Révolution et pédagogie par l’image : la Nouvelle Méthode d’enseigner l’ABC (1793-1845) de l’imprimeur-libraire Devaux

Résumé 0

With the French Revolution, the literacy of the people became a fundamental citizen’s demand. In this new political system which wanted to promote equality, the access to knowledge became a human right, and for the government a compulsory task for national unity. As opposed to the old idea of people submitted to God and the King, it was necessary to make a free and enlightened citizenship, nourished by the legacy of the Enlightenment and obeying only rationality. This study aims to trace the story of a remarkable, and still little-known revolutionary ABC book: the New Method of Teaching the ABCs by the bookseller-printer Jean-Baptiste Devaux. Throughout its successive editions, this book has witnessed the upheavals of its time, right up to impose a new concept of reading primer which influenced on the publications of the first half of the nineteenth century.