Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, BELGIUM sofie.onghena@arts.kuleuven.be
Abstract
The introduction of laboratory education at Belgian secondary schools during the years 1880-1914 was strongly influenced by German science education. A large part of school books and textbooks used by Belgian science teachers were translations of German publications and the laboratory apparatus in Belgian school laboratories was to a great extent of German origin. Belgian academic scientists got acquainted with German science education combining research and instruction during post-academic training at German universities and laboratories. Fascinated by the integration of experimental and instrument manipulations in German science education, they also ardently pleaded for the introduction of laboratory instruction at secondary schools, created from 1880 onwards at state schools. My paper deals with the characteristics of Belgian experimental education as well. This will lead to an analysis of the uniqueness of Belgian science education at secondary schools, also influenced by French science, illustrated by the following quote of a Belgian scholar concerning disseminating science: ‘Belgium is surprisingly well placed to serve as mediator between different nations.’
Introduction
The study of science education also includes experimental instruction: scholarly attention for experiment in science education has risen during the last decade and ‗learning by doing‘ as research topic recently increased in significance, not only in historical studies on popular science books and periodicals promoting a homemade science and on the distribution
and the use of experimental kits, but also in education.1 This paper on the implementation of laboratory instruction in the courses of chemistry and physics at Belgian secondary state schools at the end of the 19th century, aims on the one hand at being supplementary to former studies in national historiography rather emphasizing on institutional aspects (the history of schools, the evolution of educational laws) or on social studies of the target groups of 19th-century education. On the other hand, the pursuit of this paper is also to be complementary to the existing international historiography on secondary science education by explaining the characteristics of the Belgian case.
Because of its central geographical position in Western Europe, Belgium was pre-eminently a country of intellectual exchange, already agreed upon by the 19th-century contemporary actors as well. Belgian intellectuals promoted the idea of an ‗international patriotism‘; the nation‘s national individuality was precisely to be found in being international.2 This was also the case for the circulation of science: Belgium was influenced by several different scientific cultures, especially by neighbouring countries France and Germany, the two leading scientific centres in the 19th century, and Belgian scientists coquetted with the idea that Belgium functioned as a country of intellectual passage, both for the production of knowledge in a scientific, rather closed area and for the communication of science in the public sphere. That did not alter the fact that 19th -century public discourse on science and science education mainly took Germany with its first-rate position in science and education as the standard.
Consequently, the aim of this paper is to find an answer to the question: to what extent Belgian laboratory instruction in secondary education meant for the elite and the upper middle classes, was influenced by foreign and in particular German educational and scientific cultures. This paper deals with secondary education, since natural sciences definitively got embedded in the curricula of secondary state education from the beginning of the years 1880 onwards, in contrast with Belgian primary education wherein mandatory courses in natural sciences were removed by catholic politicians. My investigation on laboratory research in secondary state education in Belgium is based on textbooks, brochures, official inspection reports and hand written accounts of teachers‘ meetings at state schools.
International or nationalistic character of science at Belgian secondary schools?
Secondary state education in Belgium was reformed during the liberal government by means of the law of 1 June 1850, providing for the establishment of ten Royal State Schools (‗Athénées Royaux‘), one in each provincial capital (Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Hasselt, Liege, Mons, Namur, Arlon), plus Tournai. These state schools were public, secular institutions - although religion education remained a permanent issue of debate, particularly under catholic government - and they had a propaedeutical function for university education.
Belgian teachers were aware of developments and debates in foreign science education, for instance on the contribution of mathematics in physics and the debate on physics as an experimental science. Belgian official inspection reports explicitly referred to current developments (reforms, laws) in secondary education in neighbouring countries (Germany, France, The Netherlands and Great-Britain): developments in Belgian education were usually compared to these different nations and Belgian secondary education was embedded in an international context.3 Belgian politicians were longing to copy the German structure of secondary education at the Belgian Royal State Schools: the German ‗Gymnasium‘, a grammar school with a curriculum based on ancient languages was comparable to the Humanities section, ‗Realschulen‘
(modern schools with scientific and technical objective and without Latin instruction), teaching science and preparing higher education at the ‗technische Hochschulen‘ and the ‗Hôhere Bùrgerschule‘, comparable to the professional section of the Belgian Royal State Schools.4 Belgian architects drew inspiration from study trips to German secondary schools for the construction and the infrastructure of Belgian secondary schools. Following the German debate, in Belgium too the creation of practical science lessons at secondary schools threw doubt upon the ideal of classical education.
Furthermore, the admiration for German science education was mirrored in Belgian educational scientific collections.
Belgian school laboratories usually possessed a large number of scientific instruments produced in Germany, ‗in which one
1 V. Van Beek, ‗Man lasse doch diese Dinge selber einmal sprechen. Experimentierkästen, Experimentalanleitungen und Erzählungen zwischen 1870 und 1930‘, in: NTM. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 17 (2009), 387-414; J.
