Integral Education according to Paul Robin

 "No brains without hands, no hands without brains." (1) 

"We have absolutely no pretension of turning our students into universal scholars… By the term integral education, we mean the education that aims for the progressive and well-balanced development of the whole being, without gaps or mutilation, without any aspect of human nature being neglected or systematically sacrificed to another. (...) Integral education contains and combines the three usual factors : physical, intellectual, and moral education. It strives to facilitate the awakening and development of all the child's faculties, to give him knowledge of all branches of human activity in such a way that his acquisitions are based solely on scientific truth. But after providing everyone with this essential foundation of objective realities, it leaves to each individual the responsibility of continuing his development, of pursuing it thoroughly according to circumstances, necessities, and personal initiatives, and of approaching complete knowledge and specialized skills only in those branches upon which the satisfaction of his physical and psychic needs depends." (2)

Below we reproduce a series of excerpts from Paul Robin's original text "De l'Enseignement intégral" (On Integral Education), published in three articles in the Revue de philosophie positive by E. Littré and Wyrouboff, in 1869 (Volume V), 1870 (Volume VII), and 1872 (Volume IX).
Paul Robin would put the advanced ideas expressed in this text into practice at the Cempuis Orphanage. The founders of the New Education movement, such as Adolphe Ferrière (1879–1960) and Maria Montessori (1870–1952), would refer to it. Sébastien Faure and Francisco Ferrer would also acknowledge their debt to Paul Robin. Even today, one must acknowledge the innovative character of a pedagogy that the state institutional apparatus may timidly tolerate on a theoretical level but must never put into practice — preferring to forget Paul Robin, while still being unable to contest him as a pioneer of co-education in schools.

"Every so-called liberal profession has its origin and its sanction in a manual profession. Integral education will inevitably result in their complete fusion."

First Part

Preamble

The idea of integral education has only recently reached full maturity.

The modern idea was born from the profound sense of equality and from the reasonable desire of every human being — whatever the circumstances into which chance has placed him at birth — to develop as completely as possible all his physical, intellectual, and affective faculties. These last words define integral education*.

Many sincere minds are frightened by such a dream and struggle to free themselves from conventional ideas about primary, secondary, and higher education. What is the use, they ask, of a manual worker knowing scientific speculations, the fine arts, or literary masterpieces? Far from being useful to him, this knowledge will only make him disgusted with his humble but necessary work; he will want to acquire a less tiring position and, if poverty chains him to the workshop, the land, or the mine, he will feel far more unhappy than his completely illiterate neighbour. Every day, more or less perfect examples arise that seem to confirm this observation.

It is essential first of all to refute this objection. Every human being must be considered from two points of view : as an isolated, independent being, complete in himself, and as an organ of the collective. Neither of these perspectives can be sacrificed to the other. As a distinct and complete being, he requires the full development of his faculties ; as an organ of the collective, he must contribute his share to the total necessary labour. If this work is distributed justly among all human beings ; if the extravagant needs of a few do not deeply disrupt the balance between consumption and production; if the instruments created by modern industry are, as they should be, placed at the worker's disposal ; in short, if labour is rationally organised and its products equitably distributed, then the share of labour required from each person will be reduced to just a few hours per day, and leisure time will increase accordingly.

This hope will not seem chimerical if one considers the immense number of people who consume more than they produce, those who consume without producing anything, and especially the negative workers who consume a great deal and destroy even more. In our new distribution, even the least favoured will still have many hours left to devote to rest and to the noble pleasures that contribute to integral improvement. Moreover, as compensation for physically hard and tiring occupations, these would leave the mind entirely free. How many "pen workers," considered privileged by the manual labourer, would gladly exchange their supposedly pleasant work for materially harder but less mentally absorbing labour !

During the transitional period, the objection we are addressing remains valid; but far from fearing its consequences, we can only applaud the salutary stimulus that intellectual culture will give to the manual worker*. He will understand, in fact, that it is not enough for him to strive to leave his position in search of the happiness he rightly desires, but that, since his function must still be fulfilled, the social and industrial organisation must be changed in such a way that he can be happy where he is. In short, he will not seek to enjoy a new privilege, but simply to obtain for himself and for others what is justly due.

