ABSTRACT
Maurice Barres looked for the sentiment or the common interests that would unite the country he found so "divided and headless," and found them in the idea of a unified group and a strong leader. In the case of the Nationalists, the purpose of education was to produce a passionate and devoted love of country, and in the case of Georges Sorel, to produce a worker devoted to his work. The democratic Republican regime, which excited and fed a hundred internal quarrels, had ruined the moral unity of the country. The attack oil centralization was carried over from political and social matters to the educational system, the writers attacking the uniformity or unity of the system. Decentralization could restore the effective life of the provinces politically and culturally, could liberate France from the influence of foreigners, could restore Alsace and Lorraine, the provinces that had been lost by a centralist regime.
