
copy
of
the
report
on
primary
education
(which
was
based
on
a
revised
section
of
the
plan)
also
remains,
there
is
some
doubt
over
the
content
of
the
Condorcet
plan
as
it
stood
in
December
1792.
The
only
version
reproduced
by
Guillaume
in
the
Procès­verbaux
is
in
the
form
of
Romme’s
reported
speech
to
the
Convention,
clearly
based
on
the
fundamentals
of
Condorcet’s
plan,
but
obviously
in
a
very
different
format
to
how
the
plan
had
been
presented
previously.
It
is
thus
not
clear
whether
the
Condorcet
plan
in
December
contained
the
revisions
for
the
primary
schools
deliberated
on
during
the
first
month
of
the
Committee’s
existence,
or
whether
it
was
a
fresh
reproduction
of
the
version
first
presented
to
the
Legislative
Assembly
in
April.
One
historian
adds
to
these
problems
with
the
source
by
claiming
that
the
plan
for
December
is
clearly
a
“truncated”
edition
of
the
“original”
from
April.44
To
continue
an
examination
of
the
Condorcet
plan
we
thus
need
to
justify
two
things:
the
pressing
matter
of
which
version
of
it
is
the
most
suitable
to
use
as
a
source
and,
on
a
different
note,
since
there
are
many
educational
plans
submitted
for
consideration
during
this
time
period,
why
it
is
the
ideas
of
Condorcet
that
have
been
chosen
for
examination.
On
the
subject
of
which
version
of
Condorcet’s
plan
to
use,
this
thesis,
when
attempting
to
trace
Condorcet’s
ideas
on
public
instruction
and
their
associations
with
43
Procès­verbaux,
Séance
6,
p.17.
Palmer
believes
that
it
is
Condorcet
who
instigated
this
edit.
I
can
not
find
evidence
in
the
Procès­verbaux,
however,
that
this
was
the
case.
Indeed,
it
seems
unlikely
given
that
Condorcet
was
not
present
at
the
séance
where
the
modification
was
discussed.
44
Baker,
Condorcet:
From
Natural
Philosophy
to
Social
Mathematics,
p.320.
For
example,
in
the
Séance
of
15
December
1792
(no.
38)
the
Committee
decides
to
remove
the
fifth
degree
of
public
instruction
from
Condorcet’s
plan,
that
of
the
Société
Nationale.
This
effectively
removes
the
entire
Titre
VI
of
the
plan,
and
may
be
what
Baker
is
referring
to
when
he
speaks
of
the
December
version
being
“truncated.”
19
political
economy,
will
rely
on
the
April
edition,
that
is
to
say,
the
plan
initially
presented
to
the
Legislative
Assembly.
Whilst
it
is
enticing
to
include
the
November
revisions
for
the
primary
schools,
because
they
are
the
first
fruits
of
the
Committee
in
its
guise
as
an
official
body
under
the
National
Convention,45
it
is
unfortunately
not
clear
whether
they
were
submitted
to
the
Convention
when
the
plan
was
presented
to
them
by
Romme
in
December
1792.
Romme’s
report
itself,
which
is
full
of
long
rhetorical
questions
on
the
nature
and
history
of
public
instruction,
is
simply
not
as
conducive
to
the
tasks
of
this
thesis
as
the
April
version
of
the
plan.
On
why
it
is
Condorcet
that
has
been
chosen
for
investigation,
the
selection
is
made
for
two
reasons.
His
eminence
as
the
“last
of
the
philosophes”
and
the
“herald
of
social
science”46
are
motivations
in
this
regard,
and
similar
to
the
reasons
for
the
selection
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès’
plan
for
the
following
chapter
–
they
were
both
famous,
and
significantly
more
renowned
than
other
political
figures
who
devised
educational
plans.
But
on
a
less
superficial
level,
it
is
Condorcet’s
standing
in
relation
to
political
economic
thought,
particularly
with
reference
to
his
ideas
on
“informed
citizenship”
as
a
means
of
reaping
national
benefits,
that
makes
his
plan
one
of
the
most
suitable
case
studies
for
exploring
how
the
blending
of
political
economic
ideas
with
designs
for
public
instruction
was
attempted.
The
purposes
of
the
remainder
of
this
chapter
can
thus
be
divided
into
three
sections:
first,
a
brief
outlining
of
Condorcet’s
attitudes
and
approaches
to
political
economy
in
his
works;
second,
the
extent
that
this
influences
his
educational
plan
of
April
1792;
and
lastly,
a
final
judgement
the
plan’s
actual
reception,
and
the
various
responses
to
the
plan
that
are,
fortunately,
set
out
in
the
Procès­verbaux.
45
Significantly,
the
plan
was
initially
presented
as
the
collective
effort
of
all
the
Committee’s
members,
probably
in
part
because
it
had
been
modified
by
their
deliberations,
but
also
because
Condorcet
was
not
officially
a
member
until
the
other
committee
he
sat
on,
that
responsible
for
formulating
the
constitution,
was
dissolved
in
February
1793.
46
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.124
20
Keith
Michael
Baker
summarizes
Condorcet’s
approaches
to
political
economy
by
pointing
to
his
ability
as
a
“social
mathematician”,
and
the
fact
that
a
“science
of
life
contingencies”
was
well
developed
in
France
by
the
end
of
the
18th
century.
Thus,
Condorcet
was
able
to
provide
not
only
“technical
solutions
to
certain
practical
financial
problems”
but
also
instigate
a
model
for
a
“mathematical
science
of
conduct
potentially
applicable
to
all
aspects
of
human
existence.”47
Whilst
Condorcet
possessed
clear
ideas
on
how
to
remedy
the
financial
issues
facing
France
in
the
1780s
and
1790s,
such
as
establishing
the
Caisses
d’accumulation
as
a
means
of
preventing
hoarding
and
to
encourage
economic
activity,
his
political
economy
was
wider
than
the
purely
administrative
needs
of
certain
economic
questions,
extending
to
what
Baker
calls
an
“attempt
to
establish
a
general
science
of
man
in
society.”48
The
interest
in
Condorcet
as
an
educational
planner
is
because
he
is
clearly
concerned
with
issues
of
national
prosperity
–
what
we
could
label
a
fundamental
component
of
political
economic
ideas
–
and
the
attainment
of
this
prosperity
could
only
be
achieved
through
the
teaching
of
the
fundamentals
of
his
social
science
to
the
population.
Renée
Waldinger
sees
this
encouragement
of
teaching
as
proof
that
Condorcet
thought
education
for
all
was
the
source
of
national
strength,
and
“the
surest
guarantee
of
happiness,
prosperity
and
progress”
for
the
nation.49
There
are
several
examples
of
this
attempt
to
promote
prosperity
through
education
in
Condorcet’s
collected
Oeuvres,
from
his
statement
that
education
was
“the
means
of
realizing
equality
of
rights”50
to
his
acknowledgement
that
events
in
France
were
moving
much
faster
than
he
anticipated,
and
to
this
end,
he
had
an
actual
concern
that
the
population
was
not
yet
prepared
for
“the
responsibilities
47
Baker,
Condorcet:
From
Natural
Philosophy
to
Social
Mathematics,
p.280
48
Baker,
Condorcet:
From
Natural
Philosophy
to
Social
Mathematics,
p.279
49
Renée
Waldinger,
‘Condorcet:
The
Problematic
Nature
of
Progress’
in
Leonora
Cohen
Rosenfield
and
Richard
H.
Popkin,
eds.,
Condorcet
Studies
1
(New
Jersey:
Humanities
Press,
1984),
p.123
50
Condorcet,
Oeuvres
de
Condorcet,
ed.
Arthur
C.
O’Connor
and
Marie
F.
Arago
(Paris,
1847‐1849,
12
vols.),
vol.7,
p.169,
cited
in
Waldinger
‘Condorcet:
The
Problematic
Nature
of
Progress’,
p.122
21
liberty
entailed.”51
On
a
more
practical
level,
he
promoted
the
need
for
improved
education
with
regards
to
the
introduction
of
new
agricultural
methods,
whilst
culturally,
he
believed
that
improved
education
would
bring
discoveries
in
the
arts,
heightened
levels
of
taste,
scientific
advances,
and
greater
appreciation
for
beauty.52
These
last
few
points
are
able
to
put
significant
distance
between
the
image
of
Condorcet
as
the
“embodiment
of
the
cold,
oppressive
enlightenment”
and
the
actualities
of
his
thoughts
on
public
instruction
as
a
means
of
creating
national
prosperity
that
would
pervade
both
the
economic
and
cultural
spheres.53
Having
established
Condorcet
as
both
concerned
with
political
economy
and
with
ways
to
educate
the
population
so
that
the
nation
can
prosper,
we
can
now
turn
to
how
these
sentiments
are
conveyed
in
his
educational
plan
of
1792.
