Some aspects of the relationship between school and human rights in France in the 18th century

Abstract

In this article, we discuss some aspects related to the intersection between knowledge, human rights and considerations about the public school during the 18th century. For this discussion, we base ourselves on some texts by the philosophers Rousseau and Condorcet. According to the perspective of a reading of these texts, the conception of knowledge, as a process of search and investigation of the truth, influenced the perception of the need for a public school or, at least, a school, subsidized by the State, that would instruct as many people as possible within a country. In this way, the discussion about the statute
of knowledge and the intermediation in relation to its construction and transmission should also be operated with great power by the school, according to the philosophers mentioned above. The main institution that would make this happen would be a school encouraged, supported and subsidized by the State, or even an effectively public school. In the highlighted period, relating knowledge and its transmission more strongly to a public school also provided the deepening of the debate on the need for a proclamation of the natural, civil and political rights of man, to which the group was given the name of human rights humans. One of the strengths of this intersection is given in the following consideration: so that rights could be respected and guaranteed, they should be, above all, known and expanding this knowledge is a task of the school.