Figure 1.--. |
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Here we list the schools by name for those images that are identified. Many of these French school images, however, are unidentified. So we have few listings by school name. We even have a few schools with images from several decades, but are yet to learn the name of the school. We are not always sure what kind of schools these are. Of course the schools named after saints are almost always Catholic schools. For somne reason we have found more information on the Catholic schools than the state schools.
Baromesnil is a very small French town on the English Channel. We note some images from the village school. We do not know much about the school, but it seems to have been a small coed ecolé. We see a group of boys all dressed up for the end of school pagent in 1939. We are not sure what the costumes were. We also a group of children fom the village on a class trip to Paris after World War II (1946). During the German occupation (1940-44), it was not very easy to travel so most of the children probably remained in the village. As aresult this musthve been very exciting experience for the children.
Here we see several portraits at a Parisian boys primary school. We are not sure what the name of the school was, but it was an ecole in or near Becon les Bruyeres. This is a Paris neigborhood. We are not sure about the name of the school, but as the photographer was located in Becon les Bruyeres, we think the school was likely located there or nerarby. We have several class portraits of boys that look to be about 6 to 12 years of age. The boys were photographd with their vteachers, all male masters. They all look to come from the 1930s. The portrait of the younger boys may come from the late-1920s, but we think most come from the early-30s to mid-30s. The portraits all look to be taken at about the same time. They may be a collction of on boys school portraits, meanung that they were one year progressions. Perhaps readers can help refine our chronological estimate. The boys are variously dressed in sweates or suits. Most of the suits are lapel suits. We se some sailor suits, specially with the younger boys. Some boys wear dark smocks, but not bery many. We mostly see the back-buttoning style. The only real consustency is tht all the boys are wearing short pants and knee socks. Quite a few boys are wearing high-top shoes.
We noticed a school named Béthisy St. Pierre. We know little about the school. We are not sure what Béthisy means, The school appeaes to be a boy's primary school. A class portrait in 1933 shows all the boys wearing smocks. There does not appear to gave been a required style. Most were dark smocks, but there are also a few light-colored smocks as well. When all the boys in a class are wearing smocks, it suggests they were required by the school.
We believe that the name of this school is the Ecole Champagnat, but we are not positive about the name. We know nothing about the school at this time, but it appears to be a state primary school. The ome impage we have shows that it was a boys school. We do not know where the school was located. Champagnat may be the name of the village.
The Ecole Champagne appears to have been a girls school, although there were boys in the maternele class. This appears to be Catholic school rather than a regular state primary school. We know nothing about the school other than it was operating in 1945. The school may have been located in the town of Champagne. We note many of the boys in 1945 wearing romper suits.
As best we can figure out this was the company school at the Château Mouton. Wine aficianados will recognize the name. This was a wine estate near the village of Pauillac in the Médoc region, 50 km north-west of Bordeaux. It was originally known as Château Brane-Mouton speeciliing in red wine. Nathaniel de Rothschild tenamded it Château Mouton Rothschild (1853). They began bottling the harvest at the estate itself, rather than shipping the wine to merchants for bottling at other locations. The branch of the Rothschild family owning Mouton Rothschild are members of the Primum Familiae Vini. This looks to be a small school on the estate for the children of the workers (1935). Most of the children look very young, many sem to b kinfergasrterns. There are some older children, but not very many. The boys are wearing a mix of rompers, smocks, and short pants. We are not sure what happened to the estate durung the German occupation (1940-44).
The Chavagnes International College is not really a French school, but it is located near Nantes in France. The school was founded by Ferdi McDermott, about 2005. It is an ultra-traditional English boarding school. A TV documentary reports that the school features among other somewhat oddities Morris dancing, old-fashioned chivalry, Gregorian chanting and how to skin and cook a rabbit as part of the curriculum. Ferdi is critical of the modern English educational system, including trends at private schools. He has reinstituted aspects once common at British schools, includuing boy scout war games, boxing and hunting. Chavagnes is a Catholic boarding school for boys aged 9 to 18. Ferdi has attempted to create a medieval-style community and classes taught in a rigorously traditional manner.
There is no television or private access to the internet. The school program includes daily mass, prayers sung in Latin before and after each meal. The boys make a mandatory weekly confession. [Source:
"The dangerous school for boys," British Channel 4, June 18, 2007.]