The
initial
outlines
of
the
plan
have
been
well‐trodden
by
studies
of
education
in
France,
but
the
basics
are
worthy
of
repetition
here:
Condorcet
envisaged
5
distinct
levels
of
education,
beginning
with
31,000
primary
schools,
or
one
school
for
every
500
inhabitants
in
the
villages
and
one
teacher
per
3,000
habitants
in
the
much
larger
cities.
Next
came
écoles
secondaires
at
a
rate
of
at
least
one
school
per
département
with
a
rising
number
of
teachers
attached
to
each
school
depending
on
the
size
of
the
local
population,
then
110
instituts,
designed
to
replace
the
exiting
collèges
and
educate
boys
between
the
ages
of
fifteen
and
eighteen.
Above
this
third
level
were
10
lycées
to
replace
the
existing
universities,
and
finally
the
founding
of
the
Société
Nationale,
which
would
direct
all
French
education,
improve
methods
of
teaching,
seek
out
the
limits
of
the
arts
and
sciences,
and
correspond
with
51
Waldinger,
‘Condorcet:
The
Problematic
Nature
of
Progress’,
p.126
52
Waldinger,
‘Condorcet:
The
Problematic
Nature
of
Progress’,
p.126
53
Emma
Rothschild,
Economic
Sentiments:
Adam
Smith,
Condorcet,
and
the
Enlightenment
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
2001),
p.195
22
similar
foreign
institutions.54
Significantly,
this
final
level
of
instruction
was
the
victim
of
disagreement
between
members
of
the
Committee
and
is
not
included
in
the
report
to
the
Convention
given
by
Romme
in
December.55
The
influence
of
ideas
about
political
economy
on
Condorcet’s
plan
appear
in
several
guises.
In
Titre
II
of
the
plan,
which
relates
to
the
primary
schools
for
children
from
the
age
of
six,
there
is
already
a
prescription,
in
the
very
first
article,
for
teaching
those
in
the
countryside
“the
primary
moral,
natural
and
economic
knowledge
necessary
to
inhabitants
of
the
countryside”,
and
those
in
the
towns
similar
principles,
but
with
a
heavier
emphasis
on
knowledge
relative
to
commerce.56
By
the
same
token,
in
the
secondary
schools
lessons
were
to
be
given
in
elementary
mathematics,
physics
and
natural
history,
but
they
were
all
to
be
made
relevant
to
the
arts,
agriculture
and
commerce.
In
the
instituts
this
idea
about
teaching
to
encourage
economic
prosperity
continued
with
lessons
on
applying
mathematics
to
the
“most
useful”
elements
of
moral
and
political
science,
whilst
at
this
stage
there
would
also
be
the
introduction
of
a
dedicated
“professor
of
legislation,
political
economy
and
the
fundamental
elements
of
commerce.”57
Specific
tuition
in
political
economy
then
continued
through
the
higher
levels
of
the
system,
culminating
in
the
requirement
for
12
members
of
the
Société
Nationale
to
be
solely
concerned
with
its
development
and
teaching.58
Of
course,
the
inclusion
of
these
subjects
on,
and
relating
to,
political
economic
ideas
and
methods
in
Condorcet’s
varying
degrees
of
education
seems
merely
practical,
even
though
they
are
given
distinctly
high
status
(such
as
for
the
primary
schools,
where
Condorcet
appears
to
be
saying,
non‐literally
of
course,
“read,
write,
arithmetic,
political
economy”).
That
is
to
say,
there
is
not
sufficient
evidence
to
prove,
at
this
point,
that
54
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
pp.237‐9
55
Procès­verbaux,
p.218
56
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.227
57
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.230
58
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.239
23
Condorcet
was
influenced
only
by
the
“economic
question”
when
setting
out
his
plan
for
education,
nor
that
he
was
particularly
interested
in
advancing
his
ideas
about
social
science.
However,
if
we
look
elsewhere
in
Condorcet’s
plan,
in
particular
at
some
of
the
language
used,
there
are
clear
instances
of
attempts
to
invoke
ideas
about
virtue,
nationalism
and
honour
in
the
citizens
moving
through
the
education
system,
and
these
are
terms
that
we
have
previously
seen
as
part
of
the
definition
of
a
political
economy
shaped
by
a
patriotic
impulse.
In
returning
to
Condorcet’s
section
on
écoles
primaries,
for
instance,
where
he
outlines
some
of
the
responsibilities
of
teachers
(instituteurs),
there
are
clear
notions
of
the
plan
advancing
beyond
education
for
mere
practical
applications
conducive
to
economic
prosperity.
The
instituteurs
were
to
hold
weekly
public
lectures,
open
to
all
citizens,
within
which
they
would
not
only
revise
knowledge
learnt
in
the
schools,
but
also
instruct
the
gathered
citizen
body
on
moral
principals
and
natural
rights,
and
inform
them
of
the
important
aspects
of
the
constitution
and
the
law.
In
addition,
Condorcet
legislated
for
a
reference
book
to
be
produced
for
primary
school
teachers,
the
main
motivation
of
which
was
to
guide
them
in
the
process
of
how
to
form
“young
people
of
civic
and
moral
virtue”.59
There
are
also
instances
of
Condorcet
seeking
to
standardize
language,
for
example
the
assertion
that
correct
grammar
and
proper
pronunciation
of
the
French
language
would
be
taught
in
the
secondary
schools,
whilst
a
later
article
in
the
plan
decrees
that
all
instruction
in
the
arts
and
sciences
would
be
undertaken
solely
in
French.
Whilst
Condorcet
does
not
qualify
the
inclusion
of
these
directives,
the
implication
is
that
they
are
to
contribute
to
a
sense
of
nationalism
or
59
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.227.
It
would
be
very
interesting,
if
such
a
book
had
been
produced,
to
evaluate
Condorcet’s
practical
method
of
teaching
virtue.
24
process
of
nation‐building,
and
this
sentiment
is
only
reinforced
by
a
further
statement
that
the
history
of
France
would
be
taught
in
all
secondary
schools.60
From
a
more
political
viewpoint,
Palmer
sees
the
inclusion
in
Condorcet’s
plan
of
various
mechanisms
for
educating
and
reminding
the
population
of
their
commitments
to
the
public
good
as
indicative
of
his
concern
“not
only
for
equality
but
also
for
reconciling
equality
with
high
quality.”61
For
instance,
the
elementary
books
to
be
used
for
primary
schooling
were
to
follow
the
principals
of
“liberty,
equality,
purity
of
moeurs
and
devotion
to
la
chose
publique”,62
whilst
the
books
given
to
those
that
could
only
make
it
past
the
primary
stage
of
education
(which,
in
this
version
of
Condorcet’s
plan,
but
perhaps
not
in
his
more
general
political
thought,
included
all
women)
would
“recall
to
each
[person]
their
rights
and
their
duties,
[and]
thus
the
necessary
knowledge
for
the
place
they
occupy
in
society.”63
What
Palmer
sees
here
is
the
squaring
of
the
inequality
circle:
by
universalising
basic
education
and
forming
citizens
who
understood
their
rights
and
responsibilities,
Condorcet
could
ensure
on
the
one
hand
that
the
less‐
educated
were
not
exploited
by
their
more
intellectually
gifted
compatriots,
and
on
the
other
that
they
could
actually
have
the
mental
faculties
to
make
intelligent
choices
in
the
election
of
officials.64
This
is
thus
the
formation
and
moral
justification
of
a
hierarchy
of
the
population
wholly
geared
towards
national
prosperity,
and
is
perhaps
the
most
striking
example
of
the
influence
of
political
economic
ideas
on
Condorcet’s
plan.
A
final
remark
to
make
on
this
analysis
of
the
Condorcet
plan
is
on
the
level
of
detail
it
contained,
and
this
also
allows
us
to
form
conclusions
about
the
project’s
reception
before
we
proceed
to
a
discussion
about
its
successor,
that
authored
by
Sieyès.
One
60
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.229,
p.231.
The
importance
of
language
to
the
forging
of
the
French
nation
is
discussed
in
Bell,
The
Cult
of
the
Nation,
p.175
61
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.128
62
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.227
63
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.228
64
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.128
25
criticism
levelled
at
the
French
Revolutionary
government
in
the
introduction
to
this
thesis
was
the
notion
of
a
desire
to
over‐engineer
solutions
to
institutions
and
processes
that
it
believed
were
necessary
to
perfect
the
political
system.
The
Condorcet
plan
can
be
seen
as
an
illuminating
example
of
this
tendency.
Whilst
it
has
been
shown
that
the
plan
contains
many
incisive
and
interesting
articles
on
education
and
how
it
can
contribute
to
a
prosperous
French
political
economy,
it
also
contains
elements
that
have
no
real
place
in
an
educational
plan
or
indeed
any
other
political
text.
For
example,
next
to
one
of
Condorcet’s
most
important
affirmations,
that
all
the
educational
arrangements
in
his
plan
would
be
free
for
citizens,
is
an
article
that
details
how
many
jardiniers
should
be
employed
in
each
lyceé.
Whilst
Condorcet
justifies
the
idea
of
having
two
gardeners
(one
for
agriculture,
one
for
the
botanical
garden)
because
the
latter
“can
give
practical
lessons
on
culture
and
gardening”,65
this
level
of
detail
seems
unnecessary,
and
verges
on
the
ridiculous.
