What interest us here is that they faced the same problems we (in the West) struggle with today: an essentially untrained work-force of teachers and, in the vast regions of rural France, a mass of thoroughly unmotivated "students". Their powerful and seductive adversary was the Church, ours is made up of the Media.
It is worth noting that Clémenceau also alludes to the split which we now identify as "progressive" versus "traditional". He wants to "burn up" that "execrable grammar", pities the teacher who is "confined to his mechanical function ... teaching spelling and the rule of the past participle", and regrets the passing of that "great educator of the children of the people", Pestalozzi.
We have also included a short piece by Gabriel Compayré which shows that the notion of school being too hard for children was also around at that time.
