The Third French Republic

ISBN: 9781330659175 出版年：2016 页码：452 Frederick Lawton Forgotten Books

The Third Republic is the child of the Second and the grandchild of the First. There is an organic relation ship between them which makes them in reality one. Taking it all in all, the history of the three might be summed up as the education of the democracy. The rest is mere detail. No sooner had the Great Revolu tion overthrown the Monarchy than Talleyrand pro posed to establish an elementary school in each commune. The essential was to begin with the infant intelligence and create a national thinking mind. This the bishops fought against. It meant that the people would be their judges. Fontanes took up the matter again in the reign of Napoleon I; but the Emperor had more pressing cares to attend to, so that the efforts of the first Grand Master of the University were abortive. The Restoration came, and still the education of the masses was neglected, though Cuvier, boyer-collard and Frayssinous, strove for it. Not until 1833, in Louis Philippe's reign, did Guizot manage to commence the work, amidst many draw backs. These latter rendered progress slow even under the Second Empire; but a wider-reading and reflecting public was formed in the middle of the century; and the histories of Tocqueville and Michelet, the poetry of Victor Hugo, Lamartine and de Musset.