Reports and Documents

EMILE DURKHEIM ON THE FRENCH UNIVERSITIES I

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
IN 1900, Paris was the scene of numerous international congresses held in conjunction with the Exposition universelle of that year One of these was the Congr~s international de l'6ducation sociale, dominated by the remarkable radical republican politician, L6on Bourgeois. Despite the 54 foreigners in attendance, the Congr~s was essentially a French affair which brought together m a n y of those who wished to see French society move towards greater provision for the welfare of its members. During the preceding decade, influential politicians, administrators and intellectuals, motivated by a complex mixture of altruism and self-interest, had come to the conclusion that only extensive measures of social welfare to improve the condition of the lower classes could save contemporary society from violent revolution and socialist collectivism. Bourgeois sought to provide the intellectual and institutional conditions which would unify the various groups and individuals pursuing diverse aspects of this goal. His book, L a Solidaritd, which had appeared in 1896, set forth a philosophy of social reform. By 1901, Bourgeois had succeeded in making " s o l i d a r i s m " the official doctrine of the newly-constituted Radical and Radical-Socialist Party which dominated French governments for most of the next four decades, z Bourgeois argued that since individuals were dependent on society for all they possessed, they owed a debt to society. Since the debt of those born to wealth and comfort was especially great, they had a special responsibility to contribute, through a graduated income tax, to the welfare of the less fortunate. Society was based on a quasi-contract requiring a general consensus which could be achieved only if unjustified inequalities were eliminated. Although they agreed that certain tasks could be discharged only by the state, solidarists emphasised the role of pri,cate associations--mutual-aid societies, producer and consumer cooperatives, trade unions and popular universities. Besides providing remedies for particular evils .of capitalistic society, these also afforded practical training in solidarity. Solidarism embraced both the self-interested solidarity of the small association and the solidarity of all s~ciety. The dooWine aimed to achieve cooperation between classes--and between states--in place of conflict and violence. The wealthy were urged to share some of their wealth, the poor were urged to pursue their legitimate grievances through gradual reforms which did not call capitalist society into question. 1 Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was one of the most outstanding sociologists of the past century. The essay printed here has been discovered by Dr. George Weisz who has also translated it and supplied the introduction and notes. [Editor.] 2 On the solidarist movement, see Haywood, J. E. S., " Solidarity: the Social History of an Idea in 19th Century France ", International Review of Social History, IV, 2 (1959); " The Official Social Philosophy of the French Third Republic: L6on Bourgeois and Solidarism ", ibid., VI, 1 (1961); " Educational Pressure Groups and the Indoctrination of the Radical Ideology of Socialism, 1895-1914 ", ibid., VIII, 1 (1963); and " Solidarist Syndicalism: Durkheim and Duguit ", in Sociological Review, VIII, 1 (July 1960), pp. 17-36, and VIII, 2 (December 1960), pp. 185-202. Also see chapters on the subject in Scott, J. A., Republican Ideas and the Liberal Tradition in France: 1870-1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951); and Zeldin, Theodore, France 1848-1945, vol. I: Ambition, Love and Politics (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1973).