Simon, J. Ramon Bertomeu-Sanchez, A. Garcia-Belmar, ‗Nineteenth-century scientific instruments in Spanish secondary schools‘, in:
M. Lourenço and A. Carneiro (eds.), Spaces and collections in the history of science: The laboratorio chimico overture, Lisboa, 2009, 167-184; P. Heering and R. Wittje (eds.), Learning by doing: Experiments and Instruments in the History of Science Teaching, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2011.
2 J. Tollebeek, ‗The hyphen of National Culture. The Paradox of National Distinctiveness in Belgium and the Netherlands, 1860-1918‘, in:
European Review, 18 (2010) nr. 2, 207-225.
3 Rapport triennal sur lřétat de lřenseignement moyen en Belgique. 1879, 1880, 1881, Brussels, 1881 (introduction).
4 Rapport triennal sur lřétat de lřenseignement moyen en Belgique présenté aux Chambres législatives, le 7 aout 1889. Douzième période triennale 1885-1886-1887, Brussels, 1890, X.
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can have absolute trust‘,5 amongst others spectroscopes and polarimeters of the company Franz Schmidt & Haensch (Berlin) well-known for its optical instruments, or microscopes of Carl Zeiss (Jena).6 German scientific apparatus were promoted in Belgian textbooks too; Jean Chalon wrote: ‗The Berlin Company Klônne & Mùller also offers a large number of microscopic preparations, beautiful and not expensive.‘7 Moreover, the use of (translated) German textbooks was usual.
These books could also be found in school libraries, amongst others translations into French such as R. Fresenius‘ ‗Traité d‘analyse chimique qualitative‘, of Justus von Liebig‘s ‗Traité de chimie organique‘ or F. Mohr‘s, ‗Traité d‘analyse chimique‘
(1888).8
However, this German influence in Belgian secondary science education did not exclude admiration for other foreign traditions. Moreover, the fact that Belgian secondary science underwent strong influences from abroad appeared to be an essential characteristic of national education. School libraries for instance also contained British and Dutch textbooks on experimental chemistry and physics. Belgian education was importantly influenced by French secondary education too, the French textbook of Adolphe Ganot‘s Traité élémentaire de physique expérimentale et appliquée (1851) and its later editions was used as official pedagogical material at Belgian Royal State schools and Teachers‘ Colleges. Ganot‘s physics textbook was largely distributed in the 19th century, amongst others in Great Britain,9 but also in neighbouring country Belgium, where French was the communication language in all state schools.
The provision of textbooks changed over time, and if initially it was based mainly on (German and French) imports, subsequently they were replaced by textbooks written by Belgian authors (both teachers and academic scientists). Yet these textbooks on physics remained often inspired by textbooks such as those by Ganot: the illustrations in Ganot‘s textbooks were sometimes adopted or comparative references were publicly made to his book implying that it remained the standard.10 Belgian textbooks had to follow the official educational programs and they had to meet other criterions as well: in regard with the lay-out, textbooks had to contain illustrations large enough to give pupils a pleasant impression. Concerning the content, a clear and succinct style on a basic level geared at young pupils was considered important just as an accurate description of phenomena, definitions, laws and experiments.11 Some of these Belgian textbooks were approved by the Ministry of Education to be used as official textbook in state secondary education, amongst others ‗Lecture on basic chemistry‘ (‗Traité de chimie élémentaire‘) written by L. Michelet, doctor in physics and mathematics and teaching at the state Teachers‘
College of Brussels. His later published textbook ‗Lecture on elementary physics meant for Teachers‘ Colleges and secondary schools‘ (‗Traité de physique élémentaire à l‘usage des écoles normales et des établissements d‘enseignement moyen‘) would replace Ganot‘s textbook at Belgian Royal State Schools and Teachers‘ Colleges, for instance at the Ghent Teachers‘ College for state secondary education of inferior level from 1888-1889 onwards.12 Other textbooks were used as national substitute for Ganot‘s textbook as well, such as ‗Elements of physics meant for state secondary schools‘ (‗Eléments de physique à l‘usage des écoles moyennes‘) written by J. Fleury, teacher at the Royal State School of Liege or ‗Lecture on elementary physics‘ (‗Traité de physique élémentaire‘) written by Fleury and G. Duguet, repetitor at the Mining School of Liege. The latter was divided into two parts: the first part was devoted to the general characteristics of matter and the theory of heat, whilst the second part treated on acoustics, optics, magnetism and electricity. Every chapter ended with a number of exercises. This textbook also paid attention to new scientific discoveries and its applications and to the current status of modern science.