Even
acknowledging
that
this
is
a
rather
extreme
example
to
lift
from
Condorcet’s
plan,
the
overall
impression
of
intricacy
and
elaboration
within
his
plan,
and
that
is
before
even
considering
the
response
to
the
content
of
its
proposals,
suggests
that
in
practical
terms,
executing
the
Condorcet
plan
would
be
impossible
for
any
government,
not
least
one
undergoing
“bewildering
distractions”
of
war
and
financial
problems.
On
the
actual
content
of
the
proposals,
Robespierre
felt
that
the
plan
was
not
even
worth
discussing.
“Man
is
good
as
he
comes
from
the
hands
of
nature…”
he
argued,
“if
man
is
corrupt,
it
is
to
the
vices
of
social
institutions
that
the
disorder
should
be
imputed…
if
social
institutions
have
depraved
man,
it
is
social
institutions
that
must
be
reformed.”66
Yet
this
opinion
appears
to
be
much
more
politically‐motivated
than
philosophical:
not
only
did
Robespierre’s
“utilitarian
cultural
position”
violently
clash
65
Procès­verbaux
…
de
l’Assemblée
Législative,
p.237
66
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.130
26
with
Condorcet’s
liberalism,
he
was
a
spokesman
for
the
Mountain
and
thus
perhaps
always
inclined
to
oppose
the
plan
of
a
Girondin.67
A
much
more
realistic
criticism
was
that
the
plan
was
inherently
elitist.
Pierre‐Toussaint
Durand
de
Maillane,
who
launched
his
attack
on
Condorcet
after
the
preliminary
report
on
the
primary
schools,
presumably
having
already
heard
enough,
believed
the
hierarchical
system
inherent
to
the
Condorcet
plan
“contravened
the
right
of
all
citizens
to
an
equal
education,
it
threatened
to
create
a
world
in
which
public
functions
would
become
the
prerogative
of
talent
rather
than
an
obligation
of
virtue.”68
This
idea
of
creating
an
educational
system
based
on
equality,
which
the
Convention
appeared
to
judge
the
Condorcet
plan
as
failing
to
provide
despite
Condorcet’s
philosophical
claims
to
the
contrary,
would
form
one
of
the
central
tenets
of
Sieyès
approach
to
forming
an
educational
project,
to
which
our
attentions
now
turn.
67
Manuela
Albertone,
‘Enlightenment
and
Revolution:
The
Revolution
of
Condorcet’s
Ideas
on
Education’
in
Leonora
Cohen
Rosenfield
and
Richard
H.
Popkin,
eds.,
Condorcet
Studies
1
(New
Jersey:
Humanities
Press,
1984),
p.140
68
Procès­verbaux,
pp.149‐54
27
SIEYÈS
As
with
the
Condorcet
plan,
it
is
necessary
to
begin
this
section
with
a
justification
for
the
selection
of
the
Sieyès‐Daunou‐Lakanal
plan
as
a
source.69
The
nature
of
authorship
of
the
plan
raises
some
elemental
questions,
not
least
why
it
is
Sieyès
who
takes
the
central
focus
of
this
chapter
rather
than
the
other
named
contributors
to
the
project.
The
belief
that
Sieyès
was
the
most
respected,
or
indeed
famous,
of
the
three
authors,
in
addition
to
the
fact
that
he
was
generally
considered
to
be
the
progenitor
of
the
plan,
are
two
reasons
for
preferring
him
over
his
co‐authors.70
To
extend
this
latter
point,
the
very
content
of
the
plan,
which
relies
heavily
on
the
use
of
fêtes
nationales
for
educating
the
population,
is
a
hallmark
of
Sieyès,
whose
fondness
for
festivals
is
well‐
documented.71
Nevertheless,
when
considering
the
reactions
to
the
plan
below,
it
will
be
useful
to
also
consider
the
responses
of
Daunou,
who
went
to
great
lengths
to
defend
the
project
from
the
criticisms
of
the
Convention
in
his
Essai
sur
l’instruction
publique.
With
regards
to
the
plan
itself,
unlike
the
preceding
one
of
Condorcet,
there
is
less
of
a
complicated
history
of
differing
versions,
and
subsequently
no
problems
asserting
the
legitimacy
of
the
printed
source.
Following
the
presentation
of
the
plan
to
the
Convention
on
26
June
1793
it
was
decreed
that
deliberations
on
its
content
would
commence
at
the
following
Convention
séance
on
1
July.
The
only
revision
made
to
the
69
The
printed
edition
of
the
plan
that
this
thesis
refers
to
is
entitled
Projet
de
décret
pour
l’éstablissement
de
l’instruction
nationale,
présenté
par
le
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
and
is
reproduced
in
Procès­
verbaux,
Annex
B
to
Séance
91,
pp.507‐516
70
As
discussed
in
the
introduction
to
the
thesis,
this
accusation
was
made
by
Jean‐Henri
Hassenfratz
at
the
Jacobin
club
on
27
June
1793.
71
See
Mona
Ozouf,
Festivals
and
the
French
Revolution,
tr.
Alan
Sheridan
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1988),
p.83
and
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.204
28
plan
by
the
Committee
during
this
short
delay
was
the
addition
of
a
seemingly
harmless
article.72
On
the
subject
of
why
this
plan
has
been
selected
for
study,
the
initial
motivation
for
the
choice
is
inherently
linked
to
the
earlier
decision
to
examine
the
Condorcet
plan,
and
consists
of
two
somewhat
conflicting
reasons.
Firstly,
it
has
been
argued
that
because
the
Sieyès
plan
was
so
different
to
the
one
put
forward
by
Condorcet,
it
actually
provoked
the
demise
of
the
previous
plan,
and
these
differences
will
become
apparent
upon
dissection
of
its
fundamentals.73
It
is
interesting
to
note
that
this
notion
of
a
significant
clash
of
ideas
between
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
has
been
highlighted
before,
for
example
in
the
fact
Condorcet
had
taken
indirect
issue
with
Sieyès’
Qu'est­ce
que
le
tiers
état
?
in
his
Lettres
d'un
gentilhomme
à
messieurs
du
tiers
état.74
Conversely,
however,
there
is
also
clear
evidence
that
the
political
thought
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
was
frequently
complementary,
demonstrated
by
their
shared
interest
in
the
Société
de
1789,
and
in
their
joint
founding
of
the
Journal
d'instruction
sociale
in
1793,
whose
introductory
prospectus
interestingly
read:
“the
art
of
administration
has
as
its
basis
the
science
of
public
economy.”75
On
this
level
therefore,
the
examination
of
Sieyès
following
a
study
of
Condorcet
appears
to
be
a
natural
progression.
In
addition
to
Sieyès
being
a
seemingly
multi‐faceted
counterpoint
to
Condorcet,
a
stronger
justification
for
selecting
the
Sieyès
plan
for
investigation
is
that
it
reflects
a
change
in
the
output
of
the
Committee,
which
itself
is
a
transformation
that
can
be
explained
by
relative
changes
in
political
events
in
the
six
months
between
the
readings
72
This
was
the
new
article
16,
which
read
“the
teacher
will
carry,
when
exercising
their
functions
at
fêtes
nationales,
a
medallion
with
the
inscription
‘he
who
instructs
is
a
second
father’
(Procès­verbaux,
Annex
B
to
Séance
91,
pp.506).
The
revision
is
mentioned
in
Guillaume’s
note
on
p.509
73
Albertone,
‘The
Revolution
of
Condorcet’s
Ideas
on
Education’,
p.139.
Albertone’s
conclusion,
whilst
interesting,
is
perhaps
exaggerated.
Condorcet’s
plan,
as
discussed
in
the
previous
chapter,
attracted
allegations
of
corporatism
and
elitism
that
are
rectified,
to
an
extent,
in
the
Sieyès
plan.
But
these
criticisms
originated
from
several
members
of
the
Convention,
and
the
plan
appeared
dead
in
the
water
even
before
publication
of
Sieyès’
project.
74
Baker,
Condorcet:
From
Natural
Philosophy
to
Social
Mathematics,
p.266
75
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.29
29
of
the
two
different
plans
to
the
Convention.
This
is
a
notion
that
will
have
further
repercussions
in
the
conclusion
to
this
thesis,
when
we
go
on
to
consider
the
plans
for
education
that
succeeded
those
focused
on
in
this
project.
Condorcet’s
plan
was
presented
to
a
National
Convention
dominated
by
the
Girondins,
whilst
Sieyès’
was
presented
after
the
great
insurrection
(May
30
through
June
2),
when
the
Girondin
faction
had
been
decimated
and
the
Mountain
was
becoming
the
dominant
Jacobin
group
within
the
Convention.
