Ideal of Education among the European Nobilities

From the 17th to the early 19th century, the education of young noblemen in Europe underwent important transformations under the influence of social evolution, the development of ideas and the action of political and religious authorities. These transformations, most of which went beyond the scope of the nobility and concerned all the elites, resulted in the invention of new institutional forms (for example, the proliferation of Catholic and Protestant colleges and military schools and later schools of engineering, the foundation of schools for girls and new universities and the evolution of university systems and so forth) and the systematization of new practices (the spread and subsequent criticism of boarding schools, the rise of individual and home education, the educational Grand Tour, the decline of Latin and traditional disciplines and their replacement with new ones, including French). These material forms were accompanied by the evolution of ideas which may also have caused them.

This period was indeed very rich in educational projects which increased steadily in number, at the level of states and at that of the elites as well. At the same time (and this is probably not simply a coincidence), the elites, and especially the nobility, to varying degrees, went through a difficult process of self-definition and were challenged. Finally, this period, starting from the middle of the 18th century in particular, was characterized by the intensive spread of educational models throughout Europe. These models were often claimed to be universal, but were in fact frequently associated with one nation, either by their supporters or by their opponents. This was the case, for example, with German university models, British education or what was later called, in the discourses of its detractors, the ‘French model’. The educational requirements formulated by European elites were influenced by the evolution of these institutions, practices and state projects and it is necessary to take them into account if we want to understand correctly the numerous and various discourses on education produced at the time.