Continuing Education and Other Innovations: An Eighteenth-Century Case Study

Continuing Education andmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Other Innovations: An Eighteenth-Century Case Study REED BENH AM O U gfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA In many areas, theoreticians draw a wider audience than do prac­ titioners. In the case of education in eighteenth-century France, for example, those who debated the societal effect of universal literacy, or proposed approaches to taming the human cub, are remembered and discussed, while those who founded schools, published text­ books, and imparted skills are rarely remembered. This, at least, is the conclusion that might be drawn from the case of Jacques-Frangois Blondel, architect, member of the Academie Royale d'Architecture, founder of the Ecole des Arts, and author of the textbook RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB C o u r s d ' A r c h it e c t u r e 1 Blondel first came to the attention of the Parisian architectural com­ munity with the publication of his D is t r ib u t io n d e s m a is o n s d e p la is a n c e in 1737.2 In this work, Blondel presented five plans for country es­ tates which, though never built, allowed him to illustrate, by his own good example, the shortcomings he discerned in the work of his fel­ lows. Blondel nowhere mentions the reception accorded this covertly didactic work, but shortly thereafter he took more direct approaches to architectural education, opening a private school in 17403 and, in 1743, offering the first of a series of public courses. He built little;4 but through his teaching, which occupied him twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for over 30 years,5 he restructured 67 68 / BENHAMOUgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA French architecture. His influence is taken for granted; but, strangely, little attention has been given to the means by which this end was achieved: to date, although his private school is mentioned in a va­ riety of texts,6 only one brief article has been devoted to his life as an educator.7 Blondel's exclusion from general works on French education his­ tory, such as those by Barnard, Snyders, or Leon,8 may be readily explained. His goal was to make architectural techniques, theory, and criticism accessible to a public which included the artisan and labor­ ing classes; and he ignored, or dismissed, the larger question debated by many of his contemporaries concerning the effect of intellectual growth on social stability.9 On the other hand, it is difficult to see why he has not been included in works dealing with technical and voca­ tional education, such as those by Chartier et al., Artz, or Chisick.10 The oversight is unfortunate. His approach to teaching, incorporat­ ing techniques which have since become standard practice in many classrooms, qualifies him for our attention, as does his position at the forefront of two trends in eighteenth-century France: vocational training and public education. Let us begin with his school, the Ecole des Arts, which he founded to train architects. Nothing of the kind had existed before. Pierre Patte, the architect who completed RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA C o u r s d ' A r c h it e c t u r e after Blondel's death in 1774, makes this clear:mlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Before 1740, there was no school in Paris where a young architect could receive his training, and learn what he had to know about drawing, ornament, perspective, mathematics, stone-cutting, sur­ veying, or any of the infinite details involved in constructing a build­ ing. He had to go to one artisan after another to learn each of these specialties. Not only did this prolong his study, it usually meant that once he produced a plan, he neglected everything else.11 To rectify this situation, Blondel developed a curriculum drawn from fifteen years of reflection on the nature and needs of architecture, and assembled a specialized faculty to teach it. This group was chosen for its expertise—Blondel described its members as "known for their skills"12—an approach which ignored class differences to mix the bourgeois professional with the artisan. In addition to Blondel him­ self (who taught theory, drafting, and the professional aspects of ar­ chitecture), the faculty included an engineer...