Indeed,
the
day
before
this
insurrection
morale
began
the
Committee
of
Public
Safety
signified
the
abandoning
of
the
Condorcet
plan
and
ordered
the
Committee
to
draft
a
new
plan
for
public
instruction
which
would
become
that
authored
by
Sieyès,
and
this
suggests
a
shift
in
the
motivations
for,
and
purposes
of,
a
new
educational
project.76
Within
the
Committee
itself,
this
apparent
change
appears
to
be
quite
dramatic,
since
in
the
séance
of
28
May
discussion
was
centered
around
Arbogast’s
tableau
d’instruction
–
which
contained
many
notions
borrowed
from
Condorcet’s
plan,
such
as
multiple
degrees
of
instruction
(primary,
secondary,
lycée,
institut,
etc.)77
–
whilst
within
a
month,
this
idea
had
been
replaced
in
the
Sieyès
plan
with
just
one
universal
level
of
(primary)
education.
Before
looking
at
the
plan
in
detail,
however,
there
is
first
a
pressing
need
to
briefly
assess
Sieyès’
more
general
attitudes
to
political
economy,
so
that
the
additional
task
of
relating
these
notions
to
what
he
included
in
his
educational
plan
can
also
be
carried
out.
The
attitude
of
Sieyès
to
political
economy
is
inherently
interesting
because
Murray
Forsyth,
in
piecing
together
an
intellectual
history
that
portrays
the
Abbé
as
fascinated
in
political
economy
and
a
fervent
admirer
of
Adam
Smith,78
depicts
Sieyès
as
a
76
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.134
77
Procès­verbaux,
Séance
87,
p.471.
This
was
the
last
meeting
of
the
Committee
before
the
general
insurrection.
78
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.56,
p.19
30
remarkably
modern
political
economist
whose
thought
can
be
both
categorized
as
liberal
(particularly
due
to
his
refutation
of
Physiocracy),
and
also
relatively
in
line
with
that
of
Condorcet
(although
this
concept
will
be
stretched
to
its
limits
when
considering
Sieyès’
educational
plan
below).79
In
published
works,
such
as
the
Essay
on
Privileges
and
What
is
the
Third
Estate?,
Forsyth
points
to
Sieyès’
ability
to
combine
political
economic
principles
with
“those
of
the
constitutionalist”,
whilst
he
also
reinforced
his
arguments
about
political
structures
with
arguments
about
productivity.80
But
for
the
purposes
of
this
section,
the
most
useful
part
of
Forsyth’s
monograph
is
his
depiction
of
Sieyès’
earlier
(i.e.
pre‐Revolution)
struggle
with,
and
then
rejection
of,
the
political
economy
of
the
Physiocrats.
Having
allegedly
read,
between
1771
and
1776,
the
key
Physiocratic
writings
of
the
likes
of
Quesnay
and
the
elder
Mirabeau,
Sieyès
rebuffed
their
leading
notion
of
landed
wealth,
and
instead
posited
that
it
was
labour
which
was
“the
foundation
for
society”
and
that
“the
social
order
is
nothing
but
the
best
possible
order
of
works.”81
For
Sieyès,
the
Physiocratic
idea
of
ordering
the
political
body
“could
not
be
equated
with
the
application
of
a
natural
science
to
a
natural
body”
because
men
were
not
passive
objects.82
This
sentiment
seems
to
form
the
basis
of
Sieyès’
positive
argument
in
one
of
his
1789
essays:
Beware…
the
idea
disseminated
all‐too‐widely
by
modern
scholars
that
morality,
like
physics,
can
be
given
a
foundation
based
on
experience.
Men
in
this
century
have
been
restored
to
reason
by
way
of
the
natural
sciences
[…]
But
we
must
still
beware
of
allowing
a
false
sense
of
gratitude
to
confine
us
within
a
narrow
circle
of
imitation
and
instead
must
make
an
unimpeded
inquiry
in
the
new
instauration
that
awaits
us
at
the
journey’s
end.83
79
Forsyth
claims
that
in
most
of
his
unpublished
notes
Sieyès
can
be
seen
working
towards
a
“recognizably
modern”
division
of
labour,
culminating
at
one
stage,
in
1772,
with
the
tableau
d’une
société
politique
(idem.,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.55)
80
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.19
81
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.50
82
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.48‐54
83
Sieyès,
‘Views
of
the
Executive
Means
Available
to
the
Representatives
of
France
in
1789’,
p.16
31
Sieyès
thus
believed
that
there
were
certain
positive
functions
to
perform
in
political
economy,
and
consequently
that
the
notion
of
a
“blanket
rule
of
non‐intervention,
or
of
leaving
exchange
to
adjust
everything”,
as
championed
by
the
Physiocrats,
was
fundamentally
misguided.84
At
this
juncture,
it
is
by
moving
to
an
examination
of
the
Sieyès
plan
for
public
instruction
devised
in
1793
that
the
development
of
these
ideas
for
positive
interference
in
the
political
body
–
with
regards
to
education
and
for
reasons
of
economic
prosperity
–
can
be
judged.
Following
from
criticisms
made
in
the
Convention
about
the
Condorcet
plan,
which
was
seen
as
corporatist
and
elitist,
the
Sieyès
plan
is
notable
for
its
completely
different
approach
to
public
instruction.
Indeed,
upon
examination,
it
becomes
more
and
more
difficult
to
associate
Sieyès
plan
with
what
this
thesis
strictly
defined
as
public
instruction,
because
there
is
significantly
less
within
it
that
deals
with
how
education
should
be
conducted
within
the
schools,
and
predominantly
more
prescribing
how
best
to
form
citizens,
both
internal
and
external
to
the
primary
educational
system.
In
the
opening
sections,
Sieyès
establishes
just
one
stage
of
education,
the
institution
des
écoles
nationales,
as
opposed
to
Condorcet’s
five
stages,
and
these
schools
were
for
French
children
of
both
sexes
to
be
given
the
“necessary
instruction”
to
become
citizens.85
In
a
later
chapitre
outlining
the
regime
of
these
schools,
a
few
allusions
are
made
to
educating
children
in
a
way
that
seem
geared
towards
creating
economic
prosperity
through
good
moeurs,
such
as
in
the
sending
of
pupils
to
manufacturing
workshops
to
witness
the
“benefits
of
human
industry”
and
in
the
assertion
that
moral
and
industrial
84
Forsyth,
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.57
85
Procès­verbaux,
p.507
32
instruction
form
two
of
the
five
basic
tenets
of
education
that
would
be
offered
to
the
nation
(along
with
literary,
intellectual
and
physical
approaches).86
In
the
remaining
sections
which
follow
those
on
primary
education,
the
Sieyès
plan
appears
to
become
incompatible
with
that
of
Condorcet.
There
is
an
outlining
of
public
scholarships
for
poor
children
who
are
able
to
show
the
highest
aptitudes
in
the
arts
and
sciences,
but
these
scholarships
are
to
be
used
for
continuing
the
pupil’s
education
in
écoles
particulières
et
libre
–
private
educational
establishments
under
nominal
supervision
from
the
government
–
that
were
free
to
teach
provided
they
“contribute
to
progress
in
knowledge,
the
arts,
and
education.”87
The
legal
justification
for
these
private
schools
was,
according
to
Sieyès,
the
fact
that
the
law
“can
offer
no
restriction
on
the
rights
of
citizens
to
open
private
classes
and
schools
[encompassing]
all
parts
of
education”,88
whilst
Daunou
saw
the
provision
for
private
schools
as
much
more
beneficial
to
the
state
for
two
reasons.
Firstly,
he
believed
instruction
would
“like
commerce,
be
honored
but
not
undertaken
by
the
State…
[and]
you
will
see
opening
up,
in
effect,
secondary
schools,
instituts,
courses,
lycées
and
academies;
you
will
have
summoned
all
sciences,
arts,
opinions,
methods,
industries
and
talents
to
the
fruitful
activity
of
a
great
competition.”
Secondly,
he
saw
a
system
of
state‐sponsored
education
as
an
affront
to
equality,
because
it
would
amount
to
little
more
than
the
rich
being
educated
at
the
expense
of
the
poor.89
Despite
the
reference
by
Daunou
to
concerns
about
equality,
these
justifications
clearly
conflict
with
Condorcet’s
ideas
about
education
being
free
for
all
citizens,
and
under
the
direct
supervision
of
the
government.
Indeed,
the
subject
of
controlling
education
provides
a
certain
amount
of
tension
within
the
Sieyès
plan
when
considering
the
remainder
of
its
articles,
the
majority
of
which
are
86
Procès­verbaux,
p.510‐11
87
Procès­verbaux,
p.512
88
Procès­verbaux,
p.512
89
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.136.
Daunou’s
insistence
on
the
utility
of
a
“great
competition”
seems
to
echo
the
laissez­faire
attitude
of
the
Physiocrats’
political
economy
so
vehemently
rejected
by
Sieyès.
33
dedicated,
in
explicit
detail,
to
the
organization
of
local
and
national
fêtes.
