FROM PRIMARY EDUCATION TO THE 18TH CENTURY AROUND CARPENTRAS

Claude Vallet

 

Within the framework of this short article we can only briefly mention the conditions of schooling in our region throughout the two centuries preceding the French Revolution.

 

RECRUITMENT OF SCHOOL TEACHERS

Under the Ancien Régime, education was not a state affair, it was a work of charity left to chance carried out either by the Church, or by individuals, or by a community.

The teaching of the Christian religion was obligatory there, whatever the teachers of these schools.

The regents, tutors, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses of our towns and villages on the plain or in the mountains did not obtain the title of teacher until 1795. As few were the men (to the exclusion of the women ) capable of judging the merits of a school rector, it was necessary to rely on the parish priest or the outgoing rector, or on public notoriety or even on previous services.

 

ORIGINS AND SKILLS

For example, at Gargas in Provence, the clergy most of the time provided the regents and it was the vicars who fulfilled the function for a salary always less than sixty pounds (each worth twenty sous). But from one community to another the wages varied a lot.

When he was not a member of the clergy, the choice of teachers by the community was subject to the ratification of the bishop. They were thus subject to the dual authority of the parish priest and the first municipal magistrate.

As reported by Jean Marchand, historian of the school in Vaucluse “almost all these masters descended from the high valleys of the Alps where life was so hard and the resources so poor that one could only make a living there.

They came with their pen over their ears, if they only taught reading and writing and the inkstand hanging from the buttonhole of their jacket, very congruently boasting of their ability and their zeal, sometimes even knowing how to seduce the municipal magistrates with their eloquence. , their taste or their ability to sing at the lectern... Most of them were light on knowledge as much as on money”. They were interrogated before the notables of the community on their faith, on grammar and arithmetic. Some read badly and wrote very little.

They gave a seasonal education that lasted six to eight months between All Saints' Day and Easter outside the period of intense agricultural activity where the children were put to work (keeping the herds, sowing, harvesting, etc.).

 

FUNCTIONS

The schoolmaster was poor and the assistant of the parish priest and trustees and could combine several functions: clerk (remember the title of teacher-secretary of town hall which existed until 1990 in rural communities) and functions more subordinate who disconcert us today such as barber, carpenter, rural policeman... Almost all of them were sacristans and cantors and assisted the priest in the services, were in charge of running the clock, rang the bells not only to the Angelus but against storms!

In addition to his modest communal salary, a school fee paid by the parents can supplement his income and in some cases he is fed by the families of the schoolchildren. Few of the communities have a room assigned to the public school: a room could even serve both as a classroom and as accommodation for the teacher! However, some made efforts to allocate a suitable room or to build a more or less healthy school room, isolated from the weather.

We would also have to cite the education of girls, closely controlled by religious congregations and directed by the Ursulines or the Visitandines, the subjects taught, the "individual" teaching methods where "by heart" dominated, the extreme severity of the teachers and punishments, the rusticity and austerity of school furniture.

 

CONCLUSION

Primary education is therefore not a product of the nineteenth century because well before 1789 and whatever their motivations, the Church and just as much the communities of inhabitants had understood the usefulness of education and made meritorious efforts to maintain schools and to pay teachers.

 

NB It should be added that the school of this period wanted to erase "the patois" and beautiful rebirth, we now have three bilingual French-Provençal classes at the primary school in Mazan and more than two hundred Provençal middle school students in Mazan and Monteux not counting those who study Provençal in high school.