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II. Schools and Politics in the Netherlands, 1796–1814*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Simon Schama
Simon Schama
Affiliation:
Christ's College, Cambridge
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Extract

By 1811, just a year after the annexation of their national territory to the French Empire, the Dutch had organized the most effective and comprehensive system of elementary education in Europe. How had this been accomplished? Not, at any rate, in emulation of their former neighbours. At the zenith of its power, Imperial France had nothing to show for years of speculation and derelict legislation except the return of responsibility for the ‘écoles primaires’ to the Church. The respective condition of the two states made this contrast still more emphatic. France commanded financial and administrative resources which the most absolute of her monarchs would have coveted; the Dutch were exhausted by fiscal penury and torn by bitter political division.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1970 , pp. 589 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

1 This was the judgement of two commissioners of the Imperial University, Georges Cuvier the biologist and Francois Noël a former French representative at The Hague, sent to inquire into Dutch educational institutions in 1810 prior to their absorption into the centralized University hierarchy. As a result of their findings the Dutch primary school establishment retained its autonomy through the three years of occupation. See Première Partie du Rapport sur les Établissemens d'instruction publique en Hollande (La Haye, 1816)Google Scholar and in Meylink, A.A.i., Officiele Geschiedenis der Wet van 1806 voor het Lager Schoolwezen ('s Gravenhage, 1857), II, 563–92.Google ScholarTonckens, N., ‘Een Stem uit het Verleden over de spreiding van het hoger onderwijs in Nederland’, Universiteit en Hogeschool (03, 1961), pp. 253–61.Google Scholar I am grateful to Dr W. Zappey for drawing my attention to this last article.

2 See Gontard, M., L’Enseignement Primaire en France de la Révolutien d la loi Guizot 1780–1833 (Paris, 1959), PP. 262–3.Google Scholar

3 See Geyl, P., Napoleon: For and Against (London, 1947), pp. 165 ff.Google Scholar

4 Driault, E., Napoleon et L'Europe, v: La Chute de l'Empire et la légende napoleonienne (Paris, 1927). P. 396.Google Scholar

5 See Masson, F., Napoleon et sa famille (Paris, 1897–1919), iv, 57Google Scholar and Lefebvre, Georges, Napoleon (Paris, 1935), p. 461.Google Scholar Lefebvre, by no means an uncritical biographer, nevertheless ends his study with an uncharacteristically credulous interpretation of Napoleonic ambitions: ‘ A l'unité politique il a done consciemment (my italics) entrepris de joindre l'unité administrative et sociale qui devait être le cadre d’une nouvelle civilisation européenne.’

6 See especially Roberti, M., Milano, capitate napoleonica (Milan, 1947)Google Scholar and de Wit, C.H.E., De Strijd Tussen Aristocratie en Democratie in Nederland 1780–1848 (Heerlen, 1965).Google Scholar

7 Connelly, O., Napoleon's Satellite Kingdoms (Ithaca, 1965), p. 337.Google Scholar

8 In addition to the Cuvier-Noel Report, see d'Alphonse, Baron, Aperçu sur la Hollande (Paris, 1813);Google Scholarle Pileur, H.A., Coup d'æsil sur l'état des lumières et l'instruction publique en Hollande (Paris, 1810).Google Scholar The law on elementary schools, drafted by Lazare Carnot during the Hundred Days in an attempt to take advantage of Napoleon's freshly rediscovered taste for liberalism, drew heavily on both Dutch practice and the Bell-Lancaster system. Victor Cousin's admiration for Dutch education played a major part in formulating the proposals which led to the enactment of the loi Guizot in 1833. See Johnson, Douglas, Guizot: aspects of French history (London, 1963), p. 112.Google Scholar