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Everything h i n g e d on education, `which alone seemed capable of spreading an appreciation of the principles of solidarity and of overcoming the narrow special interests which blocked attempts at reform. The Congr~s sought, in the words of its organising committee, to determine scientifically " t h e conditions for the voluntary establishment of associations between atl men ", and then to find ways to disseminate these notions effectively. Once constituted, social education .was to teach " e a c h individual to ,become a useful and self-conscious member of society-.3 The solidarist idiom became the vogue among republicans, even among those opposed to measures of social reform; the government gave enthusiastic support to the Congr~s. ~ Numerous politicians, administrators and academics participated, as did moderate l a b o u r leaders. Bourgeois himself presented his idea of the social contract; Arthur Fontaine, director of labour in the Ministry of Commerce, discussed solidarity in the er sphere; the economist, Charles Gide, who was also active in the cooperative movement, assessed the different types of associations in t e r m s of their value in developing solidarity among members. A special section was devoted to the spread of sofidarist principles through education. It was in this section that t~mile Durkheim presented his paper on universities.5 He was at the time professor at the Universit.6 de Bordeaux. Durkheim had been only marginally active .in solidarist politics; he himself did not attend the conference. His thought however had been moving in a sympathetic direction. I n 1893, he had published D e la division d u travail social which was the most impressive formulation of the basic principles of solidarism. The Congr6s, which brought together so many eminent and inttuenti.al men, provided him with a unique ,platform from ,which to pursue his campaign, for the establishment of sociology throughout the educational system, and to .argue for its importance in the moral improvement of French society. The definitive Victory of republicanism in the late 1870s had been followed b y a major c a m p a i g n t o transform French higher education. T h e n u m b e r s of students and of subjects taught multiplied dramatically, and successive governments made large appropriations f o r a d v a n c e d r e s e a r c h and higher education. .Research became o n e of the accepted responsibilities of the university teacher. University centres ,were established in 1896-97 to replace ~he system of separate .and unconnected faculties. Each university centre made serious efforts to adapt its research and teaching to the econ.omic improvement of the country and to prepare students for the new types of professions. 6 Many professors who wished to improve the status and emoluments of the academic profession, recognised the desira~bility .-of major changes, which might extend the functions of higher education and make it more central to social and economic life. Certain businessmen and politicians had b e e n - c o n c e r n e d with French economic expansion and had been deeply impressed by the contributions of German universities to their country's development.
3 Congr~s international de l'education sociale, 26-30 September, 1900 (Paris: FElix Alcan. 1901), pp. ix-xi, xv. 4 The Congr~s was under the official patronage of the Ministry of Public Instruction. According to the introductory report by the secretary-general of the organising committee, the Minister of the Interior " invited " the prefects to support the work of the committee and the Minister Of Commerce soon followed his example (Congrds . . . p. 3). ~ Role des universit6es dans l'6ducation sociale du pays ", in Congrds . . . . pp. 128-138. 6 See Weisz, George, " The Academic Elite and the Movement to Reform French Higher Education. 1850-1885", unpublished'Ph.D:, dissertation (Stony Brook, N.Y.: State University of New York. 1976).

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on the French Universities

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Nonetheless, the persistent effort to reform higher education by: such leading republicans as Jules Ferry, Ren6 Goblet and L~on Bourgeois, derived essentially from their faith in the intellectual and moral potentialities of the universities. They attributed the social and political conflicts which had afflicted France for over a century to the intellectual and religious divisions produced by the gradual growth of democracy and the seculari'sat,ion of French society. Much influenced by positivism, they looked to the universities to promulgate a system of political and moral principles through the application of scientific procedures to social and political questions. The result would ,be a scientific morality, a set of scientifically valid propositions acceptable to all rational and well-intentioned men. The upper classes of the country, bitterly divided by political .and religious differences, would thereby regain their unity. The lower classes would learn to face social problems with patience and moderation. Primary and secondary schools, which affected such a large part of the youth, were to be the main focus of .republican educational politics. It was for higher education to develop the ideas taught in the first two stages of education and it was also to play an increasingly important .role in disseminating them. From 1880 to 1900, a great deal of attention was devoted to the intellectual and moral functions of higher education, but, except for the training of secondary school teachers, little was done in a systematic fashion. The reform and expansion of the universities was haphazard and occurred in response to a wide variety of contradictory demands. In principle, everyone admitted the importance .of the intellectual and moral functions of the universities, but, in practice, there were always far more immediate and pressing issues to be dear with. The inadequacy of the achievements of the universities in this regard became especially manifest during the Dreyfus affair which made it clear that social, religious and political conflicts had lost none of their intensity: Many younger scholars, who had not participated directly in the reform movement, began to question its achievements and came to the conclusion that "social and moral education " had been neglected in all 'branches of study. Paul Crouzet, a young lycde professor who ~vas soon to become an influential administrator, addressed the Congrbs de renseignement des sciences sociales, which also met in 1900, about the failure to attain the original goals of republican education. Patriotism in the schools, he argued, had contributed .to the spread of narrowminded revanchisme, Individualism had permitted the exploitation of the weak by the strong and had led to the most narrow occupational solidarity of the exploited. It was time to adapt education to the task of making individuals into good citizens, r This was the task to which Durldaeim addressed himself. GEORGE WEISZ

1901), pp. 237-238.

r I n Le Premier congrbs~ de 1;enseignement des sciences sociales (Paris: F61ix.Alcan,:

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THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE SOCIAL EDUCATION OF THE COUNTRY