This
is
because
whilst
the
plan
appears
to
preach
a
laissez­faire
approach
to
education
that
would
prevent
governmental
interference
in
private
schools,
it
is
in
the
organizing
of
the
fêtes
that
a
rather
uncomfortable
potential
for
creating
virtuous
citizens
instead
develops
through
the
use
of
festivals,
which
seem
to
replace
the
schools
as
vehicles
for
civic
instruction.
Thus,
the
fundamental
difference
between
the
two
plans
is
that
ideas
of
shaping
the
citizenry
takes
place
inside
the
schools
for
Condorcet
and
outside
of
them,
in
the
fêtes,
for
Sieyès.
A
further
look
at
Sieyès’
arrangements
for
festivals,
which
were
to
take
place
at
canton,
district,
département
and
national
level,
can
however
draw
on
a
similarity
between
this
plan
and
that
of
Condorcet.
This
is
the
notion
that
the
plans
were
too
complex,
an
allegation
originally
made
against
Condorcet
because
of
his
inclusion
of
overwhelming
details
for
the
institutions
in
his
educational
system.
In
the
Sieyès
plan,
the
criticism
is
aimed
at
the
specific
organization
of
the
aforementioned
festivals.
There
are
nearly
20
articles
relating
to
fêtes
(out
of
a
total
of
only
70
articles
for
the
entire
plan)
containing
clauses
that
become
progressively
more
ludicrous.
For
example,
Sieyès
dictated
that
there
would
be
forty
fêtes
per
year,
but
the
festivals
to
celebrate
fruits
and
vegetables
should
be
held
only
on
a
district
level,
whilst
the
fête
celebrating
printing
would
be
held
within
the
whole
département.
Justification
for
why
certain
festivals
take
place
at
differing
levels
of
national
division
is
not
forthcoming
in
the
plan,
which
quickly
beings
to
echo
the
micro‐management
inclinations
previously
exhibited
by
Condorcet.
Thus,
it
actively
contributes
to
the
idea
originally
stated
in
this
thesis’
introduction
of
a
tendency
to
over‐complicate
educational
and
other
political
projects
in
Revolutionary
France.
To
further
pursue
the
research
into
Sieyès’
festivals,
it
is
useful
at
this
point
to
refer
to
the
work
of
Mona
Ozouf,
who
has
written
extensively
about
the
role
of
the
fête
in
34
Revolutionary
France.
To
briefly
look
at
the
reality
of
events
in
1793
rather
than
just
the
circulating
ideas,
Ozouf’s
depiction
of
the
first
fête
nationale
to
be
held
following
(though
not
directly
inspired
by)
the
presentation
of
the
Sieyès
plan
–
that
organized
by
co‐
author
Lakanal
to
celebrate
the
first
anniversary
of
the
fall
of
the
monarchy
on
August
10
–
is
useful
in
illuminating
the
actual
vacuity
of
the
type
of
festival
the
Sieyès
plan
was
recommending.90
Whilst
initially
pointing
to
an
overwhelming
sense
of
“regeneration”
and
“starting
afresh”
at
Lakanal’s
“Festival
of
Reunion,”
concepts
which
of
course
seem
very
familiar
to
Revolutionary
France,
Ozouf
concludes
that
the
festival
was
essentially
an
embodiment
of
“an
imaginary
unanimity”,
and
it
had
in
fact
become
very
difficult
by
this
time
for
the
population
to
“believe
in
the
innocence
of
this
baptism”,
since
the
festival
had
nothing
to
say
“about
danger,
[it]
ignored
outcasts
and
victims,
[and
it]
was
silent
on
violence.”91
In
short,
the
practical
example
of
the
archetypical
patriotic,
virtuous
festival
so
readily
prescribed
in
the
plan
of
Sieyès
illustrates
the
actual
emptiness
of
these
official
celebrations
to
citizens,
which
is
further
reinforced
by
Ozouf’s
later
analysis
of
what
she
labels
“Other”
festivals
–
the
subcultural,
spontaneous
fêtes
that
were
“the
only
ones
in
which
the
Revolution
was
not
represented
as
a
group
of
maids
dressed
in
white
or
a
group
of
virtuous
mothers.”92
In
addition,
it
shows
the
lengths
the
Revolutionary
government
would
go
to
project
on
to
its
citizens
the
illusion
of
a
unified,
prosperous
and,
most
importantly,
perfect
French
state,
and
highlights
the
fact
that
such
projections
would
be
unrelenting
regardless
of
clear
popular
apathy.
In
judging
the
Sieyès
plan
and
the
influences
it
exhibited
from
political
economic
ideas,
somewhat
of
a
paradox
occurs.
Manuela
Albertone
has
argued
that
the
abandonment
of
90
Ozouf
says
Lakanal
was
responsible
for
the
Fête
de
la
Réunion,
but
the
procès­verbaux
actually
has
David
(the
artist)
as
the
organizer.
The
initial
plan
for
the
festival
was
read
to
the
Convention
on
11
July
1793
and
is
reprinted
in
Procès­verbaux
du
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
de
la
Convention
Nationale,
ed.
J.
Guillaume
(Paris:
Imprimerie
Nationale,
1894,
6
vols.),
vol.2,
pp.73‐77
91
Ozouf,
Festivals
and
the
French
Revolution,
pp.83‐4.
See
also
idem.
‘Regeneration’
in
idem.
and
François
Furet,
eds.,
A
Critical
Dictionary
of
the
French
Revolution,
tr.
Arthur
Goldhammer
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1989),
p.781
92
Ozouf,
Festivals
and
the
French
Revolution,
p.91
35
the
graduated
school
system
in
this
project
in
preference
for
écoles
particulières
is
a
stance
inspired
by
pre‐revolutionary
concepts
against
state
interference,
and
represents
a
diametrically
opposed
position
to
the
liberalism
of
Condorcet.
Expanding
upon
this,
Albertone
sees
the
plan
as
implicitly
teaching
a
“submissive
mentality
consistent
with
either
the
spirit
of
absolute
monarchy
or,
in
the
new
political
reality,
a
kind
of
revolutionary
ideology.”93
Whilst
this
idea
of
opening
up
the
educational
system
to
competition
is
somewhat
puzzling
because
it
seems
to
abandon
public
instruction
to
the
control
of
the
market,
Albertone’s
conclusion
is
perhaps
overstated.
Whilst
Sieyès’
plan
does
seem
to
take
the
responsibilities
for
education
beyond
the
very
primary
level
away
from
the
schools,
the
notions
of
virtue,
patriotism,
honour
–
i.e.
the
concepts
implicitly
taught
to
the
population
in
a
patriotic
political
economy
–
are
instead
conveyed
by
the
complex
system
of
public
festivals.
Relating
to
why
this
is
the
case,
Richard
Whatmore
portrays
Sieyès
as
much
less
optimistic
than
Condorcet
of
the
citizenry’s
“capacity
to
reason
independently,
and
thereby
enlighten
their
own
self‐interest”
and
illuminates
this
concept
by
showing
that
Sieyès
thought
that
“the
most
important
object
of
morality
and
consequently
instruction
must
be
to
recall
men
to
simple
and
natural
needs,
to
habits
and
passions
lightly
worn,
but
with
a
positive
effect
on
happiness.”94
Within
the
educational
project
of
Sieyès
itself,
it
seems
these
simple
“habits”
could
be
reinforced
with
the
many
plans
for
festivals,
because,
unlike
Condorcet,
Sieyès
had
“less
faith
in
the
people’s
potential
rationality,”
and
was
more
convinced
of
the
need
to
“manipulate
the
passions
and
direct
them
towards
republican
virtue.”95
The
Sieyès
plan
is
therefore
less
concerned
with
the
indoctrination
of
a
submissive
revolutionary
ideology,
and
more
with
directing
the
population
towards
rationality,
which
is
a
concept
much
more
inline
with
the
tenets
of
Condorcet’s
proposals.
The
fact
that
the
method
93
Albertone,
‘The
Revolution
of
Condorcet’s
Ideas
on
Education’,
p.139‐40
94
Whatmore,
Republicanism
and
the
French
Revolution,
p.97
95
Whatmore,
Republicanism
and
the
French
Revolution,
p.97‐8
36
Sieyès
chose
to
convey
these
lessons
in
civicism
–
the
various,
numerous
and
seemingly
unrelenting
fêtes
–
are
rather
ineffective
in
reality
actually
becomes
inconsequential,
because
in
the
rudiments
of
Sieyès’
thought
he
simply
believed
it
was
the
more
effective
and
perhaps
justifiable
approach
to
instructing
the
population
in
the
manners
it
required.
Finally,
it
is
with
a
brief
analysis
of
the
reception
of
the
Sieyès
plan
in
June
1793
that
the
basis
of
a
bridge
towards
a
more
general
conclusion
of
this
thesis
can
be
made.
The
plan
was
widely
derided
in
both
the
Convention
and
the
Jacobin
club,
with
the
newly
dominant
Mountain
faction
of
the
Jacobins
maintaining
charges
of
elitism,
corporatism
and
bureaucracy
(particularly
at
the
plan’s
provision
for
a
Commission
centrale
de
l’instruction
publique)
that
they
had
also
levelled
at
Condorcet’s
plan.96
Despite
the
many
fundamental
differences
of
the
Sieyès
plan
when
compared
to
the
previously
rejected
project
of
Condorcet,
such
as
the
removal
of
state‐sponsored
education
past
the
primary
level,
the
plan
was
dismissed
outright.
