Paris in the Year 2000

by Tony Moilin

  The governesses of the year 2000 are capaciously accommodated and provided with the environment necessary to their functions. Depending on the weather, they keep the children indoors or take them to play in the gardens of the model houses, never leaving the young clients placed under their surveillance for an instant. Subject to a firm and affectionate authority, and also obliged to live in society with their little comrades and to give up on many caprices, infants are no longer, as before, either completely neglected and unworthily mistreated, or, on the contrary, excessively spoiled, whiny and willful. They thus receive a solid early education—something so important for the rest of life, and which their parents, often coarse, brutal or overly weak-willed, would be absolutely incapable of giving them.

  However, family ties are not broken by the existence of these crèches. Whenever fathers or mothers leave work temporarily, they come to the governess to ask after their children and spend some time with them. In the evening, when their day’s work is done, they take them home until the following day, chatting and eating with them and putting them to bed in a crib next to the mother’s bed. Only seeing their parents in that interval, and in moments of good humor, children love them all the more, and, if they have resentments against anyone, it is more likely to be the governess, who is sometimes obliged to be stern and chastise the little rascals confided to her care.

  2. Primary Schools

  Education is the Socialist Government’s principal means of action; that is how it has taken definitive possession of the minds of populations and assured the ruination of the obsolete doctrines that ruled ancient Societies.

  Under the Social Republic, education is free, secular and obligatory.

  It is free in that it costs parents absolutely nothing, regardless of their financial situation and the number of their children.

  It is secular in that it rests on essentially rational and scientific bases, and rejects all information given by religious corporations or individuals imbued with clerical notions.

  It is obligatory in that the State, the guardian of all children, constrains them to attend schools and takes them there by force if unnatural parents do not send them of their own free will.

  On these three fundamental points the Government has never tolerated the slightest argument, for education thus comprised is the very basis of the Republic and the sole guarantee of its endurance. If the law regarding public education were to be changed, the rebirth of the old regime, with all its abuses, would be seen within a matter of years. The Administration knows that and, being responsible for the fate of young generations, watches with jealous care over that precious deposit and simultaneously protects it from ignorance and doctrines hostile to the spirit of Socialism.

  Primary schools.

  As soon as children can speak fluently and begin to be able to understand, they are put into primary schools, where they learn to read and write.

  These schools are extremely numerous. There are two of them, one for boys and the other for girls, in every country village and every city street. Large, hygienic, well-ventilated, well-heated in winter and provided with a courtyard and a garden, the children stay there all day and only leave in the evenings to return to their parental homes.

  All the primary schools, for boys as well as or girls, are maintained not by male teachers, who are no good for small children, but by female ones. The latter, all mothers who have a vocation for education, fulfill their functions as much out of devotion as duty, and monitor the health and cleanliness of their pupils as carefully as their instruction. They are paid by the Government and chosen from among the most intelligent and highly-respected of the many women who seek this kind of employment. They form a powerful corporation in the State, by virtue of their number and influence, and, although their profession is no better remunerated than any other, they are the object of universal consideration, and occupy the forefront of society.

  In general, classes are not very large and comprise no more than twenty or twenty-five children, so that the teacher can easily supervise and instruct all the pupils entrusted to her care. Furthermore, she can be assisted in that task by those pupils who are more advanced than their comrade and serve as monitors.

  Every month, at indeterminate epochs, female inspectors come to visit the schools and make sure that they are well-maintained. At the same time, they interrogate the pupils carefully and take account of the progress they have made. These examinations are extremely important for the children. According to whether they come through them with more or less success, they either remain in the same class or pass into another, where they receive a more advanced education.

  By courtesy of these examinations, all the pupils of a single school are divided into several classes, entitled reading, writing, grammar, calculation and so on, into which they are only admitted after having given proof of a certain knowledge. Now, the children make it a point of honor among themselves not to remain in the inferior classes, and, in order to escape that shame, they work with an ardor and assiduity was rarely seen in the schools of the old regime.

  The teachers themselves take a strong interest in the monthly examinations and make every effort to render them more brilliant—for, according to whether their pupils are more or less advanced for their age and respond to their interrogators more or less competently, they will be marked up or down themselves by the Administration, and either left where they are or promoted. In the latter case they are entrusted with larger schools or appointed as instructors or directors.

  The children remain in primary schools until they can read and write well, and know the elements of grammar, history, geography, calculation and natural history. At the end of the year, the most advanced are subjected to so-called exit-examinations on all these subjects, and if they do honor to themselves they are admitted into s secondary school. If not, they remain in the primary school until the age of their apprenticeship.