I~MILE

DURKHEIM

AN account of the universities' contribution to the social education of the country up to now would be very brief, for universities are o ~ y beginning to become concerned with this aspect of their task. The men of initiative who set out to reorganise our higher education after the war of 1870, naturally focused on the most urgent needs. Therefore, they sought to provide our reawakening faculties with what was and still is the first condition of their existence: vigorous and productive instruction. They desired to transform each of our universities into a centre of scientific life. To this end, they trained teachers who loved and respected science and who were incapable of any .compromises which would taint its dignity. And these teachers were given students who were asked only to allow themselves to become imbued with this salutary discipline. Before anything else, it was essential to put an end to the erroneous old habits which had too often made public lecture courses degenerate into lectures for high society, and which forced teachers to look outside the student community for a public to which they could address themselves. 1 As a result, higher education increasingly took on an esoteric character; and its influence was restricted to the narrow confines of the university. University studies sealed themselves off from external distractions. But, by the same token, they isolated themselves somewhat from the surrounding society, and the teachers relinquished the means for playing their rightful role in the larger life o~ the country. Not only was the entire effort focused on students, but the very culture being disseminated was almost exclusively intellectual. Students were trained to practise proper scientific methods, but the notion gained ground that universities should not occupy themselves with their moral education. This moral education was supposed to be complete once the student had graduated from the lyc~e. In any event, it was believed that the student should fend for himself in this respect and that the university professor was responsible for the intellect ralher than for mo,ral and social co,nvictions. We believe that the time has come for universities to put an end to their isolation. It is in the interests of the country that they expand their sphere of influence. They can only convey the true measure of their social utility by ending their withdrawal and by involving themselves more in public life, Higher education is hardly an unnecessary luxury for democracies. It is precisely democratic societies which, in reality, have the greatest need for a higher scientific culture. But this culture must still be placed in a position to render all the services one can expect of it. There is much evidence that the universities are beginning to become conscious of their obligations in this respect. Here and there, devoted persons are already trying their hands
x Durkheim is referring to the public lectures (cours publiques) which, along with marking the baccalaurdat examination, were the main function of the faculties of letters and science until the late 1870s when the creation of scholarships brought them full-time students seeking degrees. Public lectures, however, continued to be offered.

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at this new task. We have seen illustrious scholars come to understand that their tasks were not confined within the walls cff their laboratory and who have placed their scientific authority at the service of a veritable apostleship. But these individual attempts will necessarily be ineffective as long as they remain fragmentary and isolated from each other. It is necessary that all this goodwill of individuals gain a clearer understanding of .the common goal towards which it aims, that it organise itself, that impersonal and durable institutions be established to support and to regulate its efforts. It is thus essential to formulate and examine the question in all of its ramifications, and that is why we ask the Congress to put it on its agenda and to discuss it.

The University and its Students First of all, to speak only of students, it is untrue to say that the university has neither the right nor the means to exercise a specifically moral influence. To be sure, it is not the university's role to form the moral character of those whom it admits, but there is something which it alone can contribute to the task of moral education. Only the university can make the habits, which primary and secondary schools could hardly develop in other than a purely mechanical manner, as fully self-conscious and reflective as the present state of science allows. The principle of all our deliberations is that the sense of solidarity is the foundation of morality: moral life exists only to the extent that man is associated with other men, with whom he forms groups on which he depends and in whose life he participates. By the time a student enters university, he has already formed most of those bonds which, by attaching 'him to something besides himself, make him into a moral being. If he is normally constituted, he loves his family, his nation and humanity and recognises his debt to them. He is prepared to subordinate his personal interests to collective interests. He is ready for the sacrifices, large and small, which are continually demanded of us by the different groups and societies to which we belong. But these bonds are not visible physically and cannot be delineated in physical terms. On the contrary, since individual organisms are physically discrete, the first inclination is to believe the same is true of their moral and social consciences. That is why each man readily considers himself an autonomous world, a sort of absolute which cannot become dependent on anything but itself without being diminished. Thus, the day the student, stimulated by the intellectual culture he acquires, begins to reflect upon moral questions, there is reason to fear that he will not perceive their raisons d'~.tre and will misunderstand reality. These ideas and sentimeats, which are inculcated automatically by custom, may appear as simple products of artifice and conveation. Too many examples demonstrate how frequently intellectual development, when it is intense, produces moral scepticism in its wake. The only way to avert this error is to enlighten our thinking with scientific knowledge. It is necessary to disclose the causes which gave birth to these sentiments and which thus justify them. It is necessary to show young persons how man, far from being self-sufficient, is only part of a whole from

