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Inventing Industrial Education: The Ecole d'Arts et Métiers of Châlons-sur-Marne, 1807–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

John R. Pannabecker
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Today eight Schools of Arts and Crafts are the largest source of engineers in France but they originated from a single school established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803. At the time many French were concerned that their industries lagged behind the British. What better way to modernize industry than to train boys and young men in a more rational approach to production and send them out to lead industrial change? Historians have left a pessimistic view of the school's first quarter century, but my reading of the evidence, including the archives on school shops and commerce, has led me to nearly the opposite conclusion—the school of Châlons was, from 1807 to 1830, one of the most innovative and unusual schools of all time.

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Articles
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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , Summer 2004 , pp. 222 - 249
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Copyright © 2004 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 I refer to the Ecoles d'Arts et Métiers (Schools of Arts and Crafts) as the Schools and to the Ecole d'Arts et Métiers of Châlons-sur-Marne as the school. See Day, Charles R., Les Ecoles d'Arts et Métiers: L'enseignement technique en France, XIXe-XXe siècle, trans. Bardos, Jean-Pierre (Paris: Belin, 1991); and the earlier English edition Education for the Industrial World: The Ecoles d'Arts et Métiers and the Rise of French Industrial Engineering (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987). References in this essay are to the French edition. On the Schools today, see Supérieure, Ecole Nationale d'Arts et Métiers, Guide de l'ENSAM 1998–1999 (Paris: ENSAM, 1998); and Day, Charles R. Schools and Work: Technical and Vocational Education in France since the Third Republic (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

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8 Labâte (1766–1835), a surgeon on Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, distinguished himself in caring for plague-stricken patients at Jaffa. As principal at Compiègne, Labâte was initially so severe that some students sought to ambush him with a cord hung at chest-height in a poorly lit school corridor and then kill him with a dagger. He managed to avoid that trap and thereafter became more flexible: Amédée Lhote, Biographie châlonnaise avec documents inédits accompagnés de portraits gravés et d'armoiries (Châlons-sur-Marne: Imprimerie-Librairie de T. Martin, 1870), 201–2 (see also manuscript pages bound in Lhote's personal copy, BMC). See also Clause, Georges Le département de la Marne sous le Consulat et l'Empire, 1800–1815 (Lille: Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, 1983), 1:664–6. Molard, F.-E. (1774–1829) was the younger brother of Claude-Pierre Molard, director of the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris: Michaud, Joseph F. Michaud, Louis Gabriel and Desplaces, Eugène Ernest eds., Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, rev. ed. (Paris: Madame C. Desplaces, 1854–1865), 28:518–519. According to Patrice Bret, F.-E. Molard (also known as Claude-Emmanuel), was actually a cousin of Claude-Pierre Molard but he considered him as his brother: “Les oubliés de Polytechnique en Egypte: Les artistes mécaniciens de la Commission des Sciences et des Arts,” in Scientifiques et sociétés pendant la Révolution et l'Empire (Paris: Editions du CTHS, 1990), 511, footnote 36. Napoleon implemented his Continental Blockade in 1806 to undermine British commerce with Europe: François Crouzet, L'économie britannique et le blocus continental (1806–1813), 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958).Google Scholar

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11 Lelorrain, Charmasson, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 102–108.Google Scholar

12 The French artillery corps led the world in rationalized production; its methods were adapted during the French Revolution for the manufacture of small arms with interchangeable parts for mass warfare, and later borrowed by Americans such as Eli Whitney. See, for example, Hounshell, David A., From the American System to Mass Production 1800–1932 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 25–32; and Alder, Ken Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763–1815 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

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14 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, L'Enseignement technique, 103. Descriptive geometry was a complex theory of three-dimensional representation invented by Gaston Monge, a member of Chaptal's committee, for instruction in the elite military school of Mézières. See Booker, Peter J., “Gaspard Monge (1746–1818) and His Effect on Engineering Drawing and Technical Education,” Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology 34 (1961–62): 15–34; and Belofsky, Harold “Engineering Drawing—a Universal Language in Two Dialects,“ Technology and Culture 32 (January 1991): 23–46.Google Scholar

15 Lelorrain, Charmasson, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 102–108.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 106. Cochard, assistant director of the Bureau, recognized the novelty of the school and the lack of any similar institutions anywhere in the world: Report by Cochard, 4 December 1807, F17 14327, AN.Google Scholar

