Victor Duruy and the Controversy over Secondary Education for Girls

When French legislators passed the See Law of 1880 establishing the first lycees and colleges in France for young women, they were building on a precedent established during the late years of the Second Empire. In 1867 the liberal minister of public instruction, Victor Duruy, had created public secondary courses for young women in forty towns and cities throughout France.1 The responses to these courses had been mixed. Liberals, republicans, and anticlericals generally supported them, while conservatives, legitimists, and clericals opposed them. The range of their support or opposition varied widely, from strong approval to vociferous rejection. Despite the opposition, however, the courses enjoyed a fair measure of success between 1867 and 1869. Then in 1869 Duruy was forced out of office, and the courses fell into rapid decline. By 1878 there were only ten locations in France which still offered the courses. This brief synopsis, similar to what one would find in a standard textbook on modern France, leaves many crucial questions unanswered: Why did the government of Napoleon III decide to establish the courses? How were they structured? What was the nature of the opposition to them? And how does this episode in the history of the Second Empire illuminate some of the political, social, and cultural tensions of the time? Drawing heavily on documents found in the F17 series at the National Archives in Paris, this article will explore the answers to these crucial questions

Political science · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

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