We note a small school Chez Madame Marie Ecole, but we have no informtion about the school. All we have is too school portaits from 1965 and 66. The children in one photograph wear their everyday school wear. Te boys wear short pants and the girls wear dresses. One boy seems to be wearin some kind of ski pants. The children ll wear short socks. They all wear smocjks doe in different colors and patterns, but all cut much shorter than was the case in the 50s, presumably because the shorts and dresses are shorter. Amnother image shosw the children dressed up in their best outfits for some special occassions. For these special days the children did not wear their smocks. The children look to be about 5 years old apparently a msternelle was attached to a primary school.
The Ecole de La Crau is a primary school located in Châteaurenard, a French village 10 km from Avignon. We have only one photograph from the school taken in one of the classes. The class has a traditional arrangement with two seat desks. The class was photographed in the 1959-60 school year. The children do not wear the traditional school smocks that were so common in France through the 1950s. The portrait seems to have been taken at the end of the school year with warm summer weather. Its a little unclear what the girls are wearing, but it looks like mostly dresses. The boys wear shorts and simple short-sleeved shirts, including "T"-sgirts. They also wear sandals. A boy in the first row wears the new plastic sandals.
Here we see a French primary school at Chigny in 1933. I'm not sure what the name of the schoole was. In fact I am not sure if French village schools had names or were just given the name of the village where they were located. There were both boys and girls at the school, but it appears they were not taught together in the same classes. I'm not sure how common this was in France at the time. The boys seem to be wearing smocks, although the image is not real clear.
We know nothing about this school except the name, the Lycee Jacques Decoúr, and the fact that a portrait was taken in 1946-47. We do not know where in France the school was located. We would say that it was probably a state lycee rather than a Catholic school. There are several interesting observations here. The children seem well dressed here even though it right after World War II. Almost all of the boys wear short pants. Only a fw boys wear knee socks. One boy has rowed his knee socks down. Several boys wear suits, although some without ties. Only two boys wear smocks, both front-buttoning styles. I'm not sure how to interpret this. It looks like that unless the school encouraged it, few French mothers sent their boys to school in smocks. Or perhps smocks declined in popularity during the War. Perhaps our French readers will have some insights here. Most of the boys wear sandals rather than shoes.
Here we see the Ecole d'Essey-la-Côte about (vers?) 1904. We have no information on the school other than the school name. The mixture of ages and gender suggest to us that it is a small village school. We assume the name of the school is the name of the village. We do not know where this village is located. There are a mix of children in the school. Some look more nursery school age than school age. We are not sure why such young children were included in the school. Some of the boys are not yet breeched, but it is a little difficult to discern who is a boy and who is a girl.
The Ecole Jeanne d'Arc was a French school located in Oran, Algeria. We know little about the school. We note an image of the Maternelle or nursery school from 1950. The school was presumably a primary school with a nuresery as one of the classes. The boys wear a varietyy of outfits. Many of the younger boys wear rompers.
Here we see the Ecole Jules Ferry. Oullins is the city in France where it was located. Oullins is a small town near Lyon. We have one available image from the school. It was clearly a boys' school, but we know virtully nothing about the school. The image we have looks like the older boys at the school. They look to be about 12-13 years old. Curiously they mostly wear tennis shoes. We have noted many French boys wearing tennis shoes, but never so many in a single class. The owner of the photograph guesses it was taken in 1961-62.
We have acquired som images from the Lycee Lamoriciere in the post-World War II period. We know nothing about the history of the school at this time. It looks to us to be a state secondary school. It is an all boys school. There is no school uniform. The boys' clothes thus are a refldection of popular contemporary styles. We see boys in the 1940s and early 1950s wearing a variety of short pants, knickers, and long pants. Here age is a major factor, but seasonality may be also involved. By the 1960s the boys are almost entirely wearing long pants.
