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Teaching Chemistry in the French Revolution 251 Teaching Chemistry in the French Revolution 251 Chapter 10 Teaching Chemistry in the French Revolution: Pedagogy, Materials and Politics Bernadette Bensaude Vincent By the end of 1794 – Year III of the revolutionary calendar, the young “one and indivisible” French republic established a Normal School (École normale) to “provide the French people with a system of instruction worthy of its novel destiny.”1 More concretely the purpose was to train a number of citizens quickly so that they could train the future primary and secondary teachers in all the districts of the French territory. Chemistry was an integral part of the curriculum, which included both science and humanities. The term ‘école normale’ clearly conveys a project of normalization or standardization of edu- cation providing a uniform approach to all the sectors of knowledge previously covered by the Encyclopédie. This teaching institution was dedicated to “shap- ing the man and the citizen.” It was meant to coproduce knowledge and citizenship according to the republican ideals of liberty, equality, and frater- nity. Well-trained teachers (instituteurs) would be “capable of being the executives of a plan aimed at regenerating the human understanding in a republic of 25 million people, all of whom democracy rendered equal.”2 Claude-Louis Berthollet participated in this state initiative to assume his social and political role as a teacher. As one of the supporters of Lavoisier’s chemistry and a member of the group of academicians who reformed the 1 Anon., “Arrêté des représentants du peuple près les Écoles normales du 24 nivôse an III de la République française une et indivisible,” Séances des Écoles normales (Paris: Imprimerie du Cercle social, 1800-1801). All lessons are now available in print: Jean Dhombres, ed., L’École normale de l’An III. Leçons de mathématiques. Laplace, Lagrange, Monge (Paris: Dunod, 1992); Daniel Nordman, ed., L’École normale de l’An III. Leçons d’histoire, de géographie, d’économie politique. Volney, Buache de la Neuville, Mentelle, Vandermonde (Paris: Dunod, 1994); Etienne Guyon, ed., L’École normale de l’An III. Leçons de physique, de chimie, et d’histoire naturelle. Haüy, Berthollet, Daubenton (Paris: éditions ENS Rue d’Ulm, 2006); Béatrice Didier, Jean Dhombres, eds., L’École normale de l’An III. Leçons littéraires, art de la parole, morale, analyse de l’entendement (Paris: éditions ENS Rue d’Ulm, 2009). On the ambitions of the educational projects of the French Revolution, see Mona Ozouf, L’homme régénéré. Essais sur la Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard, 1989). 2 Debate at the Convention nationale in September 1794 quoted in Jean Dhombres, “Introduction générale,” Dhombre, ed., Cours de l’école normale de l’An III, p. 1 (see note 1). © Bernadette Bensaude Vincent, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004325562_012 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC License. Lissa Roberts and Simon Werrett - 9789004325562 Downloaded from Brill.com04/19/2018 09:47:32AM via University College London 252 Bensaude Vincent chemical language in the 1780s, he could be expected to contribute to the national effort of normalization by teaching the new chemistry, known as the “theory of French chemists”. Given the synchronism of the chemical and politi- cal revolutions, chemistry featured as an ideal discipline to prompt the transformation of the socio-political order by making up citizens capable of transforming natural substances into national resources for the nation’s war- fare and public welfare. However Berthollet’s chemistry lectures suggest a quite different endeavor. He did not take on the role of spokesman for a chemical community engaged in a deep transformation of this discipline. Far from aiming at stabilizing the new language of chemistry and promoting the theory outlined in Lavoisier’s Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789), Berthollet developed personal views about chemical theories and utilitarian applications. He did nothing to spread the gospel of two synchronic revolutions. This essay stresses the gap between the national aspiration to shape the future citizens of a new sociopolitical order and the pedagogical practice of the chemistry lecturer. While the École normale was meant to instill in children and their teachers the normative frame according to which they should live and work in a republican society, Berthollet’s lessons rather aimed at shaping competent citizens by sharing his experience of the world as an expert in chemical theory and arts. While revolutionary education was institutionally projected as possessing a disciplinary power with which to govern both social and material constituents, in Berthollet’s design it consisted in transmitting one’s own knowledge