The
reason
for
this
denunciation
relates
back
to
one
of
the
initial
motivating
factors
for
choosing
the
Sieyès
plan
–
that
it
was
presented
at
a
time
of
distinct
political
change
in
the
Convention,
particularly
with
reference
to
the
aforementioned
rise
of
the
Mountain.
Thus
the
summary
of
the
rejection
of
the
Sieyès
plan
paves
the
way
for
a
new
hypothesis:
that
the
purposes
of
public
instruction
changed
with
the
coming
of
the
Mountain
period
of
dominance
in
the
Convention.
The
extent
of
this
change
was
that
the
ideas
presented
in
both
the
Sieyès
plan
and
the
earlier
Condorcet
plan,
such
as
the
instructing
of
the
population
in
values
of
honour
and
virtue
that
formed
part
of
a
patriotic
political
economy
conducive
to
French
progress,
no
longer
seemed
to
suit
the
political
objectives
of
the
now
Mountain‐led
National
Convention
and
its
associated
vanguard,
the
96
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
pp.136‐7
37
Committee
on
Public
Safety.
A
deeper
explanation
of
why
this
shift
in
motivations
occurred
will
form
the
initial
outline
to
this
thesis’
conclusion,
to
which
we
now
proceed.
38
CONCLUSION
In
evaluating
the
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
plans
for
education
of
1792
and
1793,
one
of
the
primary
conclusions
of
this
thesis
is
that
they
were
fundamentally
influenced
by
questions
of
political
economy.
More
specifically,
the
plans
seem
to
reflect
the
concerns
of
what
Shovlin
has
described
as
a
political
economy
shaped
by
a
patriotic
impulse,
which
meant
that
concerns
for
improvement
in
the
manners
of
citizens
necessitated
a
need
to
educate
them
in
how
to
be
virtuous.
Such
improvements
would,
in
turn,
lead
to
a
greater
national
prosperity.
Under
a
prosperous
France
the
middling
elites,
previously
stripped
of
all
representative
institutions
and
“thrust
out
of
public
affairs”
under
the
Ancien
Régime,
could
take
up
their
perceived
rightful
positions
of
social
importance
and
distinction.97
For
Condorcet,
ideas
of
virtue
could
be
taught
by
education
in
the
schools,
which
in
turn
meant
the
term
public
instruction,
now
expanded
beyond
its
original
rigid
definition,
took
responsibility
for
the
inculcation
of
values
that
were
previously
considered
to
be
in
the
domain
of
a
more
general,
‘national’
education.
Condorcet’s
plan
achieved
this
feat
in
two
ways:
by
shaping
the
curriculum
so
that
teaching
was
always
orientated
on
concepts
of
moral
and
economic
utility;
and
by
organizing
education
in
such
a
way
that
a
civil
hierarchy
was
created
that
would
encourage
the
talents
of
gifted
citizens.
At
the
same
time,
this
hierarchy
maintained
a
fundamental
level
of
equality
and
virtue
for
those
who
would
not
progress
very
far
through
Condorcet’s
five
envisaged
degrees
of
education.
This
final
point
on
equality
in
Condorcet’s
approaches
to
instruction
can
be
seen
as
a
continuation
of
his
wider,
general
philosophy
of
man
in
97
Roger
Chartier,
The
Cultural
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution,
tr.
Lydia
G.
Cochrane
(Durham
and
London:
Duke
University
Press,
1991),
p.12
39
society,
in
which
he
believed
that
rational
man
could
arrive
at
a
state
of
virtue
and
good
moeurs.
On
the
other
hand,
whilst
the
allusions
to
political
economy
and
national
prosperity
are
also
clearly
present
in
the
educational
ideas
of
Sieyès,
he
conversely
sought
to
teach
the
importance
of
virtue,
honour
and
good
moeurs
primarily
with
the
creation
of
an
extensive
array
of
festivals,
which
essentially
formed
a
superstructure
on
top
of
a
single
level
of
universal
primary
education.
This
concept
was,
initially
at
least,
deemed
to
be
more
egalitarian
than
Condorcet’s
system
of
secondary
schools,
instituts
and
lycées.
Whilst
Sieyès’
elaborate
arrangements
for
festivals
were
never
implemented,
and
whilst
Mona
Ozouf’s
work
has
provided
a
useful
way
of
highlighting
how
ineffective,
in
real
terms,
the
various
state‐authorised
fêtes
would
have
been,
Richard
Whatmore
reminds
us
that
one
of
the
reasons
Sieyès
developed
his
educational
method
in
this
way
was
his
deep‐lying
concern
that
the
citizenry
had
to
be
directed
or
guided
towards
virtue,
an
opinion
which
sprung
from
an
apparent
lack
of
faith
in
the
potential
rationality
of
man.
This
difference
in
belief
of
the
rational
abilities
of
the
population
is
the
main
divide
which
separates
the
two
educational
plans
in
this
thesis.
Yet
if
political
economic
issues
were
the
main
motivations
behind
the
plans
studied
in
this
thesis,
such
concerns
do
not
seem
to
exhibit
similar
influences
on
the
educational
projects
that
succeeded
those
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès.
This
presents
a
very
interesting
proposition
that
illuminates
potential
avenues
to
further
research
the
nature
and
content
of
the
educational
plans
of
the
French
Revolution.
The
initial
successor
to
Sieyès’
plan,
that
of
Lepeletier,
can
serve
as
a
brief
introduction
to
what
became
of
ideas
on
public
instruction
later
in
1793.
Following
the
insurrection
morale
that
replaced
the
Girondins
as
the
dominant
Jacobin
faction
in
the
National
Convention
with
the
Mountain,
and
the
subsequent
rejection
of
the
Sieyès
plan
for
previously
cited
reasons,
40
Robespierre,
fast‐becoming
the
Mountain’s
focal
point,
acted
against
the
Committee
of
Public
Instruction
in
two
ways.
He
secured
the
foundation
of
a
new
Commission
d’Instruction
Publique,
an
executive
body
to
take
over
the
role
of
planning
from
the
Committee
and
to
which
he
was
elected
a
member;
and
he
launched
a
proposal
to
instigate
the
educational
plan
of
the
late
Louis
(sometimes
Michel)
Lepeletier
(a
former
member
of
the
Committee
whose
death
had
been
honoured,
at
its
behest,
with
a
commemorative
painting
by
David).
Bizarrely,
this
plan
possessed
concepts
very
similar
to
that
of
Condorcet,
such
as
the
distinction
of
differing
degrees
of
education,
which
had
previously
been
labelled
inherently
elitist.
This
poses
the
question
of
why
Robespierre,
such
a
vocal
critic
of
perceived
inegalitarianism,
chose
to
endorse
it
so
vigorously.
The
answer
lies
in
the
fact
that
the
plan
also
pursued
an
additional,
very
radical
concept
to
what
had
gone
before
in
works
on
public
instruction
that
directly
appealed
to
Robespierre,
and
it
is
one
that
can
only
be
regarded
as
a
disturbing
method
of
political
indoctrination:
éducation
commune.98
The
fundamental
tenets
of
this
idea
of
education
in
common
were
to
place
every
child,
from
the
age
of
five,
in
to
boarding
schools
run
by
the
state,
where
they
would
be
separated
from
their
families
until
the
ages
of
11
(for
girls)
or
12
(for
boys).
The
extreme
nature
of
the
plan
–
which
included
austere,
Spartan‐like
discipline
–
is
of
course
striking,
but
what
is
more
interesting
from
this
thesis’
perspective
is
the
fact
that
it
was
proposed
by
the
Mountain
in
the
National
Convention,
and
represents
an
abandonment
of
ideas
of
a
patriotic
political
economy
influencing
education,
to
be
replaced
with
egalitarian
fanaticism
and
a
destruction
of
“cultural
autonomy.”99
Robespierre,
in
a
chillingly
typical
fashion,
likened
the
system
to
an
“entire
98
A
printed
version
of
the
Lepeletier
plan
discussed
by
the
Convention
in
July
is
reproduced
in
Procès­
verbaux,
vol.2,
pp.93‐114
99
Albertone,
‘The
Revolution
of
Condorcet’s
Ideas
on
Education’,
p.140
41
regeneration…
to
create
a
new
people.”100
Thus
éducation
commune
was
incommensurable
with
the
more
liberal
ideas
of
inculcating
virtue
presented
by
Condorcet
and
Sieyès,
who
perceived
man
as
having
at
least
some
inherent
ability
to
be
rational,
because
it
seemed
to
promote
the
idea
of
starting
completely
afresh
with
a
new
generation
of
citizens
essentially
created
by
the
state.