9 Cuvier-Noë, op. cit. p. 564.

10 Memoire sur les Universites (Vertoog Over De Universiteiten). Archives nationales (AN), AFIV/i8i6/13, para 1. See also Archief Valckenaer, Leidsche Bibliotheek, BPL/1034. This report was commissioned by the Minister of the Interior independently of the Department of Education in Holland and largely written by Johan Valckenaer, a Batavian revolutionary who had also been a lawyer, an academic and a diplomat. During his exile in Paris following the suppression of the 1787 rising against the Stadholder, Valckenaer had made the acquaintance of many of the leading Jacobins and had known Robespierre at the time he advocated Lepeletier's plan for ‘maisons d’instruction’ designed to turn out generations of obedient Republicans. See van Sillem, J.A., Het Leven van Mr. J. Valckenaer (Amsterdam, 1876).Google Scholar

11 ‘II sera crée et organisée une instruction publique commune à tous les citoyens, gratuite a l'égard des parties d'enseignement indispensable pour tous les hommes.’ The provision for a ‘national instruction’ was drawn up in the shadow of Condorcet's memoir on the subject. See Gontard, op. cit. p. 84; Procès-Verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique de l'Assemblée législative, ed. Guillaume, M.J. (Paris, 1889), pp. 201 f.Google Scholar

12 Fontanes commented that the report indicated a ‘luxe dans les ecoles primaire’, the more anachronistic since ‘en Hollande, comme ailleurs, le peuple est macon, charpentier…sa force done être dans ses bras que dans sa tête’. AN, AFIV/i8i6/i3, ‘pièce attachée’ iii.

13 See Gobbers, W., Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Holland (Gent, 1963).Google Scholar

14 See Langedijk, D., Bibliographie van den Schooktrijd 1795–1920 ('s Gravenhage, 1931).Google Scholar

15 The view of H. T. Colenbrander which dismissed the Dutch revolution as a creature of French machination and ineffectual ‘Jacobin’ parodies has been replaced by the equally suspect orthodoxy of Pieter Geyl which, while recognizing the distinctively national character of the revolution, assimilated it to a tradition of ‘moderate’ change. See the essay on historiography in De Wit, op. cit. pp. 384–93.

16 Two notable exceptions are: van der Giezen, A.M., De Eerste Fase van de Schoolstrijd in Nederland (Assen, 1937)Google Scholar and van den Eerenbeemt, H.F.J.M., Streven Naar Sociale Verheffing in Een Statische Stad (Nijmegen, 1963).Google Scholar A recent contribution is Dodde, N.L., Het Rijks-schooltoezicht in de Bataafse Republiek (Groningen, 1968).Google Scholar

17 C. Hentzen, De Politieke Geschiedenis van het Lagere Onderwijs in Nederland, vol. 1.

18 Central: Algemeen Rijksarchief, Den Haag (ARA), Archief van Binnenlandse Zaken 1796–1813 (BZ).

Agentschap voor nationale opvoeding 1798–1801: BZ 330–

Department voor nationale opvoeding 1806–10: BZ 870, 1000.25

Commissaris-Generaal van Onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen 1815–1818: BZ (CG) 2645–78

Local Archief van Gewestelijke Bestuur (Maasland): GB 282, 286, 288 Rijksarchief te Utrecht: Archief van Schoolbestuur (RUS); Archief van Schoolopzieners (RUSO)

Printed: Reports from the Departmental Commissions published in: Bijdragen betrekkelijk den staat en der verbeteringen van het schoolwezen in het Bataafsch Gemeenebest.

19 Hentzen, op. cit. p. 12.

20 See van Eck, P.L. Jr. Hoe 't Vroeger Was (Groningen, 1927);Google ScholarTurksma, F., De Geschiedenis van de opleiding tot onderwijzer in Nederland aan de openbare Protestants-Christelijke en bijzonder neutrale instellingen (Groningen, 1961), p. 24.Google Scholar Conditions in the schools were graphically described in the entries for the Zeeuwsch Genootschap (Zeeland Fellowship) competition on methods of improving national education.