and expertise in the art of governing the multitude of chemical substances. The first section of this essay presents the goals and ambitions of the cre- ation of the Normal School in the dual context of the political and chemical revolutions. The second section focuses on the course of chemistry and describes the site, the audience, and what we know about the teacher’s perfor- mance. In the third section I argue that Berthollet’s pedagogical choice expressed his personal vision of chemistry, which deeply differed from Lavoisier’s chemistry. It reveals a tension between Berthollet’s aspiration to a world ruled by general laws and his concern with exceptions. While he stressed the deductive power of chemical theory for enlightening chemical arts, Berthollet nevertheless focused on anomalies and peculiar circumstances. Berthollet’s lessons reflected his own experience of the world as a chemist oscillating between the power of disciplining material substances conferred by chemical theory and the art of paying attention to circumstances. Lissa Roberts and Simon Werrett - 9789004325562 Downloaded from Brill.com04/19/2018 09:47:32AM via University College London Teaching Chemistry in the French Revolution 253 Normalizing Science and Education: A Revolutionary Ambition The National Convention was a site for legislation intended to discipline soci- ety and the economy through the organization of centralized structures and practices of administration and education. It established the Normal School a few months after the end of the Terror, which had generated strong cam- paigns of slander against scientists.3 It was crucial for the young republic to create trust between the elites and the new regime following the dissolution of the Paris Royal Academy of Sciences together with all other academies in 1793 and the execution of Lavoisier together with twenty-one tax collectors of the ancien régime. “The republic has no need of savants” (“la république n’a pas besoin de savants”): although this alleged response of the revolutionary tribunal to Lavoisier’s request of a delay of capital punishment proved to be a legend, it certainly expressed the general opinion and fear of the elite who had initially supported the revolutionary movement. In fact the revolutionary government badly needed the knowledge and skills of scientists for warfare. Chemists were mobilized to produce large quantities of hydrogen for balloons, to transform the church bells into canons and to manufacture saltpeter. So pressing was the lack of explosive powder that in February 1794, the French government mobilized leading chemists such as Gaspard Monge, Jean-Henri Hassenfratz, Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Antoine de Fourcroy and Berthollet to teach French citizens how to collect and process saltpeter in their basements.4 In addition to warfare, the young republic needed scientists for the institu- tion of public service in general, and education in particular. The decree creating the Normal School aimed at replacing the educational system, which had been in the hands of the Church during the ancien régime. For this pur- pose it was crucial to train primary and secondary teachers. The Church educational system had already inaugurated this kind of institution in 1685 with Jean Baptiste de la Salle’s Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The National Convention decreed: “An école normale will be established in Paris where citizens from all parts of the republic already instructed in useful 3 Charles Coulston Gillispie, “Science in the French Revolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy 45 (1959): 677-84. Charles Coulston Gillispie, The Edge of Objectivity: An essay in the history of scientific ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966). 4 Programmes des cours révolutionnaires sur la fabrication des salpêtres, des poudres et des canons ; faits à Paris dans l’amphithéâtre du Muséum d’histoire naturelle et dans la salle des Electeurs … les 1, 11, 21 ventôse et 5 germinal, 2ème année de la République française … par les citoyens Guyton, Fourcroy, Dufourny, Berthollet, Carny, Pluvinet, Monge, Hassenfratz et Perrier, 2nd edition (Paris: Comité de Salut public, 1794). Lissa Roberts and Simon Werrett - 9789004325562 Downloaded from Brill.com04/19/2018 09:47:32AM via University College London 254 Bensaude Vincent sciences will be called in order to learn the art of teaching under the most skilled teachers in all genres.”5 In 1791-92, Nicolas de Condorcet submitted a plan of education to the Legis- lative Assembly.6 It was inspired by the Enlightenment ideal of education for citizenship and Condorcet’s conviction that education is the key for the progress of civilization. Although Condorcet’s Plan was formally rejected, his ambition to build up a complete national, free
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