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which he cannot be isolated except by abstraction; how society lives and acts within him, how it is the best ,part of his nature; and how, consequently, he can no more detach himself from i t than it from himself. And this demonstration should not be made in a general and summary fashion by way of philosophical aphorisms, but by showing in historical reality all the details of this interdependemce. For the proof, to produce conviction, must satisfy all the standards of scientific procedure. 9 The only discipline capable of rendering these truths evident is sociology. Beliefs and moral rules are, in effect, social phenomena. The role of sociology is thus to inquire into the causes which gave rise to them, the needs to which they respond and the functions which they fulfil. Furthermore, in a general way, there exists no sociological proposition which is not an illustration of the law of solidarity, because the solidarity of the various elements from which society is formed is the very condition of its existence. Every new truth discovered by the scholar in this area of knowledge has the effect of demonstrating the dependence of one category of human activity on another, of the individual on the group, of groups on each other. Sociological study should thus have a place, in all our universities and an important place; but in fact, it is hardly represented. There is at present only one chair of sociology, created in 1896 at the faculty of letters at Bordeaux. In Lyon there is a municipal course, in Montpellier a supplementary course. At the Coll~ge de France, it is true, a chair of social philosophy was established in 1897 which, under a different name, could serve the same ends. But the Coll6ge de France is neither a research nor a teaching establishment. Until now, moreover, the instruction given in this chair has dealt with the history Of doctrines and of thinkers, not with social reality itself.~ It is thus extremely desirable, for practical and not merely theoretical reasons, that sociological courses of study and chairs be created in greater numbers in the French faculties. After 13 years of this sort of teaching, we can, with complete assurance, vouch for the favourable influence it exercises not merely on the intellect but on the will. It is a powerful instrument of rr/oral education. Just by explaining the details of moral facts, in terms both of their origins and of their ends, sociology enlightens and guides action. Certainly, there can be no question of suddenly creating a multitude of chairs and courses for which sufficiently trained teachers are lacking. Henceforth, the heroic age of sociology is over and it is no longer possible, at a moment's notice, to turn oneself overnight into a sociologist, as in the period when this discipline was only a branch of general philosophy. The deficiency we are pointing out cannot be corrected at one stroke. The essential thing is to recognise its existence and to attempt to diminish it steadily. I propose that this congress pass a resolution to this effect.~
2 Durkheim lists only the chairs associated with his conception of sociology. Despite his pointed mention of Izoulet's chair of social philosophy at the Coll~ge de France, he ignores the teaching of sociology by Alfred Espinas in his course in social econom3e at thefaculty of letters in Paris; by Ferr~and Faure in his chair of statistics and Charles Gide in his chair ofcomparative social economy, both at the faculty of law in Paris; and by Ren6 Worms m his courses a t the faculty" of law at Dijon alad in the course i n social science at the faculty of letters at Toulouse. The congr~s did in fact pass a resolution recommending that courses in sociology be created in the universities. However, because of fears that sociology was much too complex