It is therefore in the name of this sense of justice that we demand complete, integral education for all capable individuals. Only those who start from the old theological principle can divide humanity into two castes: those who work and those who enjoy, those who obey and those who command.*

Another consideration demonstrates the social usefulness of generalising integral education. Human beings base their judgments on what they have learned. Nothing is more dissimilar than the knowledge possessed by different individuals. Leaving aside the supposed uniformity of the university system — to which only a very small minority has been subjected — we are left almost entirely with specialists. Hence, on every subject, the most divergent opinions among those who reason ; hence the prejudices or indifference of the majority on most questions. This diversity, which has only minor drawbacks for questions of detail, is very regrettable when it comes to fundamental issues.

If the education of every person is based not on a limited portion of human knowledge, but on its entirety, we will see the disappearance of those disastrous divergences on major questions of principle that so significantly delay the progress of humanity.

Overall Plan

(...) Soon enough, the need to make communal life pleasant, and no doubt also a certain benevolence that has become almost natural in the child of civilized people whose strictly personal needs are satisfied, will bring about the mutual exchange of services. This will give a first practical idea of duty and of solidarity in the struggle to secure happiness for each individual. In this way, the foundation of morality will be established — a morality that true emancipated individuals can only define as the science and art of happiness for all that lives and feels*.

There we find, without difficulty, the transition to learning useful work for the community, which should retain the same spontaneous character as the other parts of early education.

The desire to carry out certain tasks will combine with the child's curiosity to encourage them to acquire positive notions about all things. We must seek how to always foster — and only sometimes direct — this curiosity, and how to facilitate its satisfaction through the organization of collective work, which at once prepares the mind to grasp both details and the whole.

Up to this point, during this first part of their life, the child has almost always been left to the most ignorant people, full of prejudices. The works of a great many of them that have flooded the book market are nothing but the dismal account of the tortures their stupidity has inflicted on young minds. Almost everything needs to be redone, by rejecting all their metaphysics and relying unreservedly on the principle of the child's freedom.

But precisely because the child has so rarely enjoyed, in collective education, this freedom that is necessary to them — because they have almost never been observed in perfect conditions by a prejudice-free educator, and because the latter has only ever been able to observe and experiment on subjects more or less altered by an anti-scientific environment — we must be extremely prudent when speaking of the details of education. The art of education* will consist, once the principles are well understood, in tactfully interpreting their application according to the various circumstances.

Physical Preparation of the Individual

Exercises of the sense organs, without aids (...)

Use of sensory aids (...)

Sensory aberrations (...)

Exercise of the active organs (...)

Second Part (...)

Sociology

I consider it of capital importance that adults should, above all, show the most complete respect for the child's freedom, and that they should sincerely renounce imposing on the child an authority whose only basis is the right of the strongest. In particular, I regard the almost omnipotence of the head of the family as one of the most disastrous remnants of the primitive theocratic state.

The child's freedom is sufficiently limited by the countless obstacles presented by natural phenomena, among which I include the resistance that will be opposed by the group whose freedoms the child might seek to infringe.

But before dealing with the child's relationships with companions of the same age, I must insist on those he has with his parents or educators. Physical and intellectual superiority quickly impresses the child. He will therefore quite naturally be inclined to turn to the strength and knowledge of his elders. Now, who is better placed to inspire this trust than parents and educators in constant contact with children ? Is there not an advantage in having this spontaneous trust completely replace the passive obedience demanded by an absurd authority — an obedience that the most widespread religious sect in the West considers the chief virtue ?

To achieve this trust, we must unhesitatingly say to the child, from his first steps and his first words: You are free, do what you wish*. Let him feel absolutely no obstacles other than natural ones. He will easily conclude from this that everyone is as free as he is, that they can do whatever they want, and he will not think of attacking anyone's freedom. All this to the great advantage of the educators themselves, for here as everywhere else this truth holds : tyranny provokes reaction, and the despot is always, in some way, the victim of his slaves.

This method, in our view, will give the child a better practical notion of true freedom than empty speeches.

Let us cite a few more arguments in its favor. Everywhere, people demand freedom for man; yet the child does not suddenly become a man but reaches that state gradually. Therefore, we must not apply abruptly different systems to the different periods of his life. We will never succeed in knowing the natural instincts of man unless we have observed him attentively in his early years, in the most perfect freedom. The progress of science and education depends on this. (...)