21 The Church Council at Rhoden, for example, reported that: ‘On the 6th July 1791 the schoolmaster Hagedoorn was removed from his post being found on each day of the school term drunk and incapable. On Sunday morning the 11th December he was found not only unsatisfactory in his texts but incapable of singing the psalms. It was our general opinion that Hagedoorn was no better than a common drunkard.’ See ‘Onderwijs Toestand in het laatste der 18de eeuw’ (uit den Nieuwen Drentschen Volksalmanac, 1923), p. 106.

22 Slicher van Bath, B.H. et al. , ‘Population Changes and Economic Development in the Netherlands: A Historical Survey’, Bijdragen Aj"deling Agrarische Geschiedenis (Wageningen, 1965).Google Scholar

23 BZ (CG) 2678.

24 This figure is in some dispute. Slicher van Bath, op. cit., puts it at nearer two million

25 The law had anticipated a ratio of one to seventy. See Meilink, op. cit., 1, xvi and 96–9.

26 GB 247 (Précis statistique). ‘Maasland’ was the name given to the southern division of the former province of Holland in the administrtive reorganization in 1807.

27 Ibid.

28 GB 193.

29 Because the law of 1806 divided schools formally into three categories: public; those supported from endowed institutions—a municipal poor fund for instance—and private, some historians have seen it as a compromise with the advocacy of limited government control. The opposite was the truth since under its provisions private and Church institutions hitherto in a special status were subject to the same supervision as public schools. The division was in fact made to delineate charitable institutions so as to qualify them for tax exemption. The author of the General Tax Law of 1805 expressed the hope that it would encourage private schools to receive large numbers of poor if only to qualify for the remission. See Meilink, op. cit., Arts. 2 and 3; Archief Gogel, 59, no. 51.

30 The law was divided into three sections; the General Regulation stating the fundamental obligation of the nation to provide elementary education for its children, and decreeing religious neutrality of the institutions of public schooling; the Regulations for Examinations which divided teachers into the four grades which corresponded to their qualifications, and to the four grades of instruction inside the schools; and the Instruction for Inspectors which set out in exhaustive detail the duties of the inspectors at district and department level.

31 The law originally provided for forty inspectors but the number was expanded during discussion in the Legislative Body.

32 See RUSO 1807,4; van der Giezen, op. cit. pp. 107 ff.

33 See BZ/(Exh.), 16 September 1805, no. 15, Bijlage 3 (Verslag Groningen). A running battle between the formidable head of the Commission, Hendrik Wester, and the local nobility in villages like Aduard over rights of appointment was finally resolved in favour of the former.

34 Bijdragen, VIII (August, 1808) 8. This appears in the continuation of the Bijdragen series: Bijdragen ter bevordering van het onderwijs en de opvoeding, voornamelijk met betrekking tot de lagere schoolen in Holland (Leiden, 1810–1814).Google Scholar Preserved in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek.

35 Meilink, op. cit. 1, 287.

36 RUSO 3,5.

37 Ibid. (June, 1808).

38 Ibid. (July, 1807).

39 Ibid. (September, 1809); the two schools were at Benschop and Harmeln. The inspector, Philippe, entertained himself by compiling a ‘list of merit’ of the schools he inspected, and in 1809 he promoted Benschop and Harmeln from the bottom to somewhere near the top of his list.

40 Van den Ende was not a man given to self-advertisement, but a terse and revealing autobiographical sketch is included in: Geschiedkundige Schets van Neêrlands Schoolwetgeving (Deventer, 1847).Google Scholar

41 These looked after the revision of curricula, the publication of approved reading lists and the drafting of examinations for teachers.

42 Approx. 3 %.

43 BZ, 330, 870 (1798–1801).

44 BZ (CG) 2645–8.

45 BZ 1024–5.

46 BZ 1024. Groningen was one of the few provinces where the provision of public schooling was superior both in quality and quantity to its private competitors. In 1809 the department had 307 schools, 183 of which were public, the vast majority paid entirely from public funds. See BZ 719; Algemeen Overzigt, Groningen.

