EDUCATION AND THE RIVIERA (1772-81) 315 



recommendations. Classes on the same subject are not to be 

 too long, the lessons are as far as possible to be illustrated, the 

 relations of history and geography are to be insisted on, in classical 

 studies composition is in the upper forms to be limited in Latin 

 and altogether suppressed in Greek, while more attention is to be 

 given to translations. De Saussure ends with an earnest appeal 

 which indicates a mind alive to the dangers looming in the near 

 future. ' Our State is but a little island situated between broad, 

 deep, and rapid currents, and our internal divisions, if radical and 

 frequent, may open . . . but I turn my eyes from this terrifying 

 prospect.' Therefore, he urges, let all recognise that a public and 

 common education is the most effectual means to ensure the 

 safety of the Republic. 



De Saussure 's forcible utterance for the moment caught the 

 public ear, and was eagerly discussed by partisans on both sides ; 

 Condorcet wrote to him from Paris, sending him several pages 

 of sympathetic comment. But at Geneva the novelty of the 

 ideas seems to have created some misunderstanding and much 

 criticism. In patrician circles they excited warm hostility. As 

 has often been the case elsewhere, educational progress was 

 hindered by political prejudices. The clerics and the class they 

 influenced the Negatives of the Upper Town were violent in 

 their opposition. De Saussure 's colleague, Bertrand, who as a 

 mathematician might have been expected to take a more liberal 

 view, proved a leading opponent. He quoted an Ordinance 

 according to which ' the College was founded to educate young 

 men for the Ministry and Magistracy,' and urged that for 

 ' lawyers and theologians, to whom he would add doctors,' any 

 course of instruction not exclusively classical was ill-suited ! 

 If any teaching for artists and artisans was needed, it must, he 

 contended, be given in a wholly separate institution. The public 

 became interested and began to take sides. Tracts and squibs, 

 after the Genevese fashion, filled the air, while a mock protest 

 from the women of Geneva, complaining that they would no 

 longer be fit companions for their over-educated husbands, amused 

 the^town. 1 On the other hand, the Representants, the heads 

 of the popular party, warmly supported the Projet. Jacques 



1 There were no primary public schools for girls at Geneva before 1804, and 

 no secondary schools before 1836. 