17 Lausel and Costaz to Min. Int., 3 July 1807, F17 14327, AN. Claude-Anthelme Costaz, head of the Bureau, was called to work at the ministry in 1800 by his brother Louis, who worked on the school's regulations: C.-A. Costaz to Min. Int., 24 December 1807, F17 14327, AN.Google Scholar

18 Liancourt, to Bureau, 19 March 1807, F12 1084, AN.Google Scholar

19 Liancourt, , “Observations supplémentaires sur l'Ecole impériale,” [12 July 1806], F12 1085, AN.Google Scholar

20 Rouby to Min. Int., 29 July 1806, F12 1130, AN.Google Scholar

21 Molard, F.-E., “Plan d'instruction,” 14 May 1807, F12 1085, AN.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. On the Encyclopédie, see Pannabecker, John R., “Representing Mechanical Arts in Diderot's Encyclopédie “ Technology and Culture 39 (January 1998): 33–73. On Liancourt's criticism of the math teachers, see Liancourt, “Observations supplémentaires sur l'Ecole impériale,” [12 July 1806], F12 1085, AN.Google Scholar

23 Letter from Rouby to Min. Int., 13 January 1807 (date received), F12 1084, AN; and Molard, F.-E., “Plan d'instruction,” 14 May 1807, F12 1085, AN. See also Pannabecker, John R., “Integrating Technology, Science, and Math at Napoleon's School for Industry, 1806–1815,” Journal of Technology Education 14 (Fall 2002): 51–64.Google Scholar

24 Letter from Liancourt to Bureau, 19 March 1807, F12 1084, AN; and Liancourt, , “Observations supplémentaires sur l'Ecole impériale,” [12 July 1806], F12 1085, AN.Google Scholar

25 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, L'Enseignement technique, 103.Google Scholar

26 Nomination of Rouby as first professor of mathematics, 19 thermidor year 12, F12 1130, AN; and Letter from Rouby to Min. Int., 13 January 1807 (date received), F12 1084, AN. Ambroise Fourcy refers to a répétiteur-adjoint named Rouby: Fourcy, and Dhombres, Jean G. Histoire de l'Ecole Polytechnique (Paris: Belin, 1987; originally published in 1828), 345. Liancourt was critical of Rouby and the teachers, who he claimed had less contact with students than teachers in other schools because of the time students spent in the shops at Chalôns: Letter from Liancourt to Min. Int., 1806, F12 1085, AN; Letters from teachers to Min. Int., 8 August 1806; 19 June 1807; and 14 January 1809, F12 1085, AN; and Letter from Liancourt to teachers, 17 January 1809, F12 1085, AN.Google Scholar

27 Draft of Report [Lausel and Costaz, in writing of Cochard] to Min. Int., [no day] July 1807, F17 14327, AN. On the evolution of the language of workers, see Sewell, Jr., Work and Revolution in France; and Joyce, Class, 287–348.Google Scholar

28 Report by Costaz and Lausel to Min. Int., 3 July 1807, F17 14327, AN.Google Scholar

29 Liancourt, , “Observations préliminaires sur le Règlement du 24 juin,” 19 July 1808, F17 14327, AN. Costaz defended Cochard's technical writing ability: Costaz to Min. Int., 24 December 1807, F17 14327, AN; and Report by Lausel & Costaz to Min. Int., 3 July 1807, F17 14327, AN. On increased regulatory control and discipline, see Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 73–230, who cites Liancourt's study of prisons in Philadelphia, 126 (footnote 3).Google Scholar

30 “Copie des pièces des dépenses…,” 1808–1809, 1 T 390, ADM.Google Scholar

31 Napoléon 1er, Correspondance de Napoléon 1er (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1864), 16: 337; and Extract of minutes of Min. Int., 28 January 1808, F12 1220, AN. For an analysis of caisson production at the school, see Pannabecker, “School for Industry,” 266–274.Google Scholar

32 Molard to Min. Int., 26 March 1808, F12 1220, AN; and “Comptes de Caisse des ateliers,” year 11–1811, F12 1221, AN.Google Scholar

33 On artillery production, see Alder, Engineering the Revolution.Google Scholar

34 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, L'Enseignement technique, 103–104.Google Scholar