47 BZ719 (Grasmaand, 1810); RUS 4.

48 Ibid.

49 Meilink, op. cit. 1, 315 ff.

50 The law of 1806 had taken six as the age at which the State assumed an obligation.

51 Meilink, op. cit. 1, 341.

52 Ibid. II, 490. See also RUS 3 (School funds). In 1811 Groningen managed to finance inspection, local maintenance, teacher and pupil subsidies, all from a single fund, but as in many other instances the record of this department was exceptional. See Bijdragen 1810, 559–74; Meilink, 11, 398–402.

53 Together with the Minister for the Interior, A. J. Falck, van den Ende managed to keep the establishment of 1806 intact and in some cases expanded. Of the original corps of inspectors, 28 survived into the Restoration and their number was expanded to 70. See Staatsblad, no. 39 (20 March), 2, BZ (CG) 2677, 2678.

54 See Archief der Maatschappij: Tot Nut van't Algemeen (Amsterdam), pp. 1180–8.Google Scholar

55 Précis comparatif des écoles Lancastriennes en Angleterre avec celles établies à Amsterdam en faveur des enfarts des pauvres (Paris, 1817);Google Scholar BZ (CG) 2677/907 and 4456.

56 Bijdragen, 1 (1810), 52, 61.

57 Bijdragen VIII (August, 1808), 30 et seq.

58 BZ 719, Algemeen Overzigt Groningen.

59 Bijdragen, VII (August, 1807), 7, 91 f. (Verslag Groningen); Redevoering en Dichtregelen uitgesproken ter gelegenheid van het Vijf en Twintig-Jarig Feest van het Departement Groningen der Maatschappij Tot Nut van't Algemeen (Groningen, 1819).Google Scholar

60 Amsterdam, 1791.

61 Archief van Maatschappij: Tot Nut van't Algemeen, Gemeente Archief, Amsterdam No. 211 (hereafter referred to as MNA), 1187, 303. Of the eighty-odd ‘departments’ of the Society, 78 were in the provinces, and one each at Paramaribo and the Cape. The East Indian departments were then in British territorial control.

62 Kraijenhoff received the surrender of the Amsterdam garrison in January 1795 with a tricolour around his waist and ended up as Louis Bonaparte's Minister of War and a Baron. Bosch was a member of the group of radical democrats who engineered the coup d'état of 22 January 1798 and Pijman a member of the ‘moderate’ group who replaced him the following June. Admiral van Kinsbergen, an improbable but passionate advocate of new educational ideas, founded a model school at Elburg in Gelderland. See BZ 897 (23 January).

63 The Holland Society for Science had actually begun the educational debate by setting an essay competition on the subject, and they were followed in this by bodies like the Utrecht Fellowship of Science and the Zeeland Fellowship. The contribution of these learned and literary societies was out of all proportion to their membership and particularly in the field of economics and public finance they exercised a considerable influence on many of the leaders of the Republic. See Bierens de Haan, J., Van Oeconomische Tak cot Nederlandsche Maatschappij voor Nijverheid en Handel (Haarlem, 1952).Google Scholar

64 MNA 11186, 243.

65 Gedenkschriften der Maatschappij: Tot Nut van't Algemeen voor de vijfen twintig jaren van hoar bestaan (Amsterdam, 1820), p. 112.Google Scholar By 1809 Rotterdam itself boasted a library, a City institute and a Widow and Pension fund for teachers at the normal school it had opened.

66 Redevoering, op. cit.

67 van den Eerenbeemt, op. cit. pp. 64,77 f. It was a principle of the Society that ‘education should contain an element of Natural Religion and Christian ethics; it is certain that this same education should not be mixed with dogmatic instruction’. MNA 1366, 61–2.