Here we see none other than the legendary and slimmed-down Babe Ruth showing a group of mostly boys how to hit an apple (apparently a baseball ws unavilable) with a small baseball bat. The Babe was at the Mac Jannet School in St. Cloud France. He had traveled to Europe with his wife after finishing up his 1934 Tour of Japan. They made a pitstop to France for some rest and recretion before retiring. The photograph ws dated January 18, 1935. This a great image of Babe giving back to the kids. He was raised in an orphanage (because he was so difficult to deal with) and along with a wild life, always had a soft for kids, especially kids in orphanages and hospitals. The Mac Janet schools and camps were set up by an American educator for American children in France, after World War I. Donald MacJannet was born in New England (1894). His parents were Robert McJannet, a fundamentalist Scottish-born minister, and Irene Waters, of an old New England family. He was orphaned at age 15 yers and then became the main supporter of a younger sibling and the lady who took them in. He was an outstanding scholar and put himself through college with a focus on languages and French literature. He taught at the prestigious St. Albans School in Washington D.C. He served as a pilot in France during World War I, a very dangeri=ous undertaking. He studied at the at the Sorbonne after the war. His real passion, however, was teaching and opened his first school, the MacJannet School for Young Americans outside Paris (1924) The next year he opened a second school at St. Cloud. He thennopened American-style summer camps for the childre, separate facilities for boys and girls at Angon on Lake Annecy in Haute Savoie. They proved so popular that many French children enrolled. The schools were taught in English so few French children attended. MacJannet met and married German-born Charlotte Blensdorf (1932). Blensdorf had founded her own school of eurythmics in Sweden after World War I. Eurythmics is a discipline which stresses training in rhythm, music and movement which added to the school, but specially camp experience. After the German World War II occupation, the Mac Janets and other americans had to leave France, but used their facilities to care for French war orphans. They returned and continued ro operate their camps.
We have an interesting image from the Ecole Jean Mace in 1949. We are not entirely sure what kind of school it was. The children in the photograph are nursery school children participating in the end of the year celebration - les Flocons d'Avoine fettes de fin d'Annee. What we are unsure about is CM2 is mentioned. This woukd be older children at the school, up to about 10 years of age. Perhaps
the Ecole Jean Mace had both nursery school and primary school classes.
We do not yet fully understand just what kind of school this was. We know that it was founded in 1842 and operated through 1992. It appears to have been a provincial secondary school that had a curicvulum focvused on agriculture. School photographs are available showing schoolwear changes in a rural area of France over many decades.
This large format cabinet card portrait shows what looks like a class at the Lycée de Marsseille in 1909-10. There is no accompaning information. The meaning of the term Lycée as a type of school varied over time. We believe at the time this was a secondary school rather like a British grammar school. The school seems to have classes beginnin with boys about 10-years old. Unfortunately we have no information to establish just what kind of school this as, We think that it was a public, not a private school. About half of the boys wear sailor suits, but there was no required uniform. It is a reflection as to how popular the sailor suit was at the time. Only one boy seems to be wearing a smock. The boys as far as we can tell are all wearing knee pants, some with socks others with long stockings. The boys are pictured with their teacher. The studio taking the portrait was J. Fabre.
HBC notes that Le Lycée Naval School operates today at Brest, a major French port and naval basse. HBC is unsure at this time when it was founded. The school has strong connections with the French Navy. Reports in 2001 indicate that the boys wear traditional uniforms, we are not sure, however, if this is the normal school or just worn for special occasions.
We know very little about the French school at this time. We do know the name of the school, R. de Cyr. We are not sure, but this may de Rur de Cyr. It looks like an Ecole or primary school. We do not know where it is located, but if it is Rue de Cyr, it mist have been in a substantial city, probably in southern France. Perhaps our French readers will know where the Rue de Cyr is located. We have only one image from the school at this time. It is an interesting image in that the boys wear such a variety of clothes. Most of the boys wear sandals.
We know nothing about the Lycée Rascol at this time. Hopefully our French readers will know something about the school. The term Lycée has been used variously. Here I believe it means a secondary school. We have found a few immages fcrom the 1930s. They show the boys wearing suits with a kind of military-style peaked cap. We note boys in French Lycées commonly wearing suits before World War II. Some also had military styled uniforms. The Lycée Rascol boys all seem to wear suits. There was not required style or color, but suits do seem to have been required.
We have little information about the French Lycée Regnault school in Tangiers at this time. It appears to be a single gender school or at least the classes were separated. We do not know if the school is still operating. A few school portraits are available from the 1960s. As in France, the school did not have a school uniform and the dress code, if any, was very relaxed. at this time. It appears to be a single gender school or at least the classes were separated. We do not know if the school is still operating. A few school portraits are available from the 1960s. As in France, the school did not have a school uniform and the dress code, if any, was very relaxed.
Riaumont is a Catholic school in the northern France has a traditional school uniform. The boys wear a uniform inspired by the Spahis which were a unit of the french
colonial army. The school has a Scout unit which also believes in a traditionally styled uniform.