35 “Conseil des ateliers,” 10 September 1810, 1 T 2233*, ADM; Clarke to Montalivet, 13 September 1810, F12 1220, AN; and “Rapport des deux caissons,” 30 September 1810, F12 1220, AN; “1er Rapport…sur les deux caissons No. 31 & 32,” 29 May 1811, F12 1220, AN; “2ème Rapport sur les deux caissons No. 33 & 34,” 29 May 1811, F12 1220, AN; and “Rapport sur les 6 caissons”, 14 June 1811, F12 1220, AN. Gassendi probably wanted to confine artillery production to the artillery's own workshops: Alder, Engineering the Revolution, 323–330.Google Scholar

36 On added shops, see “Distribution des prix,” 14 September 1813, 1 T 385, ADM.Google Scholar

37 “Ecole Polytechnique, Trousseau des Etudes,” 15 April 1812, F12 1220, AN; and “Rapport sur le Cercle à réflexion,” 13 September 1814, F12 1220, AN.Google Scholar

38 Liancourt, , “Observations préliminaires sur le Règlement du 24 juin,” 19 July 1808, F17 14327, AN. In 1808, the school was making shafts for the Baron Mergès, owner of the first spinning factory in Châlons: “Entrées des matières,” April 1808, 1 T 2474*, ADM; Clause, Georges personal interview, 30 June 1999; and Clause and Ravaux, Histoire de Châlons-sur-Marne, 194.Google Scholar

39 Liancourt to 3rd Division, 17 June 1816, F 12 1220, AN; Bureau to Minister of War, 7 August 1816, F12 1220, AN; Bureau to Liancourt, 19 November 1816, F12 1220, AN; “Ministère de la Maison du Roi” to Min. Int., 7 December 1816, F12 1220, AN; and Jeandeau, “Observations du chef des travaux,” 2 December 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

40 Contemporaries associated the school of Châlons with Napoleon and Liancourt's liberal politics; however, Liancourt was also considered very independent. Prior to the Revolution, Liancourt had served as one of Louis XVI's closest advisors, although he advocated a constitutional monarchy after 1789. Liancourt refused to serve with the European allies against French revolutionaries but neither did he serve in the republican armies against the allies. After nearly seven years of exile (four in the United States), Liancourt returned to France in late 1799 where he served in various advisory capacities under Napoleon Bonaparte: Dreyfus, Un philanthrope d'autrefois, 200–302; and La Rochefoucauld, Wolikow, and Ikni, Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 221–95.Google Scholar

41 Jardin and Tudesq, La France des notables, 7–86.Google Scholar

42 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, L'Enseignement technique, 115–116.Google Scholar

43 Jeandeau replaced Molard as director of instruction at Châlons in late 1811 or early 1812 after Molard became principal of the second School of Arts and Crafts of Beaupréau which was later moved to Angers: Report of Labâte, Molard, Jeandeau… regarding the move to Angers, 20 November 1811, F 17 14332, AN; Jeandeau, “Réponse à L'Examen fait à l'Ecole Polytechnique de L Etui de Mathématiques…,” 30 May 1812, F 12 1220, AN.Google Scholar

44 Molard, F.-E. Application letter, 7 August 1816, Bibl. 171, CNAM.Google Scholar

45 Beach, Vincent W., Charles X of France: His Life and Times (Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Co., 1971), 168–178.Google Scholar

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48 “Conseil des Ateliers,” 30 December 1817; 2 March 1819; and 9 May 1820, 1 T 2234*, ADM. On discipline and older students’ influence, see the Report of the Commission of Reorganization, 22 September 1826, F17 14318, AN; and Director of the General Administration of Haras, Agriculture, and Commerce to Min. Int., 30 March 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

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52 Dreyfus, , Un philanthrope d'autrefois, 344–347; and [Billet], “Observations en réponse à la lettre de son Excellence le Min. Int. en date du 10 mai 1826,” 29 June 1826, F17 14318, AN. After the revolt, a commission recommended lowering the total number of students at Châlons from 500 to 300 while maintaining the total number at Angers at 190: Report of the Commission of Reorganization, 22 September 1826, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

53 Dreyfus, , Un philanthrope d'autrefois, 346–47; Beach, Charles X, 240; and Jardin and Tudesq, La France des notables, 81–83.Google Scholar