Remarkably enough, the aforementioned Belgian textbooks were not applied as instruments of patriotic education or as a means to pay a heroic homage to national scientists. The canon of scientists quoted in these textbooks remained international (e.g. Torricelli, Pascal, Regnault, Gay-Lussac, Otto de Guéricke, von Helmholtz).13 The fact that secondary science education was not striving explicitly for nationalistic aspirations can also be illustrated by two meetings of the entire teaching staff of the Royal State School of Tournai around the turn of the century. Debates took place on the questions on how and to what extent teachers of general courses in their respective fields could contribute to education in ‗national pride‘
and on whether or not pupils of secondary schools had to be instructed in a more systematic manner about the contribution of Belgium in the progress of the arts, literature, industry and of the sciences. The teachers in natural sciences and
5 J. Chalon, Manuel de sciences naturelles, Mons: Hector Manceaux, 1890, 40-41.
6 State Archives Department Anderlecht, Archives Athénée de Bruxelles, nr. 44.
7 J. Chalon, Manuel de sciences naturelles, Mons: Hector Manceaux, 1890, 45.
8 Athénée Royal de Bruges. Programme des Cours pour l‘année scolaire 1889-1890, s.l. s.d., 8.
9 J. Simon, ‗Circumventing the ‗Elusive Quarries‘ of Popular Science: The Communication and Appropriation of Ganot‘s Physics in Nineteenth-Century Britain‘, in: F. Papanelopoulou, A. Nieto-Galan, E. Perdiguero (eds.), Popularizing science and technology in the European periphery 1600-2000, Farnham: Ashgate, 2009, 89-114, 95-96.
10 J. Chalon, Manuel de sciences naturelles, Mons: Hector Manceaux, 1890, 9.
11 Revue de lřInstruction Publique en Belgique. Tome XXVI, Ghent, 1883, 267-270.
12 State Archives Department Ghent, Archieven van de Middelbare Rijksnormaalschool Gent, nr. 505.
13 K. Wils, ‗Vaderlandsloze kennis in dienst van de natie. Wetenschapsvulgarisatie in België‘, in: E. Witte (ed. et all), Nation et démocratie 1890-1921. Actes du colloque interuniversitaire, Bruxelles 8-9 Juin 2006, Brussels, 2007, 333.
mathematics decided unanimously that the contribution of Belgian scientists to scientific progress had to be explained to the pupils on a mere occasional basis. Indeed, biographies of Belgian scientists and explanations on the nature and the importance of their research could be explained at the right moment and on the right tone, geared at the pupils‘ level and without a sterile and pompous rhetoric. They added that only a few compatriots were prominent scientists.14
Experimental instruction and the implementation of school laboratories
Belgian secondary education was strongly orientated towards academic instruction, probably due to the fact that most of the teachers in chemistry and physics for secondary education on a superior level were academically trained and thus familiar with academic experimental education. As a result laboratory courses at secondary schools were inspired by academic experimental training. Experimental instruction at Belgian universities was in its turn following the example of German academic tradition, fiercely admired by Belgian scientists for its independent research done by students, its mandatory composition of a dissertation and its development of experimental research. Belgian scientists commended on the large investments of German universities into libraries, scientific collections and laboratories for chemistry, physics, physiology and anatomy. In the years 1860-1880 Belgian academic scientists were zealous advocates of the establishment of similar practical courses at faculties for Medicine and Sciences in order to introduce young students to scientific apparatus and research practice, resulting in a voted bill in 1890, explicitly encouraging the Belgian universities to orientate themselves towards research and to adopt seminars and practical teaching methods.15
Following these developments of the institutionalization and professionalization of natural sciences at universities installing practical seminaries and laboratories according to the German example from the years 1870 onwards, politicians, scientists and teachers pleaded for the establishment of experimental instruction at secondary schools as a substitute for the existing dogmatic and ex cathedra-education in natural sciences. Furthermore, the emancipation and professionalization of chemistry and physics in secondary science education curriculum required appropriate classrooms and didactic material. A Ministerial Order of 15 January 1880 summoned a commission of school inspectors and teachers to propose measures for the development of suitable infrastructure and didactical collections meant for science education based on observation and manipulation in the Royal State Schools, secondary state schools and the state Teachers‘ Colleges. In 1881 the government granted an allowance to the aforementioned institutions meant for the purchase of physics instruments.16 Moreover, separate classrooms for the courses of physics and chemistry were provided. At the end of the years 1880 official inspection reports mentioned that most of the Royal State Schools had the disposal of both a cabinet of physics and a chemistry laboratory in order to support theoretic science lessons with experiments and manipulations, financed by both state and local authorities.