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But morality must, above all, infuse our actions. It is not enough to make it understood; it is necessary to make it an acquired habit and even a need. Therefore, it is not enough to explain to the student how solidarity is a necessary law of humanity. It is also and above all necessary to make him practise it. It is essential to furnish him with numerous opportunities to act within a group, so that even in his student life he always feels himself associated with other beings who are his peers and with whom he works. Everyone 'has in fact felt that this should be the function of student associations; but in order to exercise all the useful influence expected of them, these .must be organised in a certain way. As they currently exist, it would seem that they were conceived on the model of the large German Burschenschaften which include without, distinction every type of student. In theory, every university student must join one. They thus attain an excessively large size and are too heterogeneous to permit very effective sentiments of solidarity to develop among their members. A mass of 500 or 600 students--and often more--who are not united by any particular sense of affinity, cannot have very much cohesion. Also, without wanting to speak disparagingly of existing associations or in the least suggesting that they be eliminated, I believe I am expressing a fairly general opinion in saying that they have disappointed many hopes. It is not: that I consider criminal certain youthful mistakes which are very excusable and unimportant; but, in the end, one cannot fail to recognise that their moral influence has been very languid and has not had appreciable results. It is thus necessary to. try grouping students along o.ther lines. 4 On this point, Germany offers us instances which it would be useful to consider. Besides these Burschenshaften and corporate groups which attract attention but which appear in fact to be in decline, there is in each university a multitude of small associations which are not well known but which deserve to be. Each one has a definite goal and brings together a certain number of young men sharing a community of scientific, literary or moral preoccupations. There is a Verein for philosophers and another for philologists; there is one for mathematicians and one for chess players. Each
and theoretical, the resolution added that courses in social economy (dealing with trade unions, cooperatives, employers' associations, etc.), rather than sociology, be created in the popular universities (Congr~s . . . p. 370). 4 Student associations were first organised in the early 1880s. They received the active support of leading politicians and grands urdversitaires who viewed them as yet another form of association which could bring together the entire student community and overcome divisions of religion, politics and region. The principal means of achieving this goal was the unification of faculties into university centres. These associations avoided political and religious controversy and spent their time organising leisure-time activities and obtaining discounts and other advantages for their members. By 1900, they were generally acknowledged to have been a failure. The majority of students did not join, viewing them as official appendages of the government which permitted a small laumber of student politicians to make connections which would be useful for their later careers. Students of pharmacy and medicine eventually seceded and formed separate corporative associations. Durkheim's mel~tion of " youthful mistakes " probably refers to the Paris association's annual ball which, oia several occasions, inspired a good deal of moral indignation by featuring scantily attired women on floats. Durkheim's proposal for small groups based on common interests, reflecting his belief in the role of intermediate professional groups, was also suggested by several professors during a special discussion held during the International Congress of Higher Education (Picavet, Francois [ed.], Troisidme congrbs international de l'enseignemerit supdrieur, 1900 [Paris: F~lix Alcan, 1902], pp. 146-173.) -.

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week, at least, the Verein meets in a room which it rents or owns, and discusses, with a method and discipline it would be difficult to import into France, the questions in which it is interested. The community of tastes and sentiments, and the regularity and frequency of personal relations, create among the members of these small circles bonds which endure beyond student life. And since a student can belong to a number of these associations simultaneously, he always feels surrounded and flanked as it were, and does not experience that desolate loneliness which too often chills the ardour of the French student. It is this organisation which we must import into France. while adapting it to our national temperament. Certainly, it cannot be instituted by decree. Only the personal and direct action of teachers can stimulate students to break out of their isolation and form themselves into natural groups. There is no reason to fear that these small associations will specialise excessively and shut themselves up in a narrow exclusiveness. On the contrary, it would be very easy to get them to interact with one another. More than one student in psychology would be very glad for the opportunity to have regular discussions with his comrades in the faculty of medicine. In the same way, it would not be difficult to bring together law students and historians, or mathematicians and philosophers. These groupings, moreover, can be varied and infinitely diversified in order to express all the varieties of taste and outlook. If we believe that the teacher has a role to play in the formation and perhaps even functioning of these societies, this is not to say that we wish these societies t o take on an official and academic character. On the contrary, we would like them to establish their headquarters outside the premises of the university, in some rooms where students will feel at ease and at home, where gaiety will be acceptable, where on occasion it will be possible to celebrate joyfully some happy event. In sum, it is a question of awakening in French youth the taste for communal life, the habit of group activity which has been forgotten for a century. The enterprise is certainly difficult because it runs up against the barrier of a contrary tendency of the French character. But it is no less urgent for that; because this atomisation of individuals, which has nothing in common with healthy individualism, is a serious cause of the impoverishment of the moral life.

The Universities and other Levels of Education At present, with only a few exceptions, higher education is only in direct contact with secondary education, the future teachers of which are trained in universities. As for primary schoolteachers, these are outside its sphere of influence. Courses of study intended for schoolteachers are rarely offered, and it is equally rare for schoolteachers to come spontaneously to the universities, which, in any event, are generally uninterested in attracting them. By renouncing this clientele, however, they are at the same time renonncing what should be one of their most important functions. ~
n BY 1900, most secondary schoolteachers were educated in the universities, and a small elite at the ~cole normale sup6deure. Primary teachers did not generally receive a secondary education and were trained in a selmrate network os dcoles normales.