  3. Secondary Schools

  Secondary schools, less numerous than primary schools, are only found in cities and large towns, where the population is sufficiently concentrated to furnish the number of pupils necessary to the creation of an establishment.

  These schools receive day pupils, half-boarders and full-boarders. As with everything concerned with education, they are entirely free and parents do not pay any more when their children are fed, accommodated and clothed by the State.

  In secondary schools, of course, the sexes are rigorously separated. The establishments for boys are never close to those for girls, and great care is taken to ensure that there is no communication between them.

  The schools for boys are maintained by schoolmasters, who are well paid and highly esteemed. To obtain their position they are obliged to submit to rigorous examinations, and the rank they occupy in the esteem of their fellow citizens is entirely in accord with their merit and the important functions they fulfill. As for the girls’ schools, they are directed by female teachers, with the collaboration of a few males.

  In general, the establishments for boys include a large number of boarders and very few day pupils, families asking for nothing better than to be completely rid of turbulent children who are difficult to restrain and, once at liberty, think of nothing but roaming far and wide or breaking everything in the house.

  In the schools for girls, there are, by contrast, few boarders and a great many half-boarders, parents being much more comfortable spending the evenings with their daughters—who, being gentle and sedentary, do not like to distance themselves from their mothers.

  At any rate, the boarders of both sexes are quite happy in the State establishments. They are well-nourished, hygienically accommodated, have courtyards in which to play, gardens in which to stroll, receive frequent visits from their parents and spend all their holidays with them.

  The subjects taught in secondary schools are grammar, literature, calculation, history, geography, natural history, the gentle arts, music and drawing, living languages and the elementary notions
of the exact sciences. These subjects are absolutely identical for boys and girls, and have freed the latter from the obligation they once had to learn sewing, knitting, tapestry and embroidery. Those kinds of needlework are no longer considered as the indispensable complement of a good female education, but simply as distractions, to which pupils only devote themselves if it pleases and amuses them.

  Like pupils in primary schools, those in secondary schools are subject to monthly examinations and subdivided into classes that are more or less advanced. The children, who already have a great deal of self-respect at that age, make superhuman efforts not to be held back, thus earning the derision of their more advanced comrades, who do not hesitate to give them ridiculous nicknames. The teachers are just as keenly interested in the examinations, which are entitlements to advancement for them, and they leave no stone unturned to make their pupils work and to instruct them.

  At the end of every year, the most learned pupils pass general examinations on all the subjects they have been taught. Only those who respond appropriately to these examinations are allowed o enter the higher schools. As for those who have obtained less profit from their masters’ lessons, they remain in the secondary schools, where they conclude their education on reaching the age at which they have to choose a profession.

  4. Higher Schools

  Higher schools exactly resemble secondary ones, save that they receive older pupils, already more learned, and that more emphasis is put there on education in literature, natural and exact sciences, and the fine arts.

  The pupils are subjected to the same monthly and annual examinations, which serve to classify the pupils, measuring their various aptitudes and directing their studies in consequence.

  Thus, depending on whether the pupils show a greater disposition for the sciences, letters or fine arts, they are pushed in one of those three directions and permitted to devote more time to their favorite subjects. That method has the advantage of not wearying the pupils with unnecessary lessons, and simultaneously, ensuring them more rapid progress in the knowledge for which they have a vocation; the pupils then work with an extraordinary ardor, which their masters are obliged to moderate lest it damage their health.

  After two or three years spent in higher schools, young people have finished their education, and, having reached the age to choose a profession, they embrace one or other of them, in accordance with the studies they had undertaken.

  In sum, in the Social Republic, the general system of public education is composed of progressive classes and schools into which the children can only be admitted after being subjected to examinations of increasing difficulty. The studious and intelligent pupil, who always responds well in all his examinations, can therefore take all his classes and reach the higher schools.

  Children less well-endowed or less laborious only take classes that are to some extent incomplete. They remain in the secondary schools, or even in the primary schools, and when they reach the age to choose a trade they obtain one in harmony with the level of education they have attained.

  Undoubtedly, the result of this is a great inequality between citizens, some of whom are fairly ignorant and devoted to the manual arts, whereas others, fully educated, exercise liberal professions. The fault lies, however, entirely with the children, who are unable or unwilling to profit from the lessons lavished upon them, and no one has any right to complain, because everyone has been given the same opportunity to obtained a complete education.

  That is the exact opposite of what happened under the old regime; in those times, the children of poor people were obliged to leave school for the workshop and it was necessary for them to remain ignorant even if they had the most marvelous disposition for study, while the sons of good families spent their entire youth in colleges where they learned absolutely nothing and only studied ways to enrage the honorable professors charged with instructing all those little idlers.

