The Prévost orphanage in

Cempuis Cempuis () is a Communes of France, commune in the Oise Departments of France, department in northern France. Geography Village is situated on the plateau of Picardie near Grandvilliers, Oise, Grandvilliers History A knight from Cempuis was f ...

(french: L'Orphelinat Prévost de Cempuis) was an orphanage in northern France best known for its experimental libertarian education under the direction of anarchist pedagogue Paul Robin between 1880 and 1894.

History

Following the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...

and disintegration of the French left in the early 1870s, anarchist pedagogue Paul Robin turned to education reform. While teaching French at the Woolwich Royal Military Academy, developed his ideas through the rest of the decade, just as France began a turn towards a free, compulsory, and secular education system. Robin became the supervisor of the Prévost orphanage in

in December 1880. He received the offer through the

old boy network An old boy network (also known as old boys' network, ol' boys' club, old boys' club, old boys' society, good ol' boys club, or good ol' boys system) is an informal system in which wealthy men with similar social or educational background help ...

: his friend

James Guillaume James Guillaume (February 16, 1844, London – November 20, 1916, Paris) was a leading member of the Jura federation, the anarchist wing of the First International. Later, Guillaume would take an active role in the founding of the Anarchist St. I ...

asked head of primary education

Ferdinand Buisson Ferdinand Édouard Buisson (20 December 1841 – 16 February 1932) was a French academic, educational bureaucrat, pacifist and Radical-Socialist (left liberal) politician. He presided over the League of Education from 1902 to 1906 and the Human R ...

to find Robin a position. Buisson and another friend of Robin's, Aristide Rey, were guiding the Prévost bequest, in which the

Saint-Simonian Saint-Simonianism was a French political, religious and social movement of the first half of the 19th century, inspired by the ideas of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). Saint-Simon's ideas, expressed largely through a ...

Joseph Gabriel Prévost established an orphanage in Cempuis in 1861 and set aside money for its continuance after his 1875 death. The

Seine department Seine was the former department of France encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs. It is the only enclaved department of France at that time. Its prefecture was Paris and its INSEE number was 75. The Seine department was disbanded in 1968 ...

briefly used the building for administration in 1880, as Robin returned to France to run the orphanage as a 14-year experiment. The orphanage grew from 58 to 180 children between 1880 and the 1890s, including boys and girls between the ages of eight and fourteen. He integrated his family with the orphanage, treating his charges as if they were his children and vice versa. This lost him the affection of his children but endeared him to his orphans. His disciple and biographer, Gabriel Giroud, was one such orphan. Robin sought to provide an "integrated education" that combined intellectual and manual learning, both arts and sciences. Influenced by

Charles Fourier François Marie Charles Fourier (;; 7 April 1772 – 10 October 1837) was a French philosopher, an influential early socialist thinker and one of the founders of utopian socialism. Some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in ...

's concept of ''la papillonne'', he wanted students to have the freedom of moving between physical, intellectual, and moral tasks, so as to foster creativity. He also wanted early education to be spontaneous, as if knowledge was transmitted by chance. Much of what is known about the Prévost orphanage's pedagogy comes from Giroud and the bulletin compiled by the students.

History

References

Bibliography

Further reading