Does
this
mean,
then,
that
the
middling
elites
who
were
interested
in
a
patriotic
political
economy
to
generate
prosperity,
suddenly
became
uninterested
in
or
unable
to
promote
the
idea
of
regenerating
public
manners
through
methods
of
public
instruction
with
the
rise
of
the
Mountain?
Probably
not,
although
it
may
illustrate
a
hijacking
of
the
use
of
public
instruction
for
means
other
than
the
general
prosperity
of
France
by
this
Jacobin
faction,
and
this
again
highlights
the
need
to
extend
research
into
the
concept
of
‘education
in
common’.
Interestingly,
although
the
Lepeletier
plan
was
extreme
in
initial
comparison,
what
it
actually
shares
with
the
Condorcet
and
Sieyès
project
is
a
failure
to
progress
beyond
the
theoretical
stage.
According
to
Palmer,
this
is
because
members
of
the
Convention
were
“too
bourgeois”
to
accept
such
a
method
of
state
indoctrination,
an
observation
that
will
have
further
repercussions
below.
Initially
at
least,
however,
the
failure
to
implement
the
Lepeletier
plan
allows
us
to
draw
conclusions
about
what
was
determined
as
the
second,
more
illustrative
reason
for
narrowing
the
timeframe
of
this
study
to
1792‐93
in
the
introduction:
the
concept
of
over‐engineering
political
institutions
and
choosing
to
orchestrate
massive,
complex
projects
in
favour
of
what
we
defined
as
the
bricolage
or
‘fixer’
approach
to
education,
which
would
have
encouraged
more
gradual
(and
certainly
not
as
ideologically
drastic)
reform.
The
judgements
on
this
front
are
initially
quite
obvious,
for
it
has
been
clearly
shown
that
the
two
examined
100
Robespierre,
Textes
choisis,
ed.
J.
Poperen
(Paris,
1973),
vol.2,
pp.157‐8,
cited
in
Forsyth,
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.208
42
plans
of
1792‐93
went
to
extraordinarily
lengths
to
detail
the
minutiae
of
their
arrangements,
and
that
such
a
degree
of
planning
clearly
exceeded
the
bounds
of
practicality.
At
a
time
when
France
lurched
from
monarchical,
to
financial,
to
military
crisis,
this
impracticality
doomed
the
plans
to
failure.
With
particular
regards
to
Sieyès,
this
conclusion
is
of
peculiar
interest,
because
Murray
Forsyth
(biographer
of
Sieyès)
has
previously
asserted
that
the
Abbé
possessed
the
rare
skill
of
transmuting
his
own
“previously
elaborated
political
ideas
into
practice.”101
But
whilst
this
tendency
to
over‐
complicate,
in
education
at
least,
is
obvious
now,
it
is
interesting
to
note
that
it
was
also
a
contemporary
criticism
levelled
at
the
plans.
Jean‐Paul
Marat
described
them
as
akin
to
“planting
trees
so
that
they
may
bear
fruit
for
the
future
nourishment
of
soldiers
who
are
already
dying
of
starvation”102
whilst
J‐M.
Coupé,
a
deputy
from
L’Oise
who
perhaps
lacked
a
tongue
as
sharp
as
the
ami
du
peuple,
complained
to
the
Convention
in
July
1793
that
“the
plans
for
public
instruction
that
have
been
proposed
to
us
up
to
now
have
been
scientific
systems,
and
much
less
the
work
of
the
legislator
than
that
of
intellectuals
who
distribute
and
organise
all
of
France
like
their
empire;
they
are
speculation
rather
than
practical.”103
In
a
final
summary
of
the
educational
plans
of
the
Revolution,
Palmer
powerfully
compares
the
effectiveness
of
the
Committee
to
the
ancient
Greek
character
of
Penelope,
an
illustration
of
whom
can
be
found
on
the
front
cover
of
this
thesis.
As
the
wife
of
Odysseus
in
Homer’s
Odyssey,
Penelope
managed
to
fend
off
several
new
marriage
proposals
(whilst
her
husband
was
fighting
in
the
Trojan
War)
by
promising
that
she
would
remarry
upon
completion
of
the
burial
shroud
she
was
weaving.
Unbeknownst
to
her
suitors,
at
night
Penelope
would
unpick
all
the
work
she
had
done
the
previous
day,
thus
delaying
her
choice
whilst
she
held
out
hope
for
Odysseus’
return.
Palmer
sees
the
101
Forsyth,
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès,
p.1
102
Bell,
The
Cult
of
the
Nation,
p.162
103
Procès­verbaux,
Annex
to
Séance
93,
p.531
43
endless
cycle
of
educational
proposals
that
were
“postponed,
rejected,
ignored
and
forgotten”
as
akin
to
Penelope
at
her
loom:
actively
working,
yes;
but
never
actually
progressing.104
So
if
the
idea
of
organising
education
in
grand,
complex
terms
was
influenced
by
ideas
–
some
of
which
we
have
seen
were
more
utopian
than
others
–
about
perfect
citizens
that
were
in
fact
impossible
to
put
into
practice,
what
legitimacy
is
there
in
the
method
we
originally
introduced
as
a
potential
counterpoint
to
such
an
approach,
that
of
bricolage?
Robespierre,
in
his
essay
Upon
the
Principles
of
Political
Morality,
appeared
to
understand
the
hopelessness
of
grands
projets
in
the
maelstrom
of
Revolution:
“We
have
been
impelled
through
the
tempest
of
a
revolution,
rather
[than]
by
a
love
of
and
a
feeling
of
the
wants
of
our
country,
than
by
an
exact
theory,
and
precise
rules
of
conduct,
which
we
had
not
even
leisure
to
sketch.”105
The
problem
with
this
statement
is
that
we
have
already
shown
Robespierre
as
a
champion
of
one
of
these
“sketches”
he
discounts
as
impossible
to
create,
in
the
form
of
the
aforementioned
Lepeletier
plan,
and
this
essentially
outlaws
him
as
a
possible
bricoleur.
The
solution
to
explaining
the
importance
of
this
notion
of
bricolage
to
education
is
to
move
away
from
the
specific
ideas
about
its
alleged
benefit
to
public
instruction,
since
it
obviously
did
not
take
place
in
that
domain,
and
refocus
it
on
the
objectives
of
the
middling
elites
which
were
first
posited
in
our
definition
of
political
economy.
In
this
sense,
education
is
part
of
the
bricolage
of
the
elite
commoners,
or
what
Colin
Lucas
calls
the
“revolutionary
bourgeoisie”.106
This
group
used
what
methods
they
could
find
as
a
means
to
‘fix’
the
nation
and
citizenry
into
a
shape
beneficial
to
them.
The
influence
of
political
economic
104
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.177
105
Robespierre,
‘Report
upon
the
Principals
of
Political
Morality’
in
Keith
Michael
Baker,
ed.,
The
University
of
Chicago
Readings
in
Western
Civilization:
The
Old
Regime
and
the
French
Revolution,
(
Chicago:
Chicago
University
Press,
1978),
p.369
106
Colin
Lucas,
‘Nobles,
Bourgeois
and
the
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution’,
Past
and
Present,
No.
60
(August,
1973),
pp.124
44
ideas
on
plans
for
public
instruction
can,
in
this
light,
be
seen
as
merely
a
means
to
an
end,
not
part
of
a
great
plan
or
science
of
man
that
figures
such
as
Condorcet
believed
were
possible.
The
economic
and
social
objectives
of
the
middling
elites
necessitated
attempts
to
organise
education
of
the
population
as
a
way
of
attaining
their
goals.
Even
contending
with
the
practical
failure
of
the
plans
of
Condorcet
and
Sieyès,
Shovlin
points
to
an
overall
degree
of
success
for
these
elite
objectives,
concluding
that
the
“kind
of
regime
that
emerged
after
the
Revolution
corresponded
in
striking
ways
to
the
interest
and
values
of
those
middling
elites
whose
resentment
at
the
political
economic
order
of
the
old
regime
was
such
an
impetus
to
revolution
in
1789.”107
How,
then,
did
middling
elites
use
bricolage
to
eventually
engineer
success?
They
persisted
with
the
idea
of
using
education
as
one
of
their
tools.
In
this
regard,
Palmer
points
to
a
weakening
of
the
“democratic”
approach
to
education
witnessed
in
the
plans
of
1792
and
1793,
and
the
pursuit
instead
of
educational
“modernization”,
offering
the
École
Normale
(founded
1794‐95)
as
a
paradigm
for
this,
because
it
demonstrated
a
transition
from
“democratic”
to
“bourgeois”
and
“elitist”
values.108
In
a
similar
vein,
Shovlin
describes
the
commercial
republicanism
of
the
later
1790s
as
“an
attempt
to
fashion
a
model
of
passive,
depoliticized
patriotism
that
would
[help]
close
the
Revolution.”109
The
concept
of
bricolage
thus
reduces
the
importance
of
the
need
to
explain
why
the
French
sought
to
create
massive
political
projects
by
reducing
such
plans
to
mere
stages
in
the
process
of
attempting
to
fix
the
nation
towards
middling
elite
goals
–
something
they
eventually
achieved
after
the
period
that
this
thesis
has
focused
on.
