ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim’s writing on education is well-known and widely recognized to be of great significance. In these lectures – given for the first time in 1902 to ‘meet an urgent contemporary need’ – Durkheim presents a ‘vast and bold fresco’ of educational development in Europe. He covers nearly eight hundred years of history, from the work of the early church in education, through the birth of the universities, the impact of the Renaissance on education and the influence of the Jesuits, to a discussion of the curriculum in the nineteenth century. He gives a fascinating insight into a subject which for many centuries has occupied a central place not only in French, but also in European culture.
