EDUCATION FOR THE PEASANTRY IN FRANCE[1]
Born in 1838, died in 1882; elected to the Corps Legislatif in 1869; after Sedan aided in the proclamation of the Republic, becoming Minister of the Interior; aided in organizing the national defenses, and escaped from Paris in a balloon while the city was invested by the Germans, acquiring almost a dictator's position until the capitulation of Paris; President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1879, and Prime Minister in 1881.
The peasantry is intellectually several centuries behind the enlightened and educated classes in this country. The distance between them and us is immense. We have received a classical or scientific education—even the imperfect one of our day. We have learned to read our history, to speak our language, while (a cruel thing to say) so many of our countrymen can only babble! Ah! that peasant, bound as he is to the tillage of the soil, who bravely carries the burden of his day, with no other consolation than that of leaving to his children the paternal fields, perhaps increased an acre in extent; all his passions, joys, and fears concentrated in the fate of his patrimony. Of the external world, of the society in which he lives, he apprehends only legends and rumors. He is the prey of the cunning and fraudulent. He strikes, without knowing it,
- ↑ A contemporary translation revised for this collection.
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