Therefore, give good examples and advice supported by convincing reasons — never violence. Never command, never force. In the current environment, the child will hear talk of "the master." Let him learn early to abhor that word, let him develop a hatred of authority in any form it may take, and let the spirit of revolt become, during this transitional period, the foremost of virtues. (...)

It is essential that parents themselves fully understand the new educational method and that it be practiced in the family as it is at school. For this purpose, frequent communication must exist between educators and parents. At the beginning, I will not hesitate to make the presence of parents at one or two general assemblies per month an indispensable condition for the admission of day pupils to the model school.

If this practice gives educators a sense of security — ensuring their teaching is not undermined by the family's routine habits — it should also reassure parents, who will thus be able to exercise precise oversight over those who replace them in their natural functions. In this regard, I go even further by laying down this principle, which would cause official or clerical schools to collapse within a few years if they dared to adopt it : the school is, at all times and for all activities, open to parents and those they bring with them. The premises must be arranged so that they can enter without difficulty and without disturbing any activity. It is obvious that they will not be able to disrupt anything, and that they will only be able to speak under clearly specified conditions laid down in the agreements concluded by the pupils — agreements whose spirit will be indicated below. This will very advantageously replace the official inspections, which are so numerous and so pompously useless. (...)

It is for the children alone to regulate the discipline of their meetings. Whether these concern play or study, whether educators or parents are present or not, the independence of the group must be complete. It is up to the regularly constituted bureau to grant the floor in turn to the young and the older ones. So much the worse for the latter if they do not know how to make themselves heard by their audience — it is simply proof of their incapacity as teachers, whatever the lying claims of their diplomas may say. They are free, like everyone else, to convene meetings under conditions of their choosing ; but the children are equally free not to attend or to leave if they are bored. The educators who can hold their own in such a system are the only good ones ; the others are not worth regretting.* (...)

The educational establishment becomes a true little world, whose institutions do not possess the almost immutability so often regrettable in present-day society. Routine and selfishness will not constantly discourage progress there; there will be no excessive conservatism, such as we see in such great numbers in the so-called most advanced countries. (...)

History is currently a science in which it is almost impossible to give children any serious notions. Rejecting the providentialist basis and the patriotic enthusiasm of traditional teaching, we could only explain the countless crimes we would have to recount as aberrations of the human mind — which would only have the effect of causing harmful confusion in young brains*. The philosophical part of history is inaccessible to children whose minds we have carefully kept away from all theological and metaphysical ideas, so that they cannot understand the influence these ideas had in the past and still exert today.

It would be excellent, in our view, to give children details on the origin and development of discoveries and inventions — in short, to teach them the history of labor. In this new plan, famous despotisms, conquests, and battles, instead of being the important points of history as they are today, would only be disturbing factors in the progress of humanity*.

It is regrettable that, in this respect, almost everything remains to be done, and that the available materials are so few.

Biology

We repeat one last time, once and for all, that teaching will always be given in free meetings convened by the young or the older ones, that the influence of educators will therefore be purely moral, and that the spirit of authority will never appear. This important point must not be lost sight of, even if it would be tedious to repeat it constantly.

Instead of beginning with more or less extensive summaries on each organ, each function, each family or each species — and thus overloading the child's memory with an immense number of facts that he will neither retain, nor classify by order of importance, nor unite into a useful synthesis — let us have him begin with the study of life in a small number of beings.

All children enjoy raising animals and growing plants. Let us encourage this natural instinct, help them a little, and they will organize a real little museum. They will share the tasks involved in the care of a certain number of animals — birds, fish, mollusks, insects, and others — and the cultivation of plants of all families, right down to those organized beings reduced to a small number of cells, whose study is more than any other suited to giving an exact idea of life. The slightest advice, and the most zealous will immediately keep daily notes of the facts observed for each individual ; soon, all will imitate them. The studies of some will serve the others. Each little teacher will recount what he has seen, show it, and be listened to. A healthy emulation will arise : who has seen the most, and seen it best? (...)