  5. Apprenticeship

  In the Social Republic, because everyone has to work and to have a profession, all young people, on leaving school, enter into apprenticeship.

  That apprenticeship is undertaken under the direction of the State and in establishments belonging to it. To that effect, in all industries, even the most trivial, the Government has created so-called “model workshops,” which hire the best workers within the specialty, which are provided with improved machinery and in which all new methods of fabrication are tested.

  These model workshops are not indeed to compete with private industry; their sole objective is to favor the progress of each trade and, above all, to take apprentices. Thus, model bakeries have been created, along with model farms, model dressmaking studios, etc., in sufficient numbers to receive all those destined for various employments. There, workers who are as benevolent as they are experienced, direct the young people in their work; they give them advice, showing them what it is necessary to do in order to work well, and gradually initiating them into all the difficulties of the profession.

  Thanks to that education, as paternal as it is practical, the apprentices make rapid progress. No longer wasting time, as before, in attending lectures or carrying out some detail of the trade, always the same, but being, on the contrary, carefully educated in during everything concerned with their profession, they learn the most difficult jobs in two or three years and emerge from the model workshops already good and very capable workers, quite capable of earning their living in private industry.

  These establishments of apprenticeship are rather costly to the Government, by virtue of the expense of their installation, and especially because of the time that the workers spend giving lessons to the young apprentices, but the Administration does not regret that expense and, on the contrary, deems it to be very fruitful, a country being more prosperous as good workers become more numerous there and more skilled in their trades.

  For apprenticeships in Commerce and heavy industry, the State has no need to create model workshops. The young people destined for those professions simply enter large Government shops and factories, where they are instructed paternally and directed by individuals specially charged with that responsibility. Thanks to those excellent lessons, after a certain time, they can make themselves useful, and do not take long to acquire a place among the employees and draw a wage.

  Finally, for the so-called liberal professions, which require theoretical knowledge and special skills, specialist schools have been created in which young people are carefully instructed in everything that they need to know. These include:

  The School of Highways-and-Bridges, where engineers are trained to build roads, bridges, railways and canals.

  The School of Mining, from which engineers emerge destined to supervise the work of mines and direct all the large factories belonging to the state.

  The Naval School, where people learn to build and navigate ships.

  The Schools of Painting, Architecture and Music, which train painters, architects and musicians.

  The Schools of Education, which furnish teachers of both sexes to schools and professors for higher education.

  The School of Medicine, designed to train physicians.

  Finally, the School of Administration, in which the laws of the country and political economy are studied, and in which students are prepared to follow administrative careers.

  Expressly omitted from the list have been schools of law and military arts, schools of that sort having become unnecessary in the Republic by virtue of the simplification of the law and the suppression of armies.

  Entrance into the various establishments of apprenticeship does not take place at hazard and on the mere request of young people or their parents, but, before being admitted into them, it is necessary to undergo examinations proving that one has the aptitude to follow the career for which one is intended. Thus, for certain trades, great muscular strength is required; for others, a great deal of dexterity; for others, excellent eyesight; for others, an open mind; for yet others, certain scientific or arti
stic aptitudes.

  Naturally, in a question as important as the choice of a career, one must take full account of the level of education possessed by the young people. Those who have never been able to get into the higher schools have no claim to an apprenticeship in a liberal profession and are obliged to fall back on commerce or industry. In the same way, those who have not been able to win admission into the secondary schools are forbidden certain professions reserved for their more intelligent and more studious comrades. Equality is in no way compromised by that, because, on the one hand, all children being subjected to the same examinations, those who cannot pass them appropriately cannot blame anyone but themselves for that, and, on the other hand, the young people who embrace careers in commerce and industry have little reason to complain, being able to acquire, with activity and intelligence, a social position equivalent to any liberal profession.

  The Government does not limit itself to checking whether young people have real aptitudes for the positions for which they are destined, but determines the number of apprentices to be recruited to each industry. That regulation of apprenticeship has seemed totally indispensable to ensure the prosperity of the country and enable everyone to be able to live comfortably by exercising the trade they have been taught.

  Previously, under the old regime, when apprenticeship was not subject to any regulation and young people chose their profession at hazard, this is what happened:

  Certain professions, reputed to be good or easy to learn, were oversubscribed and could not nourish all those exercising them. There would, therefore, be frenzied competition between workers of a particular sort, which inevitably led to a lowering of wages, unemployment and poverty. The workers tried in vain to associate, in order to maintain prices; individual self-interest as more powerful and the unemployed workers always offered to work more cheaply than the tariffs imposed by strikes.