We are not sure about the name of this school. The Ecole Normale in the title means that it was a primary school attached to a teacher training college or university. We are not sure what is meant by the d'Institeuteurs. The actual school name was Saint Eugene. The school was located in Oran, Algeria. The school was an all boys primary school. We have two school portraits from the 1950s. There was no required uniform, but we notice some of the boys wearing smocks.
Lycée is a term variously used in France and the meaning as changed over time. We note a portrait of the 2eme classd at the Lycée Saint Etienne (St. Stephen) in 1920. The boys look to be about 10-11 years old. They are younger than the children at modern French lycées. Today French lycées are for the older secondary students, rather like an American senior high school. But this was apparently not the case in 1920. Lyceés apparently had boys beginnuing at about age 10 years or so after they had completed just a few years of primary school as well as older teenagers. Saint Etienne is a city southwest of Lyon. At the time there may have been only one lycée in St. Etienne, today there are probably more.
We note the Ecole Privée St. Front in 1947. It was an all boys' school conected to the St. Front Cathedral. The school and cathedral was in P�rigueux, a town located in Aquitaine, an important province in southwestern France. Before the Roman invasion, it was a eltic capital. The boys at the school are dressed for winter with sweaters, jackets, and coats, but most seem to be wearing short pants. We also see some of the boys wearing knickers and long pants. Interestingly, the teacher wears a beret, but none of the boys. We had never heard of St. Fronto. The name of the saint and cathedral is variusly spelled St. Font or St. Fronto. His life is based largely on legendary sources. He was a 1st century bishop. He was born in Lycaonia (an area in the the interior of Asia Minor, north of Mount Taurus. He became a Christian as a young man and was baptised by St. Peter, becoming one of his 72 disciples. He accompanied Peter to Antioch and then to Rome. Peter sent his and a priest named George north to convert the Gauls. He became the first bishop of Perigueux. Which is of course why the school is named after him.
Images from Saint-François from the mid-1930s provide a glimpse of school wear atba French catholic in the 1930s. Notable is the absence of smocks, even by the younger children. The boys in fact wear quite varied clothes, including short pants and less commonly knickers as well as short pants. The Ecole libre Saint-François Régis is located in Montpellier, France. Montpellier is located 7 km from the Mediterranean Sea, roughly between Marseilles and Spain. The school in the 1930s did not require uniforms, thus photographs available from the school show what French boys were wearing not only to school, but their regular clothes. Granted the boys might have dresses up for the photograph, but the photographs are a good reflection of what boys at the time were wearing. The photos here are are from the scholastic year of 1934-1935, i.e. stretching between beginning of October 1934 to end of June 1935. The school still exists and is functioning.
A reader has provided us several images of from the Institution St Jacques in France. We have little definitive information on the school. We believe it is a boarding school, although we are not sure about this. As we have several images over several decades, the collection provides a fascinating insight into trends in French schools over time. There does not appear to have been a school uniform, but suits seem to have been required. Usually the boys wear dark short pants suits and kneesocks.
This private Catholic school had a uniform of black or dark blue double breasted jackets, short pants, and kneesocks. Brass buttons and school pins give the jacket a military look.
HBC has only limited information on the school. We note students at the Ecole Saint-Joseph d'Allex wearing a uniform of blue shirts, string ties, blue, shorts, and white kneesocks. Boys were wearing this uniform for a trip to London in 1984. This may, however, had been an earlier style and in 1984 just used by the choir.
Catholic schools prepare the children for their First Comminion (Communion Solenelle ). This is a portrait of the boys doing First Communion at the Patronage Jus Saint Louis. We are not sure just what kind of school is involved here or just what Patronage means. Hopefully our French readers will explain this to us.
This is the Lycee de St. Malo. We have images from 1920-66. We know vurtually nothing about the school. St. Malo may be the location. It is clearly a Catholic school, presumably a private school. We note in 1920 most of the boys wear uniforms. We are not sure if this meant that it was a military school or that the school just had a uniform with a military look. Hopefully our French raeders will be able to tell us something about this school.
Sainte-Marie de Beaucamps appears to be an ecole. I'm not sure where the school was located, but believe it was Ligny. Presumbably the school was a Catholic school, given its name. It wa also an all boys schools as most Catholic schools were at the time. We have very little information about the school, but we have found a few school portraits from the 1950s. There was no school uniform. Nor do we see school smocks, even though smocks were commonly worn in France during the 1950s. We do notice the boys very smartly done up in uniforms for their First Communion.
