Towards A First Democratization Of The Modern School Form: The Experience Of Mutual Education In Switzerland (1816-1830)

Abstract

During the first half of the 19th century, several Swiss cantons implemented the mutual education system developed in England by Bell and Lancaster. By circulating between various cultural areas, mutualism led to reinterpretations of its modalities and initial components (Tinembart & Pahud, 2019). The observation of the implementation of this method in the "educational laboratory" that Switzerland was at the https://www.conftool.org/ische2020/index.php?page=showAbstract&print=yes&doprint=yes&form_id=195&show_abstract=1 Page 2 sur 3 ISCHE Annual Conference 2020 - ConfTool Pro Printout 07.01.20 18(48 time, represents a privileged field of study for understanding the process of building the modern school form. Developed and used as an answer to different economic, social and cultural necessities, mutual teaching, and especially the discussions, disagreements and dissents that followed it, seem to have played a leading role in the debates on the need to institute public education. Moreover, this pedagogical experience encouraged a reflection on the choice of school knowledge selection and its methods and means of transmission. While adopting an approach inspired by prosopography, this paper aims to retrace the many exchanges and decisions taken by the various actors involved in the development of mutual education in selected Swiss cantons between 1816 and 1830. Through the theory of cultural transfers, the study of the development, experience and controversies linked to mutual education schools allows to understand the declination of this teaching method and the reasons for this choice, while underlining the role played by the focused actors and their works in this dynamic, whose character is purely transcantonal and transnational. On the basis of this approach, several sources will be analyzed: the programs of several mutual schools, the private correspondence of the concerned actors, school books, newspapers and several archive sources linked to the cantonal administrations concerned. This paper will identify the leading role that mutual education has played in introducing a reflection on public schools into the public debate, and in particular in the development of public schools, as well as the political, economic and cultural challenges underlying the modernization of the State. Thus, while adopting a national focus, the study of the Swiss case will allow to grasp the points of continuity and those of global and international changes linked to the movement for the democratization of public education.