Education as a Concern of the State: Physical Education in National Plans for Education in France, 1763-1795

Abstract A growing concern for the establishment of a national system of education was clearly evident in France during the last decades of the eighteenth century. Physical education was afforded an important role in the educational projections of the period. Beginning with La Chalotais' Essai d'education nationale (1763) authors began to express more and more support for the inclusion of a comprehensive program of physical education. Gabriel Coyer's De l'education publique (1770), Louis Philipon de la Madelaine's Vues patriotiques sur l'education du peuple (1783) and De l'education des colleges (1784), and Jean Ver dier's Maison d'education physique et morale (1772) and Cours d'education a l'usage des eleves (1777) all contributed significantly to the concept that physical education must constitute an important and integral part of any comprehensive and viable plan for national education. Among the most important deliberations of the various French revolutionary assemblies between 1789 and 1795 were thos...