Blackwell Reference Online

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Named after the education minister Frédéric Falloux, this law, passed March 15, 1850, was a legislative milestone in the history of French education . Elementary schooling was placed under the aegis of the church (see catholicism ), and its content was restricted to reading, writing, arithmetic, and the catechism. Within the secondary school system, the church was permitted to set up its own collèges , alongside state lycées . In higher education, the clergy were given greater supervisory control. Supported by conservatives of all persuasions, the Falloux Law was an attempt to crush the prominent republican and socialist sentiments within the second republic . It placed the church firmly in the camp of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (see napoleon iii ), although this alliance would falter towards the end of the Second Empire. The law also provoked deeper anticlericalism among state primary school teachers ( instituteurs) , while paradoxically promoting universal elementary schooling even before this was officially consolidated by the third republic . ... log in or subscribe to read full text