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The moral conscience of the country must be the same in all classes and in all spheres of society. Moral education, for its part, must be the same at all levels of education. It is not admissible that its animating spirit b e different in the lycde from what it is in the primary school. To assure this identity, it is essential that one and the same institution be responsible for elaborating its principles and conserving its traditions, while adapting them continually to the new needs which arise. It must thus be in contact with primary as well as secondary schoolteachers. It must give both their moral orientation. Is there not, morever, a pressing need for the spirit animating higher education to make its influence felt even among the lowest strata of society? This pedagogical task, which is always of primary importance, is particularly urgent under present conditions. For the past 30 years, we have undertaken a task, the grandeur of which cannot be justly denied and whose difficulties must also be recognised. We have sought to give the country a strictly rational moral educatio,n. We have decided to, renounce the religious symbols used by our predecessors and to teach the bare moral truth. I have too much faith in the power and rights of reason to doubt for even a moment that the attempt is not merely legitimate, but possible and necessary. But in order for it to succeed, we must be fully aware of all its ramifications and scope. A moral education cannot purely and simply be the old education of the past stripped of certain symbolic feature~;. It is a mistake, in my opinion, to say that the role of the lay teacher should be restricted to teaching the old morality of our fathers. The changes which have occurred and which continue to occur in our society demand a new morality which is in a process of formation. It is consequently necessary to establish a new system of education which is in harmony with this morality. We have a need for justice in the temporal order, which did not exist to the same e~,tent in eaNer times, and it is this need we wish ~o arouse in our children. Our conception of the nation and of ,patriotism is different from that of previous regimes and, consequently, our educators can no longer cling to notions which are now archaic. This is not the place to describe the details of this system of education. All that I wish- to demonstrate is that a major work of reconstruction and reorganisation is required, and that it is absolutely necessary that the most intelligent persons in the country collaborate in this task. For these reasons, we believe that every university should include at least one course of study in education specially addressed to primary schoolteachers. The goal of these studies should not be to transmit impersonal formulae which are applicable mechanically to all the circumstances of school life, but to communicate a general direction, to help minds find their bearings in the confusing disorder of ideas, to make them understand more fully what the spirit of the country is and what it is becoming. In short, we must delineate the principal traits of the ideal towards which we aspire, but which we do not always perceive distinctly. It is very reasonable to question the effectiveness of such a course if it remains isolated. But there is no reason why schoolteachers should not participate more extensively in the education

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offered by the universities. Certainly, not all our schoolteachers can pass through the faculties of the universities. Schoolteachers do not need to receive a higher education in order to fulfil their daily tasks. But this is not true of those called upon to train them, that is the teachers in the dcoles normales. It is necessary that these have more extensive cultural knowledge; they constitute moreover an elite on whom a university training could have an influence. At present, they are prepared for the examinations leading t o the teaching certificate in two specialised institutions: the &oles normales of Saint Cloud and of Fontenay. But by organising these studies in the most important university centres, one 'would stimulate a competitiveness in these two establishments which would certainly be productive. In similar fashion, the rivalry between the s normale sup6rieure and the faculties of the university has been very profitable for scientific and scholarly research and teaching. Furthermore, I do not see why scholarships, judiciously distributed, should not make it easier for the best of the students (in the ~coles normales) to attend universities. Once they in their turn become teachers, the influence of higher education would spread through them to all primary education.
The '" Popular Universities"

The influence of the universities should not end here. There are n o political, moral or philosophic trends in the country which should be beyond the regulative influence of the universities. For this reason, it is imperative to multiply points of contact with the mass of the population, especially with those sectors of the population where something new is occurring, and where there is consequently emerging a tumultuous life which requires direction. This is the raison d'etre of these "popular universities" which, although scarcely a year old, have been developing with such extraordinary rapidky. 6 No open-minded ,person can deny that these popular universities are useful. Everyone recognises that it is urgent to shape the outlook of the working classes in order to enable them to carry out their destinies. But what should this education be in order to attain its goals? At present, the majority of popular universities, especially those which attract most attention, have the serious weakness of not meeting the fundamental requirement of all education, namely, continuity and coherence. Isolated lectures, with no connection between them, are presented from one day to the next by the most ill-assorted lecturers. On one evening--I am not inventing my examples--one deals with the reality of the external world, and on the next evening, with Egyptian art. One discusses China one day,
6 ,, Popular universities " (U.P.s) sprang up in urban centres throughout France in the wake of the Dreyfus affair. Some were founded by professors or well-to-do businessmen, while others were the creation of moderate working-class groups. They were meant to be practical schools of social solidarity in which intellectuals and workers cooperated to bring about the intellectual improvement which had to precede the improvement of the social position of the labouring classes. The movement went through a brief period of rapid expansion which reached its peak in 1904. Individual institutions varied considerably in size, activity and style, but they seem to l~ave generally attracted artisans, clerical workers and minor civil servants. See Dintzer, Lucien, " L e Mouvement des universitrs populaires ", L e M o u v e m e n t social, X X X V (April-June, 196t), pp. 3-!7.