68 See also Booing, D., Brief aan schoolhouders (Amsterdam and Leiden, 1793).Google Scholar

69 Algemeene Denkbeelden over het Nationaale Onderwijs (1796), MNA 1366.

70 MNA 1188.

71 The constitution was rejected in referendum in August 1797.

72 For a concise account see Palmer, R.R., ‘The Dutch Revolution of 1795—Much in Little’, Journal of Modern History, xxvi (1954), 15–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for the documentary evidence on which Palmer relies, Colenbrander, H.T., Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschidenis van Nederland van 1795 tot 1840 ('s Gravenhage, 1905–1922), II.Google Scholar

73 The issue of democracy and unity were, until the defeat of the radical democrats, almost inseparable in political literature. See De Wit, De Strijd…, pp 150–9.

74 The ‘moderates’ who replaced them on 12 June 1798 retained the unitary constitution of 23 April but purged primary assemblies of suspect radicals.

75 See Byvanck, W.G.C., Bataafsch Verleden (‘Dorus’ Droefheid) (Zutphen, 1917);Google Scholar J. A. van Sillem, op. cit. 11, 112.

76 de Groot, A., Leven en arbeid van J. H. van der Palm (Wageningen, 1960), p. 50.Google Scholar

77 See BZ 330: the other Agencies were Foreign Affairs, Interior, Justice, Finance, National Economy, War, and Marine.

78 See Memorie tot Bevordering van het Nationale Onderwijs, in Bijdragen (June, 1801), 1, 25–64; 11, 1–49; also van Hoorn, I., De Nederlandsche Schoolwetgeving voor het lager onderwijs 1796–1907 (Groningen, 1907), pp. 161 ff.Google Scholar

79 The new Directory of State (Staatsbewind) retained authority in matters of defence and foreign policy, but returned sovereign authority on finance and internal administration to the provinces—for the last time in Dutch history.

80 See Bijdragen, 1801–9.

81 In Utrecht the Church authorities were particularly recalcitrant in conceding authority to the Commission, which sent a stream of correspondence to the Council of the Interior complaining about intimidation and obstruction. In Friesland and Overijssel much of the resistance came from landowners who felt that their patrimonial rights in respect of the nomination of schoolmasters and churchmen—the Jus Patronatus Ecclesiae—was being infringed. See BZ 527.

82 RUS 1 (i) and 2.

83 Hoorn, op. cit. pp. 161 ff.

84 Van der Giezen, p. 107.

85 ARA/Arch. Buitenlandse zaken, 233–5.

86 Whatever Napoleon's views others both in France and the Batavian Republic took the possibility of annexation seriously. See Gedenkstukken, iv, 39; also Archief Gogel, 26, no. 82 (Canneman—Gogel).

87 Colenbrander, incorrectly, believed Schimmelpenninck to be the author of Marmont's memoir to Napoleon. De Wit, op. cit. pp. 257–62 has made Schimmelpenninck's essentially conservative position at this time clear.

88 See Gedenkstukken, iv, 261–2.

89 See Archief Gogel, 44; Sillem, J.A., De politieke en Staathuihoudkundige Werkzaamheid van I.J. A. Gogel (Amsterdam, 1864);Google ScholarVerberne, L.G.J., Gogel en Uniteit (Nijmegen, 1948).Google Scholar

90 There is as yet no satisfactory study of the Raadpensionaris. But see Andreae, S.J. Fockema, ‘Schimmelpenninck's Binnenlandse Bestuur’ in Verslagen en Mededelingen over Beoefening Overijsselsch Regt en Geschiedenis (1949);Google ScholarColenbrander, H.T., Schimmelpenninck en Koning Lodetoijk (Amsterdam, 1908)Google Scholar and the imaginative study by Vries, Theun de, Rutgerjfan Schimmelpenninck, Republikein zander Republiek ('s Gravenhage), 1965).Google Scholar

91 Staatsblad (20 March 1814) no. 39.

92 MNA 1366, op. cit.

93 See Archief Gogel, 173.