THE PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN FRANCE 



BY CHARLES CHABOT 



(Translated from the French by Professor Charles B. Goold, Albany Academy) 



[Charles Chabot, Professor of the Science of Education at the University of 

 Lyons since 1891. b. Villette (Ain), 1857. Eleve de 1'Ecole Normale Supe"- 

 rieure, 1876: LicenciS es lettres, 1877; Agreg6 de philosophic, 1879; Docteur es 

 lettres, 1897. Prefesseur de Philosophic aux Lycees de Saint Ouen (1879), 

 Moulins (1881), Besanson (1889), Lyons (1891). Author of Nature et Moralite; 

 Rollin et la Discipline des Colleges; L' Enseignement Secondaire dans It Rhone 

 (collaborateur); La Pedagogic au Lycce; Collaborateur de la Revue Pedagogique 

 et de I'Aimce Psychologique.} 



THE question of the professional training of teachers in France is 

 one of the vital problems of the day. As a result of the study and 

 experiment we are spending in its solution is to arise, let us hope, 

 a new and better state of affairs in the matter of both primary 

 and secondary education. In achieving this reform which, in the 

 matter of secondary education, will amount to the introduction and 

 establishment of a system, we may look for model and suggestion 

 to the educational systems in vogue in other countries than our own. 

 So w r idely divergent and conflicting, however, are such models that 

 we can use them only by adapting them to the needs of our own 

 national character and temperament. How shall our country solve 

 this important problem by combining, along the lines of these needs, 

 its own traditions with the suggestions coming from abroad? It 

 seemed to me that this question is of interest not only to French 

 teachers, but also to the international congress of teachers which I 

 have the honor to address. 



It is my purpose in this paper to present but few of my own views 

 and to deal chiefly with facts. I shall mention, briefly, the history 

 and present status of our system; first, in regard to primary education; 

 second, in regard to secondary education; then I shall suggest some 

 plans for reform. 



I. Primary Education 



It is to the Revolution that we are indebted, if not for the idea of 

 a professional training for teachers, at least for a plan of general 

 organization corresponding to that idea. The Convention passed, 

 October 31, 1794, an act establishing " a normal school in which should 

 be gathered, from all parts of the Republic, citizens already instructed 

 in the useful sciences, for the purpose of learning under the tuition 

 of the ablest professors in every department of knowledge, the art of 

 teaching." This school, established in Paris, w r as to become a sort 