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~ind, the next; the history o f music. One does not enlighten minds by parading rapidly before them every problem and every system of thought. One simply increases the deplorable confusion of ideas from which we are suffering and which is exactly what needs to be remedied. To be equal to their task, the popular universities must satisfy the following conditions: (1) The system of lectures must be replaced by classes which are consecutive and systematically connected with each other. The programme of each university should be made up of a small number of courses of study, each of which should have a well-defined subject. (2) The Subjects of these courses should be appropriate to the special public being addressed. The point is not to give the working classes every sort ot~ knowledge; this 'half-learning can only produce dilettantes. It is necessary to provide workers with precise notions which can guide their political action, and with technical knowledge which can serve them in their occupations and improve their moral as well as material condition. What they need to know is the past and present history of industrial organisation, the state of industrial law and its evolution, the main ideas of political economy. Certainly, literary and artistic culture are hardly useless, because they elevate and refine the spirit. But it is less essential and must, in any case, itself be given sequentially and systematically. (3) There must be a sufficiently common intellectual and moral culture among the teachers. A consensus in outlook and action is a condition of efficacy. The best way for this kind of education to meet these conditions would be for the universities themselves to take over and organise them.r Everything points to their acceptance of this task. Besides the fact that they are essentially teaching corporations, they are sufficiently above class conflicts to enable them to gain the confidence of the working population; they are recruited from all classes. Furthermore, a recent law has given them the right to take the initiative and has placed resources at their disposal which can be partially utilised for this task; further [financial] help would be forthcoming if an appeal for it were m~de. 8 Instead of allowing their members to perform their duties in an uncoordinated fashion, the universities should take over the direction of the popular universities and transform them into adjuncts of the universities. I certainly hope that popular universities will also spring up outside the large university towns; nevertheless, in the latter, popular universities, which can serve as models for the others, should be developed.
r This proposal caused some controversy when it came before the Congr~s. While a few delegates representing the U.P.s and the labour exchanges ( b o u r s e s d e t r a v a C l ) supported Durkheim's suggestion, most speakers categorically refused to accept the leadership of professors. The proposal was replaced by a resolution recommending that teachers in the state educational system participate in the work of the popular universities. ( C o n g r d s . . . pp. 365-373.) s Here, Durkheim refers to two measures which enabled universities to acquire some financial autonomy after nearly a century of direct governmental control. The Goblet decrees of 1885, which created general councils to bring together all the separate faculties in each town, contained a provisio~n allowing the faculties to collect private donations and spend them freely. The law creating universities in 1897, enabled the new institutions to appropriate directly all student fees (examination fees continued to be collected by the state) and to include them in their autonomous budgets. As a result, in 1900, the faculties and tho universities received 11.7 million francs in state appropriations and administered autonomous budgets totalling 4.5 million francs.

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To summarise, however essential the scientific and scholarly work of universities, they must never lose sight of the fact that they are also, and above all, educational institutions. They have therefore to play a role in the moral life of the country and they must not try to avoid it. Just as the universities of Germany contributed to the formation of German unity, the universities of France must strive to form French moral beliefs (conscience). Thus, they must not remain estranged from any current of public opinion. Under these conditions, they will really be universities, because they will include not only the whole range o,f the arts and sciences (Universitas scientiarum et artium) but all the most important currents of serious public opinio,n. This is also the best way to demonstrate dearly their utility to the mass of the population. For if the ordinary people have constant dealings with universities, they will not even dream of asking themselves what purpose they serve and whether they are not a sort of luxury with which, if necessary, it is possible to dispense.