The work of each pupil, followed day by day by his contemporaries, will often deserve to be preserved for the instruction of future generations. We will address this point when discussing the material organization of the educational establishment and the creation and maintenance of collections.

Let us add, and this will remain true for the other studies, that it will very often happen that the youngest children will gladly act as assistants to their elders, to the benefit of all. (...)

Physics

(...) In a word, they will apply to the knowledge of industrial apparatus the same analytical method that the first researchers applied to the knowledge of nature. (...) It is for the educators to help them find the answers to their questions, either through experiment, or in meetings with their comrades, or in books — and to answer them directly themselves only in the rarest cases.

We should add, as a means of developing knowledge of physical phenomena, the organization of as complete a system as possible of meteorological observations. (...)

Astronomy

Children whose observational skills have been developed early, by taking a few evening or night walks, will recognize on their own the permanence of the figures formed mostly of bright points in the sky, the relative movement of the small number of them that move, and the general movement of the whole. A brief indication given by the older ones will enable them to recognize the main points, whose exact position they will determine by planting a pole in the courtyard themselves and tracing a meridian. The children's first observatory will thus be established, just as that of the earliest astronomers was.

Finally, as always in more complete observatories, the young will serve as assistants to the older ones, and the older ones as guides to the young. Among the latter, the most advanced, even before reaching the dogmatic study of astronomy, will already be able to make precise observations with improved instruments under the supervision of their elders, and perform calculations within their reach. (...)

Mathematics

The little success achieved by mathematics teachers working not on carefully selected pupils but on the real mass of children should long ago have made them understand that young minds need a fairly long time and a very large number of observations and experiments with concrete quantities in order to assimilate abstract mathematical ideas. (...) The application of mathematics, and therefore the motivation to learn them, is found in the various manual tasks that are at once games for children and real preparation for the life of a useful man. It is in these activities that children will acquire all the desired skill in graphic work. Finally, walks and scientific trips will make them familiar with the various methods for representing surfaces, plans, sides, contour lines, slope lines, cross-sections, etc. (...)

Fine Arts

Drawing, as a means of communication and transmission of thought, must be considered a language. (...) Walks in museums (avoiding as much as possible, for the young, the demoralization caused by the sight of horrible scenes), collections, visits to remarkable monuments, concerts, and the theater will develop artistic taste. It is obvious that, for all this, the educator — the child's natural and respected advisor — must himself possess a sufficiently refined taste to offer only well-chosen examples. Moreover, he must constantly be aware of the effect produced on young minds and avoid, especially at the beginning, the fatigue that quickly sets in with children. (...)

Manual Work

Watching something being done and trying to imitate it are the only ways to learn to do it oneself. (...) As regards the teaching of trades in the initial period, only one thing can be said : the youngest children will turn to the older ones, they will help them in their work, doing the easiest parts, and in return, the older ones will guide them and teach them the use of tools. (...)

Third Part Description of the Establishment of Integral Education

The establishment where integral education will be given must no longer be like today's schools, composed of a few sad, quickly sordid rooms, whose very crude furniture, like the walls, bears numerous signs of damage — an indication of the profound boredom that reigns in these places. It must be an attractive universal museum : collections of all kinds, drawings, paintings, reliefs, and a laboratory-workshop for all sorts of research and activities. The organization of all the riches of the establishment, inspired by positive philosophy, will be such that a simple visit will give a very accurate first idea of the hierarchy of the sciences, and the students will absorb it, as it were, spontaneously. (...) In addition to the rooms for public study offered by the libraries and collections, the establishment must contain rooms for personal study. Whether, depending on the layout of the premises or other circumstances, the students are alone or in small groups, this will change the destructive passion that today dominates the minds of children; they will enjoy decorating and beautifying their palace instead of damaging their prison. (...)

Special Study of One or More Trades

(...) Let us therefore accept manual work early and without regret. Let us devote our energy to eliminating for everyone the excess of physical labor, but let us restore to it the right measure for those who were exempt from it or, better said, who were deprived of it by a disastrous inegalitarian organization. In the interest of both body and mind, the development of one and the other will go hand in hand, and the student will also be an apprentice.