The Royal State School of Brussels for instance had chemistry and physics laboratories at its disposal from 1887 onwards; these science classrooms were financed by the city council. The physics laboratory and its adjacent physics auditorium were established on the initiative of Max Seligmann, teacher in physics at this school. Glass cases contained a large collection of instruments suitable for conducting experiments.17 The chemistry laboratory of the Brussels Royal State School, its chemistry auditorium, library and room of balances, was known as an exemplary institution. It was equipped with six cages for evaporation, a steamer, a drying kiln and two sinks and amongst the scientific instruments were microscopes, objectives, stereoscopes, polarimeters, saccharimeters, spectroscopes, Bunsen burners, voltameters, small and large Ruhmkorff coils and apparatus for the manipulation of gases, including a gasometer of Gay-Lussac with a capacity of 36 litres.18
This chemistry laboratory was arranged according to the guidelines of Charles-Polydore Francotte (1851-1916), doctor in natural sciences at the Liege State University, teacher at the Royal State Schools of Namur and Brussels and from 1890 onwards lecturer and professor at the Free University of Brussels (‗Université Libre de Bruxelles‘) holding the chair in animal embryology.19 He excelled in experimental secondary science education by performing experiments and demonstrations and he emphasized the characteristic properties of secondary science education. Emphasizing the
14 State Archives Department Tournai, Archives Athénée Jules Bara, nr. 108: Régistre des Conférences mensuelles du corps professoral, 14 February and 7 November 1907.
15 P. Dhondt, Een tweevoudig compromis. Discussies over universitair onderwijs in het negentiende-eeuwse België, unpublished doctoral thesis K.U.Leuven University, Leuven, 2005, 272, 346; J. Wachelder, ‗The German University Model and its Reception in the Netherlands and Belgium‘, in: R.C. Schwinges (ed.), Humboldt International: der Export des deutschen Universitätsmodells im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Basel: Schwabe, 2001, 180, 201-203.
16 Rapport triennal sur lřétat de lřenseignement moyen en Belgique. 1879, 1880, 1881, Brussels, 1881, LXIV.
17 A. Sluys, Exposition universelle de Bruxelles. Les compartiments scolaires. LřAllemagne - La Belgique - Les Pays-Bas, Brussels:
Imprimerie du Progrès, 1911, 131-132.
18 State Archives Department Anderlecht, Archives Athénée de Bruxelles, nr. 44.
19 E. Goblet d‘Alviella, ‗Notice biographique et bibliographique: Ch.-J.P. Francotte‘, in: LřUniversité de Bruxelles pendant son troisième quart de siècle (1884-1909), Brussels, 1909, 230.
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characteristic properties of secondary science education, Francotte excluded the installation of imitations of academic laboratories at secondary schools. He stressed that in contrast with academic laboratories meant for experimental instruction where students could work without constant supervision, school laboratories meant for young pupils unfamiliar with scientific manipulations had to be arranged differently for reasons of safety. The chemistry teacher had to supervise actively and continuously his pupils in order to avoid accidents. Authors of textbooks warned as well for the dangers of experimental training: ‗In novice hands the first chemistry manipulations might result into serious, even mortal, accidents.‘20 Thereby, school laboratories had to be installed so that the teacher could oversee the entire class all the time. Therefore Francotte equipped his laboratory with four different manipulation tables with each a series of instruments and reagents and each table was meant for a group of four pupils.21Moreover, Francotte insisted on the huge importance of hygiene and ventilation in school laboratories: harmful gases had to be evacuated in a safe way. The arrangement of equipment implied precautionary measures by placing the cages of evaporation in the middle of the laboratory - in connection with windpipes reaching the ceiling - instead of against the walls. Pupils were only allowed to exercise with some of the laboratory equipment: in the Royal State School of Brussels for instance the room of balances contained several expensive balances, yet pupils had to practise with a cheaper specimen before they were allowed to use the more expensive ones.22 Furthermore, teachers also argued on the necessity of the installation of ateliers where pupils could construct themselves scientific instruments, which already existed at Teachers‘ Colleges.23
The importance of laboratory instruction for the chemistry and physics courses instead of abstract, theoretical and memory-based science education was also stressed at the state Teachers‘ Colleges. Their educational program of 1881 stated that ‗The education of natural sciences has to be based on observation and experimentation.‘ Teachers‘ Colleges for secondary education of both the inferior and the superior level paid attention to experimental education in the courses of chemistry and physics, learning future teachers how to use microscopes and to describe, explain and perform experiments for secondary education pupils.24 Notwithstanding the fact that observation, manipulation (measuring and weighing of objects) and experimentation were promoted as the appropriate pedagogical method for the instruction of chemistry and physics, teachers agreed that memory work still had its place and they determined exactly what had to be memorized:
formulae in physics had to be learned by heart just as the chemical and physical composition of solids in chemistry, but -
formulae in physics had to be learned by heart just as the chemical and physical composition of solids in chemistry, but -