Échanges de bonnes pratiques ou espionnage pédagogique? Le rapport de George Costa‑Foru études sur “L’instruction publique dans certains des états les plus avancés d’Europe”, București, Tipografia Sf. Sava, 1860

Abstract

A rare book for us but a compulsory object of study for Romanian-speaking teachers in all Romanian schools of Transylvania in the year 1861. In a research related to school plurilingualism in Transylvania of the 19th century, in the correspondence of the studied author, George Bariț, I discovered an order of over 100 books with the title "Studii asupra instructiunii publice în unele din statele cele mai înaintate ale Europei" ("Studies on Public "Instruction in Some of the Most advanced States of Europe"  by George Costa-Foru, published at the Printing House of the National College of St. Sava, in Bucharest, in 1860. The order will be sent to all the Romanian schools in Transylvania, with which George Bariț was in permanent exchange. The author, George Costa-Foru, director of the schools Ephoria in 1857, received an important mission from the representative of the Ottoman Porte in Bucharest, the caimacan Dimitrie Al. Ghica: in four months, he will have to travel across Europe and bring back information about the most advanced schools and educational institutions in the visited states. The way they function will be the model of a school and public education reform in Wallachia, but also, as it will be historically demonstrated, they will constitute the basis of the first Public Education Act in the newly formed Romania, a state created after the union of the two historical Romanian-speaking principalities, Moldova and Wallachia. In the present article, the interest is to introduce the volume with some observations about George Costa-Foru's journey and to put for the first time in the equation the importance of this journey, presented in the book more as a report to a mission then a literary diary. A list of all the institutions he visited is for the first time made available to the general public in our article.  Was this really a baiting mission for the Turks or a simple gathering of information that will be the basis for the modernization of public education in the future sovereign state? The research in progress, of which this article is a part, will endeavour to shed light on this problem of pedagogical espionage: Costa-Foru returns with more than 480 original documents from the institutions visited, which he lists at the end of the report and officially hands over to the Minister of Public Instruction in 1857, the year of his trip. The book is the final report, Costa-Foru gives to his commander, but it does not tell us how these documents were obtained. They are still unknown to the public, but they are summarised in the appendix of the report written by George Costa-Foru.