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Abstract:
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Though the establishment of educational institutions is not necessarily surprising in Counter Reformation France as the church was obliged to foster education , what was innovative about Lyon’s écoles de charité is that “professional education” was stressed alongside Catholic doctrine in the seventeenth century . Catering to Lyon’s poor youth , these schools taught proper Catholic comportment , reading , writing , counting , and the acquisition of craft skills . Official and unofficial records reveal the charity schools’ daily practices and pedagogical exercises as well as the goals of the state , church , and local elite in fostering and supporting these institutions . The schools molded children into “moral , productive workers and faithful subjects” who could act as agents of the state , church , and community . Students had the responsibility of “elevating the morality , Christianity , and education” of their families , improving the “lower sorts” literally from the bottom -up . This thesis also addresses parents’ incentives in sending their children to these institutions .
This projects spans several historiographies including that of early modern education , childhood , and the Catholic Reformation . Though other studies have mentioned the establishment of écoles de charité as part of a wider impulse of charitable giving spurred by the Catholic Reformation , little work exists on the schools’ specific dynamics or on the relationship to the state and community embedded in the routine life of these schools . Additionally , this project uses “childhood” as a category of historical analysis , investigating how different early modern social groups used children to change society . Finally , this project engages the Catholic Reformation as these schools were part of a larger project to expand knowledge of Catholic beliefs onto the people propelled by local as well as elite interests . |