PROBLEMATISATION OR ETHODOLOGY

37 P. Smeyers and M. Depaepe (eds.), Educational Research: Why ‘What Works’ Doesn’t Work, 37–50. © 2006 Springer.

CHAPTER TWO

ANGELO VAN GORP

OVIDE DECROLY, A HERO OF EDUCATION

Some Reflections on the Effects of Educational Hero Worship

1. INTRODUCTION If there is one thing that seems to ‘work’ when we take a look at the history of education, it is definitely educational hero worship. At the very least, it’s an indication that ‘something’ works. The question is ‘what’, and to what extent? How do we explain this hero worship and, even more importantly, is it only something that works, or can we also detect some indications of possible failures or weaknesses? At first sight, we certainly have to admit that it works. Take Ovide Decroly (1871–1932), for instance. This Belgian educationalist and psychologist acquired worldwide renown and, during his lifetime, became a real hero of education. Encyclopaedia entries, reviews, histories of great thinkers, textbooks and so on prove that he still belongs to the canon of education, in particular to that of ‘new education’. Quite recently, he even acquired a place in the pantheon of the hundred most important educationalists ever (Dubreucq, 1994). Besides that, we do have to mention of course, the schools, which these days, still find Decroly’s educational ideas appealing.

Earlier, and without intending to be exhaustive, we drew attention to some factors that played a determining role in this hero worship (Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2003). Decroly surrounded himself with a group of disciples who attributed to his work an exceptional position within the canon and the discourse of new education. What drove them was primarily their admiration for a man in whom they believed: their shining example was not only a great scholar who was far ahead of his time, but he was above all a man of practice. His unbridled efforts, his enthusiasm, his dedication, his work, and his charisma as an educator inspired those who had to face everyday challenges in the field. It is said that Decroly was selflessly fighting for the interests of the child and finally paid for that with his life. But, precisely that self-effacing and self-sacrificing attitude, a product of his charisma, and the resulting unbridled admiration, minimized the distance between biography and hagiography after his death. The hagiographers became the guardians of a myth that they themselves had created and sustained with the help of

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commemorative books, tributes and ceremonies. Until recently, the hagiographers monopolized Decroly’s ‘inheritance’.

But, even though Decroly’s educational ideas received considerable resonance, he never had as much influence as his rival and contemporary Maria Montessori (1870–1952) (Van Gorp, 2004).1 Unlike the dottoressa, he had no organized network to watch anxiously over the production and dissemination of his materials (Van Gorp, Depaepe & Simon, 2004, p. 226). Although Decroly is also known for his educational games (Decroly & Monchamp, 1914),2 the children themselves had to make most of the educational material that was required for the so-called centres of interest, which eliminated to a large extent the need for industrial production. Do we have to call this a ‘failure’, or is that out of the question? In any event, both heroes had to deal with the educational tradition and a persistent resistance against innovations on the educational shop floor. The child-centred approach was moulded according to the rules of the traditional ‘grammar of schooling, c.q. education- alization’ (Depaepe et al., 2000). All in all, it explains why there are not that many ‘Decroly-schools’, at least not in Belgium.

It should be clear that we not only have to focus on the ‘believers’, the Decrolyens, but also on the ‘non-believers’. Doing so, it is striking that Decroly, although himself a non-Catholic, was not only constituted as a subject of educational hero worship on the non-Catholic but also on the Catholic side. An important impulse for this came from the Swiss priest Eugène Dévaud, who had already contributed to the tribute that appeared shortly after Decroly’s death (e.g. Dévaud, 1936). Also, the Christian Brothers were fervent advocates of Decroly’s method.3 It seems that educational hero worship bridged every ideological boundary (in spite of cultural conflicts) and led to a semblance of an agreement between freethinkers and Catholics in a ‘pillarized’ country like Belgium.

In what follows, I have attempted to examine this hero worship by addressing the following questions. On what basis was Decroly elected a hero of education? Where does ‘the method’ come into this? Why is Decroly treated as a hero by Catholics? What are the differences and similarities between Catholic and non-Catholic hero worship? Last but not the least, for this question will present itself: what were the consequences of this hero worship for the hero himself ? By answering these questions, perhaps we will know whether or not educational hero worship is really and undeniably something that works.