54 See, for example: [Jeandeau], “Le chef de l'instruction à son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur,” 22 July 1826, F17 14318, AN; and [Billet], “Observations en réponse à la lettre de son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur du 16 mai 1826,” 27 June 1826, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

55 Report of the Commission of Reorganization, 22 September 1826, F17 14318, AN; and Director of the General Administration of Haras, Agriculture, and Commerce to Min. Int., 30 March 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

56 [Billet], “Observations en réponse à la lettre de son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur du 16 mai 1826,” 27 June 1826, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

57 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 119–123.Google Scholar

58 Report of the Commission, 22 September 1826, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

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60 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 121–122 (articles 6 and 12). Theory included arithmetic; elements of geometry, trigonometry, descriptive geometry, and their applications; industrial mechanics; the principal notions of physics and chemistry applied to industry; and research on forces and resistance of different construction materials.Google Scholar

61 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 122; Gaëtan de la Rochefoucauld, Discours de M. le Comte Gaëtan de la Rochefoucauld, député du Cher, Dans la discussion de la loi des Finances de 1829… prononcé dans la séance du 16 juillet 1828 (extrait du Moniteur du 18 juillet 1928) (Paris: Imprimerie veuve Agasse, 1829); and Director of the General Administration of Haras, Agriculture, and Commerce to Min. Int., 1 May 1829, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

62 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 119–123.Google Scholar

63 Jardin, and Tudesq, , La France des notables, 82; Jeandeau, “Observations du chef des travaux,” 2 December 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

64 Report of the Commission, 22 September 1826, F17 14318, AN. Documents related to artifacts reveal the difficulties in legislating shop practice and distinguishing technical from instructional success. For example, Christian's commission reported that the steam engine project at the school in the early 1820s had been a mistake, but they evaluated it by technical and financial, rather than educational results. In contrast, Molard argued that the problem was “starting with innovations” instead of a “model of one of Watt's or Woolf s steam engines”: Molard, F.-E., “Ecoles d'Arts et Métiers,” in Dictionnaire technologique ou nouveau dictionnaire universel des arts et métiers et de l'économie industrielle et commerciale, ed. Francoeur, Louis-Benjamin Molard, François-Emmanuel Lenormand, Louis-Sébastien Robiquet, Pierre-Jean and Payen, Anselme (Paris: Thomine et Fortic, 1825), 7: 462.Google Scholar

65 Christian, , “Rapport à son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur,” [30 March 1827], F17 14318, AN. Christian reported that some staff members claimed that some customers’ orders undermined systematic instruction; and indeed, some of the most challenging projects resulted in hiring paid workers to supplement students. Molard had proposed in 1807 a series of projects based on instructional needs but was diverted from implementing the idea by pressures on production: Molard, F.-E. “Plan d'instruction,” 14 May 1807, F12 1085, AN.Google Scholar

66 Jeandeau, , “Observations du chef des travaux,” 2 December 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

67 Ibid.; Christian, “Rapport à son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur,” [30 March 1827], F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

68 Gaëtan de la Rochefoucauld, Discours de M. le Comte Gaëtan de la Rochefoucauld.Google Scholar

69 Billet and his director of practical instruction at Angers argued that customers did not want to wait for ministerial approval to have something repaired, and that the government failed to provide a balanced approach to production and markets: Prou, “Observations de Mr. Le Chef des travaux,” 10 December 1827, F17 14318, AN; and “Billet à M. Le Directeur Général,” 15 December 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

70 [Jeandeau], “Observations du chef des travaux,” 2 December 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

71 Ibid; and “Indication sommaire des sujets principaux d'instruction pratique,” 1827, 1 T 2080*, ADM.Google Scholar

72 [Jeandeau], “Observations du chef des travaux,” 2 December 1827, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

73 Ibid.Google Scholar

74 Charmasson, Lelorrain, and Ripa, , L'Enseignement technique, 121–123. [Jeandeau], “Refléxions sur les sujets indiqués dans la lettre [of the Min. Int.],” 22 July 1826, F17 14318, AN. The drawing program at Châlons was considered more advanced than that of Angers: “Brouillon d'un rapport sur des dessins,” [1830], Bibl. 178, CNAM. See also Brown, “Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles,” 195–238.Google Scholar

