French higher education in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries : a cultural history

At a time when the role of universities is being constantly questioned, this book looks back to their function during a period when the state--in this case, France--first demanded that institutions of higher learning be socially relevant. Using evidence from surviving student cahiers and professorial textbooks, Brockliss recreated the educational experience of the French professional classes in the age of absolutism. The picture that emerges is one of a higher education system playing a dual role within the culture: on the one hand, developing and promoting a justification of the divine-right monarchy; on the other, acting as a vital agent in transmitting and popularizing the new scientific and philosophical ideas that eventually contributed to the overthrow of the state. This study uses evidence from surviving student cahiers and professional textbooks to recreate the educational experience of the French professional classes in the age of absolutism. L.w.b. Brockliss. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [486]-523.