French Education in Science: and the Puzzle of Retardation, 1790-1840

Abstract

The essay traces the ups and downs of French scientific education from the 1780s to 1840. It began with the discovery that in the Department of the North mathematics and science dropped out of the curriculum of the colleges after 1815. Education belongs to cultural history and in the French case we have another example of a cultural factor playing into industrial development, and contributing to retardation. The key for understanding this rather bizarre reaction to scientific learning lies in the Catholic reaction to the French Revolution.