Teaching the nation trhouth the region: the example of the Third French Republic

Abstract

The Third French Republic (1870-1940) achieved a huge task concerning mass education. The schooling of children from 6 to 12 years became compulsory. State primary schools were free and their teaching was non-confessionnal. School houses were built in the whole country and primary schools teachers were trained at a good level. Often described by French historiography as a time of intensive centralism – and even of “Jacobinism” –, the Third Republic was also an era where a strong regionalist movement could develop. This regionalism was seldom fighting against national unity but often pretended to be the most authentic nationalism. At primary schools the love for the “small fatherland” was used to foster the love for the Great Fatherland. Numerous regionalist textbooks were published. They provided the teachers and the children not only with an intellectual, but also an aesthetic and emotional education about the “small fatherlands”.