Education and Secularization

The 1870s also saw the beginning of educational reforms that would transform French society. Jules Ferry, though not yet in power, was already articulating his vision of free, mandatory, secular education. "The inequality of education is the worst of all inequalities," he argued, "for it creates all the others."

The battle over education became a proxy for larger conflicts about France's identity. The Catholic Church had long dominated schooling, particularly for girls. Republicans saw church control as perpetuating royalist sentiment and female subservience. The church saw secular education as an attack on morality and tradition.

In this climate, even small changes carried symbolic weight. When the Paris municipal council voted in 1879 to remove crucifixes from public hospital wards, protests erupted. "They are stealing our consolation in suffering," wrote one patient. But others supported the change. Sarah Bernstein, a Jewish nurse at the Hôtel-Dieu, recalled how patients had sometimes refused her care, believing she would contaminate them. "The removal of religious symbols," she wrote, "reminded everyone that the hospital served all citizens equally."