We have no information about the St. Maurice school except the school portrait here from 1921. There were many schools in France named after saints. There were so many schools named after the various saints that there is no way of knowing which St. Maurice school this was. We thus do not know where this school was located. We think that it was probably a day school, more than likely an ecole. We assume that it was a Catholic school because it is named after a saint. Note that there are both boys and girfls in the portrait. Often Catholic schools were single gender schools. The school seems to have had a strict ruile that the children werar smocks, both the boys and girls. There was no required style or color. They look to be back buttoning smocks done in various colors and patterns. There are no readily apparent gender conventions. Some children wear their collars over the smock and some under the smock.
Here we see a class at the Ecole St Vincent Ardent in 1937. We know very little about the school. Ardent seems to part of St. Vincent's name rather than the name of the village. Presumably there was more than one St. Vincent. Ecole here means a primary school. Presumably given the saint's name this was a Catholic school. It appears to be an all boy's school. At least the classes were separated. The boys all wear similar, but not identical dark smocks. At many schools smocks were optional. Here the school appears to have required the boys to wear smocks.
We know this aphotograoh taken at the primary school in the town of Saone-et-Loire. We are guessing the name of thde school is the Ecole Saone-et-Loire, but we are not positive. The photograph seem to show the first year students. They look about 6 years old. The photograph was taken in 1907. Note that their
school clothes show considerable variety. Of course they all wear knee pants
and hightop shoes. There is quite a variety of styles of neck wear, some with
and some without floppy bows. One boy on the left in front wears a rather
elegant sailor suit with striped dickey. Only one boy in the front row wears a smock. This surprised us. We thought that smocks were more common in France.
Here we see the Ecole Talange in 1931. We have no details about the school at this time other than a 1931 image. It looks to be quite a substantial school. The image we have is a class of boys. Presumably this was the boys' school and there was another school for the girls. Small village schools were often coeducational, but towns which were big enough for two schools, commonly separated them by gender. As far as we can tell this is a town primary school. We assume Talange is the name of the town. The boys here wear short pants suits or sweaters.
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We are not sure what a Centre d'Apprentissage is. The term means Teaching Center, but how that is different from a regular school if any we do not know. The commune (town) of Thaon is located in the Vosges area. It appears to be aki resort area. The Vosges Mountains are located in northern France close to the German border. We have two images from the school a decade apart. One was taken in 1950 of the younger boys at the school. The other was taken in 1960 of the older boys. The school looks to be a boys' school. Many of the boys wear smocks of different styles in 1950. We also see a few boys wearing smocks in 1960, but all wore the front buttoning style. Short pants were common in both photographs. Many of the boys in 1960 wear sandals. The weather looks warmer than in the 1950 photograph. Thus seasonality along with age and chronology are factors in the different outfits the boys are wearing. We note many boys wear knee socks with short pants in 1950, but not in 1960.
Here we note a school which we believe is the Ecole Traon Quizac. Unfortunaely we know almost nothing about the school. It appears to be a state primary school, but we know virtually nothing about the school. We would guess it is a city school, but we have no idea what city. The available photographs suggest that the classes were separated by gender. There was no unifirm or dress code as far as we can tell. Some boys wore smocks, but they were not required. Many of the smocks worn by boys were front-buttoning smocks, but bot all of them. More girls wore smocks, but they were mostly back btuttoning smocks. Unfortunately many of the available images are not dated.
Ecole Publique Trun presumably was the state school located in the village of Trun. We do not know where that was in France. We are guessing it was a village or small town school. Note that the full name was Ecole Publique Trun. We think that in the early 20th century it was more common to use the term publique to specify that it was a public or state school. Many French schools that or state schools became known more commonly as just Ecole dropping the publique. This scjool was a coed school which was common in village schools at the time because the village was not large enough to have two schools. The image here is a little unusual in that most of he children are girls, but we see two boys in sailor suits. We think there are a few mor boys in the class, but several of the children are a bit hard to identify.
We have found numerous French schools that we have been unable to identify. W prefer having the name of the school as we hope this will allow former students to provide us some details about their schools. Some of these school photographs are dated. Some are not. We can make general estimates as to when the photographs were taken, but of course that is not nearly as useful as actually knowing the date. We know where some of the schools are, but in most cases we do not know where the schools are. Hopefully our French readers may be able to identify some of these schools.
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