Figure 1.--This French CDV is undated, but the style looks like the 1860s. The boys wear military styled school uniforms. We are not sure, hiwever, what kind of school they attended. |
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It was under Napoleon III's Second Empire (1852) that major improvements began to appear in French public schools. Each schoolnow had to have an educational library, the number of teachers was increased, and night school classes were introduced. A circular from the Ministry of Educatioin was a turning point (1867). Minister of Education Victor Duruy made primary education free to everyone and for the first time open to girls. Most schools were gender specufic. And only towns/villages of more than 500 inhabitants were required to open a school for girls. These small villages might allow the girls to attend the boys' school. But in consrvatice France, many parents did not like this. This was just before the Franco-Prussian War and the creation of the Third Republic which instituted major educational reforms. We are not yet sure about French schoolwear in the mid-19th century. We have limited information and only a small archive of school information. Hopefully our French readers will provide more information. We see some primary-age children wear military-styled uniforms. We are not sure, however just what kind of schools these were. A few available images suggest that many boys wore military style uniforms at seconadry schools in the mid-19th century. Many lycees, for example required military style uniforms. The lycée boy shown here was photographed about 1867. Napoleon's nephew. Louis Napoleon or Napoleon III was ruling France at the time. Perhaps he had the same pemchant toward uniforms as his illustrious uncle. The palms on the uniform means that it is a school uniform. HBC is not yet sure how common it was for boys to wear uniforms at mis-19th century France. As far as I know only military schools had full military uniforms. A HBC contributor indicates that boys that wore military uniforms to school included: war orphans who has special schools, children of soldiers on duty abroad in the colonies, and of course the case for the schools meant to train the boys who wanted to become soldiers (officiers or sub-officiers). I'm not sure what the younger boys wore. They may have commonly wore smocks even before the new Third Republic Government made the smock required sdchoolwear, but we can't yet conform that.
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