Professors During The French Revolution?

Question:

Professors During The French Revolution?

What title would college professors be given by their students during the period before and during the French Revolution (Professor Smith , Mr. Smith)?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Professor or Doctor was the norm - - - in Europe one can be a Doctor of Law or Letters or most anything it is not limited to the Medical profession. Oddly enough a medical doctor of renown wa most likely a Professor rather than a Doctor.

Gonna throw links and words at you. You picked an interesting period for study.

http://www.napoleon-series.org/ins/markh...
"""During the early years of the Revolution, there was a lot of talk about education, but relatively little institutional action. Many reports were issued, and some changes were made, but the internal turmoil and external conflict made domestic reform difficult. With the execution of Robespierre on July 28, 1794, some level of normalcy was established, and the government was able to pay more attention to educational reform. Action soon followed with the decree that teacher training was now the top educational priority. The Paris Normal school was created with a curriculum that included "republican morality and the public and private virtues, as well as the techniques of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, practical geometry, French history and grammar;" and they were to use books which would be published and prescribed by the Convention. [8] This latter requirement merely reflects what had by that time become a strong French tradition, namely the extreme centralization of educational policy. Also instituted at this time was the establishment of a public secondary school for every 300,000 people. The curriculum for these 㩣oles centrales consisted of literature, languages, science, and the arts. The decree establishing the 㩣oles centrales also provided that

. . .the age-range of the pupils will be from eleven or twelve to seventeen or eighteen . . . every school is to have one professor for each of the following subjects: mathematics; experimental physics and chemistry; natural history; scientific method and psychology; political economy and legislation; the philosophic history of peoples; hygiene; arts and crafts; general grammar; belles lettres; ancient languages; the modern languages most appropriate to the locality of the school; painting and drawing. The teaching throughout will be in French. Every month there is to be a public lecture dealing with the latest advances in science and the useful arts. Every central school is to have attached to it a public library, a garden and a natural history collection, as well as a collection of scientific apparatus and of machines and models relating to arts and crafts. The Committee of Public Instruction is to remain responsible for the composition of text-books which are to be used in central schools, and the citing of these schools is to be determined by special enactment. [9]
Again, we see the strong French commitment to centralization. It is also of interest to note that the teacher salaries were established by the national government, and that the schools were to be run by a committee of teachers who were to meet every ten days (which was once per week, under the new Revolutionary Calendar). Financing was to be the responsibility of the Department. The commitment to central financing soon weakened, with the responsibility for teacher salaries soon delegated to the town governments to be paid by the parents. [10]

The requirement that instruction be in French may at first seem to be rather routine, but it reflects a political problem of the time as well as the use of education to political and nationalistic ends. A common language is one of the most fundamental of nationalistic tools available to a country. In Revolutionary France, however, a great many different languages and dialects were spoken. If France was to become unified under the new Revolutionary Government, then surely one measure of that unity would be a common language. And if there is to be a common language, then it must fall to the schools to instruct all citizens in that language. Indeed, during the early years of the Revolution, non-French was seen as counterrevolutionary and, therefore, dangerous. [11] This extreme nationalistic attitude toward the French language can still be seen in modern France.

The central schools were further strengthened, especially in regard to competition with some religious based private schools, by a provision that required almost anyone who desired a position with the government to present evidence that he had attended "one of the Republic's schools." [12] This gave them an enormous competitive advantage over any private efforts.

In spite of all that has been recounted here, by the end of the 18th century the position of public education in France, especially that of the central schools, was weaker than one might have expected. Numerous problems existed, including a shortage of qualified teachers and, more importantly, a shortage of qualified students. The schools in Paris and several other major population centers did fairly well, but throughout the country the story was not always as positive. One problem had to do with the organization and curriculum of the schools. There was really no continuity in the curriculum, and very little in the way of required courses. Thus, a "graduate" from a central school might or might not have met some reasonable standards, either academic or curricular. In short, the system of central schools had not lived up to its promise. [13] It remained for one of the great figures of history to bring some order to the system.""

More to the article but this is long enough - ---

Peace