From Lavisse to Bescherelle, these textbooks have left their mark on generations of students
Lavisse, Bled, Bescherelle, Lagarde, and Michard—names that remain inextricably linked to the history, grammar, spelling, and literature textbooks these teachers authored. Their works left an indelible mark on the history of education inthe 19th and20th centuries, becoming essential reference materials for students.
Sylvain Wagnon, University of Montpellier
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How can we explain their longevity? How did these textbooks come to symbolize a particular school culture? What do they reveal about the structure of the national education system and teaching methods up to the present day?
As both a reflection of their time and a subject of research, textbooks must be approached holistically. A pioneer in the study of textbooks, Alain Choppin has clearly demonstrated that the textbook is a historical fallacy, encompassing a wide variety of formats and uses. As tools for implementing curricula and links between the institution, teachers, students, and parents, textbooks are pillars in the development of a school culture—to borrow André Chervel’s term—stemming from encyclopedic academic knowledge.
Their content is sometimes criticized for being biased. Due to their inherent lack of neutrality, they have perpetuated gender and class stereotypes, both in the past and today. Even though their demise is often predicted in light of the growing availability of online resources, they are still here, in print or digital form. The recent lockdown period only confirmed this reality, with digital textbooks made available for free in the name of educational continuity.
School Novels
Ernest Lavisse (1842–1922) was one of the most prolific and widely published authors for Armand Colin, with over 20 million copies sold across all educational levels. A renowned historian, he crafted a “national narrative” centered on a school curriculum focused on France, its power, and its mythologized male figures.
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In the same vein, *Le tour de France par deux enfants* by Augustine Fouillée—who wrote under the pseudonym G. Bruno—first published in 1877, reflects this same conception of the textbook and the model lesson: an encyclopedic narrative that allows the teacher to serve as the linchpin of knowledge transmission and to develop a patriotic discourse in post-war France following the 1870 conflict and the consolidation of the republic.
What are commonly referred to as “the little Lavisses” remained the standard history textbooks until World War II. Today, of course, the evolution of the discipline—and the shift in teaching toward a document-based approach—has rendered the Lavisse a relic of a bygone era. Nevertheless, these works continue to be reprinted to this day as references to a bygone and nostalgic era.
French Language and Literature
While Ernest Lavisse, an academic, wrote for teachers and students based on his own conception of history, Odette and Édouard Bled, elementary school teachers, developed their spelling and grammar textbook based on their observations in the classroom. An essential resource for generations of schoolchildren since its first edition in 1946, the Bled is often paired with the “Bescherelle,” a verb conjugation guide.
Backed by the educational system, these two works are still regarded as “official” texts, essential to a student’s education. Nevertheless, they reflect a certain vision of education. Édouard Bled was a fierce opponent of any spelling reform, and the Bescherelle, relying exclusively on rote memorization, fails to account for the shift in teaching toward contextual understanding or textual analysis.
Bordas Publishing
André Lagarde and Laurent Michard, who began their careers as high school teachers and later became school superintendents, began publishing a series of textbooks in 1948 that featured excerpts from seminal literary works, illustrations, and biographies. Their first publication marked a revolution in publishing. Across six volumes in total, they presented a chronological anthology of French literature.
Today, the Lagarde and Michard textbooks are seen more as symbols of a secondary education system based on encyclopedic knowledge. Furthermore, in terms of content, the selection of certain text excerpts and commentaries has been subject to criticism. Nevertheless, these books, which have also sold over 20 million copies, remain references for some teachers and, above all, a part of the memories of several generations of high school students.
Communication tool
One might therefore legitimately question the longevity of these textbooks. Is this due to their extraordinary ability to reinvent themselves, or is it a symptom of a certain pedagogical inertia? Progressive educators such as Célestin Freinet in the early20th century criticized this dominance of textbooks, arguing that they hinder students’ independent thinking.
Since the 1960s, textbooks have no longer been written solely by individual authors but by teams. No single textbook now holds such a monopoly, and numerous publishing houses compete to offer textbooks featuring high-quality illustrations and materials that reflect evolving teaching methods. It should be noted that school textbooks account for between 12 and 18% of the French publishing industry’s revenue.
Furthermore, the use of textbooks in the classroom is a complex issue. They serve as a reference and a tool for teachers to convey knowledge, but they also act as a bridge for communicating curriculum information to parents, as the lockdown period clearly demonstrated.
See also:
Distance learning: Lessons from the lockdown
To date, the use of textbooks has also fostered a specific school culture and model, in which the teacher and the knowledge they impart are at the heart of the institution. For now, the digital revolution seems to be bringing about little change. Perceived as the primary tools of lessons learned...textbooks must also serve as tools for understanding the changes taking place in our societies and as vehicles for transforming our perspectives.
Sylvain Wagnon, Professor of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.