The Stranger Or the Boy from Belcourt

ANDREW GIAMBRONEReason, civic duty, and a taxonomy of knowledge — these were Enlightenmentprinciples at work in the restructuring of the French educational system. It is essential tonote that each of these elements was united by a shared and increasingly standardizedlanguage. Revolutionary France was rife not only with political but also linguisticdifferences; if the Republic was to be unified by common mores and values, a commonlanguage would have to be adopted in the nation’s schools. 67 The idea was that modernizedFrench would be the means through which schools paved the way for domestic stability.Certainly, such a policy had implications for French nationalism in the aftermath of variouswars with England, Spain, and Prussia. It also had implications for the rise of Frenchcolonialism, which Camus, as a European living in 20 th century Algeria, experiencedfirsthand.The policy was not without its problems. While the National Convention had addedscolarité to liberté, égalité, and fraternité on the banner of the Republic, both qualifiedteachers and students in France were in short supply by the end of the 18 th century. 68Moreover, school curricula were far from standardized; to speak of “required courses” duringthis period of French history would be anachronistic. It goes without saying that Paris andFrance’s provinces diverged significantly.Napoleon Bonaparte introduced vast reforms. In 1802, the French emperorestablished the lycée as the principle institution of secondary education, with the intention ofpreparing French youth for careers in government. These schools taught French, Latin, andAncient Greek; in fact, an 1808 law mandated that lycées were to instruct students in“ancient languages, history, rhetoric, logic and the elements of mathematical and physicalsciences.” 69 Napoleon believed these were all subjects that would form the base of educationfor the future leaders of France and its colonies.Culturally, the Napoleonic lycée resembled a militaristic boarding school more thanthe lycées of today. Merit was its guiding principle, and patriotism was a virtue. Scholarshipswere provided to sons of the military and government, as well as to the best pupils fromFrench secondary schools. Camus belonged to this latter group. Although he was a pupille dela nation — a ward of the state, on account of his father’s death in World War I — the youngauthor would become a beneficiary of state-provided scholarships because of his intellectualprowess. He progressed through the French educational system not because of his socialrank but rather precisely in spite of it.Decades after Napoleon first established the lycée, a series of laws championed byMinister of Public Instruction Jules Ferry, in the wake of France’s 1871 defeat at the hands ofthe Prussians, rendered French public schools free, mandatory, and secular. 70 71 The concept67supra “The Revolution, Napoleon, and Education”68ibid.69supra Bernard, H.C. Education and the French Revolution70 Harrigan, Patrick J. “Church, State, and Education in France From the Falloux to the Ferry Laws: AReassessment.” Canadian Journal of History, April 2001. p. 51-83137