A single word will suffice regarding the means of studying a trade. The workshop is organized like the museum and like the library; the latter form the scholar, while the workshop forms the worker. Which trade or industry should one choose? Individual taste, the needs of the community, combined with a practical sense of reciprocity, will decide. Moreover, the skill acquired during the spontaneous period, before the adoption of a special trade, will give a person such ease in changing trades that the previous decision will inconvenience no one.

There are foul, unhealthy, crushing trades. No one will want them. On the contrary, we believe this will become a battlefield far more glorious than the others. The goal will no longer be the death of men but their salvation. When scholar and worker become one, I am certain that the first concern of the scholar will be to spare the worker's life, health, and well-being.

The School and Adults

Today, the student leaving with a diploma from public schools shakes the dust from his shoes, sends the college where he was bored in his youth to the devil, and hastens to forget the jumble he learned against his will. The new institutions do not issue diplomas ; there is no longer a sharp break between the slavery of childhood and the freedom of adulthood. The young, the adult, and the elderly all enjoy the same true freedom, limited only by natural laws and human solidarity. When the young man finishes his last year of dogmatic study, he has long been an active member and producer in humanity. Who could therefore push him to leave a place that only brings back memories of happiness ? On the contrary, everything attracts him there — both things and people. The school is the intellectual center that must serve as a meeting place for people of all ages. It will replace the church attended today by those who place fear at the beginning of wisdom; it will replace the café and the tavern that are increasingly filled by a blasé and selfish population.

Who Will Be the Teachers and Inspectors?

Do we even need to say it after what has come before?

Just as the student is an apprentice, the adult worker is a teacher. To the noble desire to excel in the practice of his art or science is joined the desire to excel in his teaching. Thanks to the large number of people who, while able to perform another function in society, thus become suited to teaching, each of them devotes only a small number of hours to giving lessons. Like today's privileged individuals who occupy university chairs, they can devote the most careful attention to preparing them. I would add that the role of teacher will generally be temporary, for it can only be properly fulfilled with passion and love; disgust or weariness on the part of the teacher quickly communicates itself to the students. Thus will disappear those poor wretches of elementary education whom not only students but many parents brand with shameful epithets — whether independent teachers or state employees — who are more often below than above the limits of poverty.

Moreover, let us repeat once more: no diplomas, no false titles; and no brute force to compensate for the teacher's talent and appeal.*

For children as for adults, the only good teacher is the one who, without police or rod, with the classroom door open to leave or enter, knows how to surround himself with a large and attentive audience.

A single form of inspection seems sufficient to us and constitutes the most effective control and the most complete publicity for all classes and all exercises. The rooms of the establishment will be arranged so that this inspection can be exercised constantly and without disturbing anyone, whether it comes from simple personal curiosity or from the organization of parents and the community.

How many public or private establishments, so highly rated today in official inspectors' reports or through advertising, would withstand such scrutiny?

Who Will Direct Education?

The children themselves, the former students, and the parents who come to participate in the work and play of their children will ordinarily suffice. After that, a good father of a family, elected director by the assembly of parents, constantly present everywhere, will do no harm — though, when the organization is complete, he will likely rarely have the opportunity to do much good.

Day School and Boarding School

Today the school is such an unhealthy place, despite the official reputation it tries to maintain, that all parents who can do so at least want to see their children in the evening and keep them as day students. Only indifferent parents or those forced by circumstances put their children in boarding schools.

This question, which seems so serious to many people, is insignificant here, since parents and children have the freedom to see each other at any time. Besides, what will boarding be? It will mean housing children with families living near the school or even within the school itself. Under such conditions, boarding will represent true family life, as much as and often better than day schooling. Indeed, the families that accept students in this way will not be chosen at random, but selected among those offering the best guarantees as an environment suited to developing the child's natural qualities.

Bringing Together Children of Both Sexes

Place boys and girls in the same conditions of development, avoid as carefully as possible the harmful influence of prejudices; repeat this experiment many times, and only the results it yields will be able to serve as the basis for a general law.

Moreover, admitting that certain tasks must be reserved exclusively for one of the two sexes does not entail the need to give them a different moral education or to raise them separately. Destined to live together in society, men and women must become accustomed to it through shared life, studies, and work from their earliest youth.

Notes (preserved from the original):

(1837–1912)

A Pioneer of Coeducation
(Go to the CLIO: History, Women and Society journal website)