75 Cochard, the Bureau's assistant director, declared that the Schools of Arts and Crafts were a “new institution” unknown in France or abroad, that included everything, “a school, an industrial plant, and a business.” Cochard thought there was “something defective in the elements that composed it that the most wisely composed regulations would not eliminate”: Report by Cochard, 4 December 1807, F17 14327, AN.Google Scholar

76 See, for example: “études industrielles,” in Observations of Gaubert, included with the observations of L. Prou, head of shopwork at Angers of 10 December 1827, [December 1827], F17 14318, AN; “mécanique industrielle” in Report of the Commission of Reorganization, 22 September 1826, F17 14318, AN; “instruction progressive” in Christian, “Rapport à son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur,” [30 March 1827], F17 14318, AN; “arts industriels” in “Programme de l'Enseignement” (Angers), included with Billet's letter of 28 June 1826, [June 1826], F17 14318, AN; “arts industriels” in Director of the General Administration of Haras, Agriculture, and Commerce to Min. Int., 1 May 1829, F17 14318, AN; and “enseignement industriel” in Billet, “Observations en réponse,” 27 June 1826, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

77 Expressions such as “class,” “working class,” and “social class” were used in the 1820s but their meanings were not always well defined. On the language of workers, see Sewell, Jr., Work and Revolution in France; on the evolution of the language of class, see Piguet, Marie-France Classe: Histoire du mot et genèse du concept des physiocrates aux historians de la Restauration (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1996); and on current sociological trends, see Joyce, Class. The early years of the school of Châlons were contemporary with early systematic analyses of society, for example, as reflected in the work of Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) and Henri de Rouvroy, Claude comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). In the next generation, August Comte (1798–1857) articulated “social physics” or “sociology” as a discipline: Henri Gouhier, La jeunesse d'August Comte et la formation du positivisme, 3 vols (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1933–1941).Google Scholar

78 [Jeandeau], “Le chef de l'instruction à son Excellence le Ministre de l'Intérieur,” 22 July 1826, F17 14318, AN.Google Scholar

79 See Lundgreen, Peter, “Engineering Education in Europe and the U.S.A., 1750–1930: The Rise to Dominance of School Culture and the Engineering Professions,” Annals of Science 47: 1 (January 1990): 33–75; Alder, Engineering the Revolution, 58–59; 365 (footnote 9); and Kranakis, Eda Constructing a Bridge: An Exploration of Engineering Culture, Design, and Research in Nineteenth-Century France and America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), 217–19. On the Ecole Centrale, see Weiss, John Hubbel The Making of Technological Man: The Social Origins of French Engineering Education (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982).Google Scholar

80 Sewell, William H. Jr. summarized economic studies that challenged descriptions of the French economy as “retarded” or “stagnant” in Work and Revolution in France, 146–154.Google Scholar

81 See, for example, Smith, Merritt Roe and Marx, Leo eds., Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996).Google Scholar

82 American historians have typically considered the Russian system of tool instruction (developed at the Moscow Imperial Technical School in the 1860s) as the earliest case of systematic shop instruction. Americans learned about the Russian system at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876). See Dawson, Andrew, “The Workshop and the Classroom: Philadelphia Engineering, the Decline of Apprenticeship, and the Rise of Industrial Training,” History of Education Quarterly 39 (Summer 1999): 152. The Russian system showed how to integrate drawings, tools, and projects: Woodward, Calvin M. The Manual Training School (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1887); and Schurter, William J. “The Development of the Russian System of Tool Instruction (1763–1893) and Its Introduction into U. S. Industrial Education Programs (1876–1893),” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1982). Schurter claimed that Aleksandr Stepanovich Ershov designed the Russian system and that Victor Delia-Vos refined and implemented it. Ershov studied in several institutions in Paris in the early 1840s, including the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts. See also Bennett, History of Manual and Industrial Education, 13–52; Cremin, Lawrence A. American Education: The Metropolitan Experience 1876–1980 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 224; (1986); Pannabecker, John R. “Industrial Education and the Russian system: A Study in Economic, Social, and Technical Change,” Journal of Industrial Teacher Education 24 (Fall 1986): 19–31; and Kliebard, Herbert M. Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876–1946 (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999), 2–10.Google Scholar