Students respond: Post-Jesuit drama & critical education in Lille. Unrecorded.

[Theater] / [Jesuits] / [Education] / [School printing]. Compliment Agonyque, Ensuite de la Piéce representee au Collége de Lille, les 22 & 23 Août 1768. S.l. [likely Lille], s.a. [likely 1768]. 8vo [18.7 x 12.8 cm], 8 pp. Bound in contemporary plain wrappers. Wrappers with minor stains and dustiness. Minor internal toning and dustiness. Well preserved.
 
 
Unrecorded (and rather curious) critical poem printed in response to a theatrical performance which took place at the Collège de Lille in 1768. The work is written in the first-person plural, from the point of view of students at the Collège, and it presumably was composed by one or more of them. Indeed, they seem to have had the poem printed.
 
Composed in fourteen 10-line stanzas (dizan) and a concluding 8-line stanza (huitan), the poem queries the role of drama in education at the Collège de Lille in the wake of the recent expulsion the 1765 expulsion of the Jesuits (famed for their dramatical ways) and educational reforms following that event (drawn up in Lille in December of 1767).
 
The poem alludes to the educational theorist Charles Rollin (1661-1741; p. 3) and to the pedagogical concept of l’émulation (“l’Emulation nous conduit,” p. 2; i.e., “competition” or “rivalry”; on this matter see P. Marchand, “L’Émulation au College de Lille (1765-1791),” N. Kaplan, and R. R. Palmer, pp. 22-24).
 
Traditional theatrical education is defended throughout: “On nous accuse, on nous condamne / Sur l’usage ancient de nos jeux” (p. 2); “Ce n’est point, dit-on, par des Rôles / Que l’on devient bon Citoyen; / Le nouveau Plan de nos Ecôles / Nous présente un plus sûr moyen” (p. 3); “Pour mieux colorer la reforme, / Le Théatre est peint dangéreux; / On nous en fait un crime énorme / Par ses effets pernicieux” (p. 3); “Porquoi nous conduire autrement? / Le Dramatique est notre sphere, / Il forme mieux le caractére, L’esprit, le coeur, le sentiment” (p. 4); “Notre Théatre est donc utile / Aux progress de nos premiers ans; / C’est le moyen le plus facile / Pour developer nos talens” (p. 7).
 
These sentiments are in line with the findings of Marchand and Trenard, who note that Lille retained many of the Jesuitical methods of education that were quickly jettisoned elsewhere (e.g., “Après l’expulsion des jésuites, leurs concurrents ne triomphent pas partout; souvent, la municipalisation l’emporte. Parfois, le séculier qui prend la direction de l’établissement chante victoire et prononce, dans son discours inaugural, un réquisitoire contre les jésuites. A Lille, le principal s’inspire des suggestions du président Rolland d’Erceville pour adapter le contenu de renseignement, maintenir une efficace émulation, varier les exercices publics et le répertoire théâtral” (Trendard, pp. 454-55).
 
The dramatic piece performed on 22-23 August that inspired the poem is not mentioned explicitly in the poem itself, nor is it alluded to in any clear way that I can tell, and so it remains obscure to me.
 
 
This work is not located by OCLC or KVK.
 
*P. Marchand, Recherches sur l’histoire de l’enseignement au XVIIIe siècle: Le Collège de Lille, 1 avril 1765-10 nivose An V (30 décembre 1796); P. Marchand, “L’Émulation au College de Lille (1765-1791),” Actes du 95e Congres national des societes savantes, vol. 1, pp. 149-69; Nira Kaplan, “Virtuous Competition among Citizens: Emulation in Politics and Pedagogy during the French Revolution,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 36, no. 2 (2003), pp. 241-48; R. R. Palmer, The Improvement of Humanity Education and the French Revolution; Louis Trenard, “Histoire des sciences de l’éducation (période moderne),” Revue Historique, vol. 257, no. 2 (1977), pp. 429-472.