132 years ago, on 4 November 1891, the bust of Lazare Carnot (1753-1823), a mathematician, officer and politician, was unveiled on the pediment of the porch of 6 rue du Fouarre, in the 5th arrondissement. At the edge of the Latin Quarter, on the banks of the Seine opposite Notre Dame, the building, constructed in 1880, housed the headquarters of Société pour l'Instruction Elémentaire, founded in 1815.
The sculpture was a gift from his grandson, Sadi Carnot (1837-1894), then President of the French Republic, who wished to pay tribute to his grandfather's commitment to the institution. Indeed, during the Hundred Days (20 March-28 June 1815), while he was Minister of the Interior, Lazare Carnot, convinced of the need for education and good primary teaching, gave his personal support to the newly-established Société pour l'Instruction Elémentaire. The aim of the institution was to develop and disseminate a teaching method from the United Kingdom, known as mutual teaching. This method was a combination of mutual tuition (one pupil acted as a tutor for a fellow pupil) by the Scotsman Andrew Bell (1753-1832) and the monitorial system (pupils were chosen to supervise groups of fellow pupils) by the Englishman Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), with the aim of making elementary education and public instruction more widespread at lower cost. By the 1830s, there were over 2,000 schools of this type in France, mainly in urban areas, with the mutual method really developing its potential with large numbers of pupils. This was a significant stage in the development and generalisation of education, preceding the introduction under the Third Republic of a structured, nationwide system covering both urban and rural areas, and organised around the teacher, the keystone of Jules Ferry's school system, which in 1872 established public (free), secular and compulsory education (including for girls). In addition to its links with the history of education, the building in the rue du Fouarre - which today houses a private university establishment - also features ceramic bands and medallions that invite you to look up at its façade. These are the work of ceramist Theodore Deck (1823-1891). Fascinated by oriental art, which he discovered at the Musée de la Céramique founded in 1824 by Alexandre Brongniart at the Manufacture de Sèvres, Deck developed a collection of earthenware inspired by the technique, style and colours of ceramics produced in the 15th-17th centuries in Iznik, Turkey. Among the colours he reproduced, the most famous was the turquoise blue of the letters on the bands representing the subjects taught and the principles of education - Arts, Sciences, Morals.
Noted in works shown at the International Exhibitions of 1862 and 1878, it was nicknamed "Deck blue" at the time. It can be seen in the small leaves on either side of the faces of four eminent presidents of the institution, presented very realistically in medallions, in black and white on a purple background.
To find out more about this building in the Quartier Latin, mutual education and Théodore Deck's ceramics, please refer to our book 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘜𝘱 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴 https://www.amazon.com/LOOKING-UP-PARIS-French-capital/dp/B09WW2W6TW/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699356974&sr=8-4
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