This
final
conclusion
allows
this
study
to
be
tied
in
a
wider
body
of
research
into
the
French
Revolution.
The
conclusion
supports,
for
example,
that
of
Lynn
Hunt,
who
107
Shovlin,
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.218
108
Palmer,
The
Improvement
of
Humanity,
p.209
109
Shovlin,
Political
Economy
of
Virtue,
p.207
45
sees
the
Revolution
as
a
“vehicle
for
state
modernization”.
But
Hunt’s
further
argument,
that
the
“destined
course
of
the
Revolution
had
nothing
to
do
with
what
the
revolutionaries
thought
they
were
accomplishing”
is
perhaps
more
relevant
here,
for
it
is
supported
by
this
thesis’
conclusions
about
Condorcet
and
Sieyès,
who
made
grandiose
plans
for
rational,
perfect
citizens.
Whilst
these
two
educational
planners
may
have
believed
their
contributions
to
public
instruction
were
part
of
a
process
to
teach
the
French
virtue
and
moeurs,
their
plans
can
in
fact
be
seen
as
part
of
a
wider
attempt
to
fix
the
French
into
a
population
conducive
to
liberal
economic
objectives.110
This
final
point
correlates
directly
with
that
of
Lucas,
who
sees,
in
the
1789
revolt
of
the
Third
Estate,
an
actual
revolt
of
the
central
and
lower
sections
of
the
elite
who
had
lost
their
status
with
the
convening
of
the
Estates‐General,
which
cut
off
their
interactions
with
the
nobility
via
the
establishment
of
an
artificial
divide
which
separated
French
elites
along
irrelevant
nobility
lines.
These
middling
elites
then
presented
their
grievances
of
a
reduction
in
social
status
as
those
of
the
whole
Third
Estate,
and
thus
the
process
of
how
they
would
address
these
complaints
and
arrive
back
at
their
economic
and
social
objectives,
after
the
Revolution,
began.111
In
closing,
the
accomplishments
of
this
thesis
can
be
summarised
as
follows.
The
plans
for
education
that
formed
the
primary
output
of
the
Committee
on
Public
Instruction
between
1792‐93
have
been
shown
to
contain
distinct
ideas
about
political
economy.
This
political
economy,
which
is
believed
to
have
been
shaped
by
a
“patriotic
impulse”,
prescribed
a
need
to
inculcate
upon
the
French
population
manners
that
would
be
conducive
to
the
prosperity
of
France,
and
that
would
restore
civic
virtue.
Yet
plans
to
this
effect,
over‐indulgent
in
detail,
have
been
demonstrated
as
inherently
impractical,
110
Lynn
Hunt,
Politics,
Culture
and
Class
in
the
French
Revolution
(London:
Methuen,
1986),
p.7
111
Lucas,
‘Nobles,
Bourgeois
and
the
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution’,
pp.124‐6
46
and
they
were
rejected
by
the
Convention
for
this
and
other
political
reasons.
At
the
suggestion
of
a
hypothesis
that
might
have
faired
better
in
carrying
out
changes
to
the
educational
system
–
what
this
essay
has
called
the
concept
of
bricolage
–
we
have
seen
this
notion
inverted,
and
actually
in
use
by
the
middling
elites
as
a
way
of
establishing
(or
re‐establishing)
their
social
status.
Thus,
one
of
the
conclusions
of
this
thesis
is
not
that
education
could
have
made
use
of
bricolage
as
an
alternative
to
the
grands
projets
for
education
that
were
the
output
of
the
Committee
in
1792
and
1793,
but
that
education
itself
was
already
a
tool
of
a
wider
implementation
of
bricolage,
that
of
the
group
labelled
as
either
the
middling
elites,
elite
commoners,
or
the
liberal
bourgeoisie,
who
were
seeking
to
fix
the
population
in
such
a
way
that
they
could
arrive
at
a
system
of
“commercial
republicanism”
that
would
restore
their
status,
an
objective
which
seems
to
have
been
eventually
attained
by
around
1795.
Finally,
in
this
thesis’
investigations
of
education
in
Revolutionary
France,
one
very
interesting
further
avenue
has
been
illuminated
as
a
potential
return
for
future
work:
the
use
of
ideas
of
public
instruction
during
the
descent
of
France
into
the
Terror,
or
what
has
been
referred
to
above
as
the
frightening
concept
of
éducation
commune.
47
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary
sources
Guillaume,
J.,
ed.,
Procès­verbaux
du
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
de
la
Convention
Nationale
(Paris:
Imprimerie
Nationale,
1891,
6
vols.)
Guillaume,
J.,
ed.,
Procès­verbaux
du
Comité
d’Instruction
Publique
de
l’Assemblée
Législative
(Paris:
Imprimerie
Nationale,
1889)
Robespierre,
Maximilien.
(1794),
‘Report
upon
the
Principals
of
Political
Morality’
in
Keith
Michael
Baker,
ed.,
The
University
of
Chicago
Readings
in
Western
Civilization:
The
Old
Regime
and
the
French
Revolution
(Chicago:
Chicago
University
Press,
1978)
Rousseau,
J.J.
(1765)
‘Plan
for
a
Constitution
for
Corsica’
in
idem.,
The
Plan
for
Perpetual
Peace,
on
the
Government
of
Poland,
And
Other
Writings
on
History
And
Politics,
tr.
and
ed.
Christopher
Kelly
(Hanover,
New
Hampshire:
University
Press
of
New
England,
2005)
Sieyès,
Emmanuel
Joseph.
(1789)
‘Views
of
the
Executive
Means
Available
to
the
Representatives
of
France
in
1789’
in
idem.,
Political
Writings,
tr.
and
ed.
Michael
Sonenscher
(Indianapolis:
Hackett,
2003)
Smith,
Adam
(1776)
The
Wealth
of
Nations:
Books
IV­V,
in
Andrew
S.
Skinner,
ed.,
idem.
(London:
Penguin,
1999)
Secondary
works
cited
Albertone,
Manuela.
‘Enlightenment
and
Revolution:
The
Revolution
of
Condorcet’s
Ideas
on
Education’
in
Leonora
Cohen
Rosenfield
and
Richard
H.
Popkin,
eds.,
Condorcet
Studies
1
(New
Jersey:
Humanities
Press,
1984)
Baker,
Keith
Michael.
Condorcet:
From
Natural
Philosophy
to
Social
Mathematics
(London
and
Chicago:
Chicago
University
Press,
1975)
Baker,
Keith
Michael,
Inventing
the
French
Revolution
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1990)
Bell,
David
A.
The
Cult
of
the
Nation
in
France:
Inventing
Nationalism,
1680­1800
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
2001)
Chartier,
Roger.
The
Cultural
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution,
tr.
Lydia
G.
Cochrane
(Durham
and
London:
Duke
University
Press,
1991)
Forsyth,
Murray.
Reason
and
Revolution:
The
Political
Thought
of
the
Abbé
Sieyès
(New
York:
Leicester
University
Press,
1987)
Fox‐Genovese,
Elizabeth.
The
Origins
of
Physiocracy
(New
York:
Ithaca,
1976)
Gildea,
Robert.
Children
of
the
Revolution
(London:
Allen
Lane/Penguin,
2008)
Hunt,
Lynn.
Politics,
Culture
and
Class
in
the
French
Revolution
(London:
Methuen,
1986)
Jimack,
P.D.
‘Introduction
to
Émile’
in
J.J.
Rousseau,
Émile,
tr.
Barbara
Foxley
(London:
J.M.
Dent,
1974)
Lucas,
Colin.
‘Nobles,
Bourgeois
and
the
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution’,
Past
and
Present,
No.
60
(August,
1973),
pp.84‐126
Ozouf,
Mona.
Festivals
and
the
French
Revolution,
tr.
Alan
Sheridan
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1988)
48
Ozouf,
Mona.
‘Regeneration’
in
idem.
and
François
Furet,
eds.,
A
Critical
Dictionary
of
the
French
Revolution,
tr.
Arthur
Goldhammer
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1989)
Palmer,
R.R.
The
Improvement
of
Humanity:
Education
and
the
French
Revolution
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1985)
Rothschild,
Emma.
Economic
Sentiments:
Adam
Smith,
Condorcet,
and
the
Enlightenment
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
2001)
Shovlin,
John.
The
Political
Economy
of
Virtue:
Luxury,
Patriotism
and
the
Origins
of
the
French
Revolution
(New
York:
Ithaca,
2006)
Waldinger,
Renée.
‘Condorcet:
The
Problematic
Nature
of
Progress’
in
Leonora
Cohen
Rosenfield
and
Richard
H.
Popkin,
eds.,
Condorcet
Studies
1
(New
Jersey:
Humanities
Press,
1984)
Whatmore,
Richard.
Republicanism
and
the
French
Revolution
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
2000)
Winch,
Donald,
Riches
and
Poverty:
An
Intellectual
History
of
Political
Economy
in
Britain,
1750­1834
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1996)
49