Prize distribution

You must no longer come and talk to us about narrow-mindedness about the teaching given in congregational schools.

We are given the winners of the Notre-Dame school, rue du Canal, in Angers. It's a kindergarten. The award ceremony was presided over by Canon Dupé.

I copy the names of a few winners: Marthe Bouju, prize for reading, writing and tranquility. Mauricette Balero, price of vigilance and tenderness for toddlers. France Pégeaud, prize for bravery in small school battles. Valérie Champion, price of prudence in case of danger.
To Jacqueline Deniel. graciousness and poetic spirit prize. Jeanne Bricault, prize for kindness and gracious smile. Marie Vincent, price of tranquility and wisdom. Denise Martin, Relentless Bustle Prize. André Le Coq, prize for religious instruction and comedy. ; Florent Poissard, prize for gymnastics and love for pastry. Gérard Poissard, price of submission to his brother, Miss Thounay, director of the nursery school of La rue du.Canal, in Angers, will allow me to send him the expression of my complete sympathy. Mile Thounay deserves one. first prize for intelligence. Intelligence is not pedagogy; it is often quite the opposite. Pedagogy is about learning; intelligence consists in understanding. I don't know if Miss Thounay understands the rule of three and the rule of participles. She understands children, and that's very rare.

In the other schools, all the prizes on the prize list are, uniformly, stupefaction prizes: stupefaction on grammar, history, geography, physics and other mechanically buttered subjects. The intelligences of the kids, their aptitudes, their personalities are disciplined, that is to say neutralized. IT is a question, for the master, of forming the attentive, passive, ideal student: the ideal student is a stupid, insensitive, colorless and without taste.

Now this good Miss Thounay appreciates and rewards, in different pupils, contradictory qualities, which other teachers would repress as faults. Marie Vincent is very wise, very calm, a little weak perhaps. It's his temperament that's like that. A prize to Marie Vincent, who obeys her personal inclination. On the other hand, Denise Martin is perpetually restless. She needs movement. It will later be a small active woman. Encourage activity. A prize to Denise Martin. France Pégeaud gives tattoos to his little comrades in the courtyard of
school. A bravery award to France Pégeaud; because we are in the homeland of Joan of Arc.

On the other hand, Valérie Champion runs away at full speed when she sees a big dog. It is still very good; if Valerie Champion. keep going, she will never be bitten, burned or pinched. Let's encourage Valérie Champion to continue. Jeanne Bricault has one. Pretty smile. Oh! that is very good; it is worth all the geography and all the arithmetic in the world. Truly, a gracious smile helps a young girl get by in life far better than the science written on the blackboard and the wisdom locked away in big books. Let's reward Jeanne Bricault for having a pretty smile.
Let's also reward André Levesque's sense of comedy and religious instruction. Because he has one. famous resource for rainy days, all his life: he will make a pint of good blood by reading the Fathers of the Church.

And finally let's reward Florent Poissard, because he loves pastry more than anything in the world. Gourmets also have a famous resource in themselves for rainy days. It's nice to be greedy, when you have enough to satisfy your greed. So Mademoiselle Thounay does not want to go against nature in children; she lets it blossom; it has at least the merit of encouraging sincerity, whereas ordinary pedagogy imposes hypocrisy.

It seems to me that Montaigne, somewhere, said something like this: “The greatest thing in the world is to be your own. »

It is an impossible thing; but there is another possible thing: The most beautiful thing in the world is to be yourself.

G. DE LA FOUCHARDIERE.