2. ON EDUCATIONAL HERO WORSHIP

We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near. The light which enlightens, which has enlightened the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindled lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness; – in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them (Carlyle, 1841, quoted in De Hovre, 1936², p. 7).

As a justification for his anthology of educational thinkers, consisting of a series of portraits that appeared in the Vlaamsch Opvoedkundig Tijdschrift (Flemish

OVIDE DECROLY, A HERO OF EDUCATION 39

Educational Journal, subsequently referred to as VOT) of which he was the co-founder, the Belgian canon Frans De Hovre (1884–1956)4 claimed that his book met a need for ‘educational hero worship’ amongst teachers and educators. For De Hovre the heroes of education were ‘masters’, ‘great educators’, ‘firm men’, ‘pioneers’ and ‘leading men’ (De Hovre, 1936², pp. 7, 8, 10, 13, 432). Apparently, the fact that two women (Helen Parkhurst and Maria Montessori) also appeared in the series of ‘firm men’ was irrelevant. By definition, a hero was masculine because he acted as a ‘living example’ and ‘source of inspiration’ by following in the footsteps of Christ himself (De Hovre, 1936², pp. 7–8). Following the ancient example of the devotion to the saints, the ‘real cult of the hero’ according to De Hovre, meant that educational hero worship guided teachers and educators into ‘the temple of education’. Referring to the traditional hero worship of Thomas Carlyle, De Hovre compared the great educationalists with a ‘light-fountain’, a ‘torch’ whose light touched everybody.

Almost 20 years later we read, in more or less identical words, with the (non-Catholic) former teacher and inspector Jozef E. Verheyen (1889–1962)5:

Today people from all continents concerned with educational progress still turn to him. They orient themselves to his ideas as towards a light buoy; that continues emitting its rays ([Verheyen], 1952, p. 7).

The ‘light buoy’ mentioned was Ovide Decroly

whose message came to us as an eternal source of intellectual and moral life. A simple and friendly man whose miraculous revelation concerning new education attracted large numbers of enthusiastic and progressive foreign educationalists to Brussels. A noble, true, great man whose work was imbued with his great abilities; and who had the soul of an apostle and the courage and will of a hero, restlessly fighting for more happiness in life and for a better mankind.6 His love knew no littleness and no rest; it was devotion, dedication and sacrifice at the same time. he worked without rest and without doubt with complete self-sacrifice and full dedication. He never sought personal gain; his work was only concerned by higher motives and his entire life was an example of admirable selflessness (Verheyen, 1952).

The message from Decroly was one of love:

May this message continue to live whole and undamaged as an example to all those who will work in education, both now and later. May they, as said in the Bible in the Parable of the Sower, become true: And another part of the seed fell in fertile ground, and gave fruit, one hundred fold (Verheyen, 1952, p. 25).

In this Verheyen echoed the educational hero worship of De Hovre, who, although he did propagate a Catholic educational doctrine, did not restrict himself to the propaganda of the great Catholic thinkers. The classical writings and winged words of the great educationalists that neglected the moral and religious nature of education also deserved their place in the canon of heroes, although he consistently called this a drawback (De Hovre, 1936², p. 433). One of those heroes was Decroly, an ‘indefatigable pioneer’, who (according to De Hovre) belonged to the list of representative educationalists of that time for several reasons (De Hovre, 1931–1932, pp. 57–58). To begin with, he remarked that the French-speaking region was less important educationally than the Anglo-Saxon and German regions. If some resurgence could recently be seen in

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France this was, however, first and foremost due to foreigners like Decroly (De Hovre, 1936², pp. 405–406). Then De Hovre calls Decroly a leading figure from the New-School movement, whose value had been rightly to have acquired world renown on the basis of his useful work on the psychology and pedagogy of early childhood and abnormal children. De Hovre finally catalogues his contributions to reading and writing methods, better known as ‘globalization’, as the best work that has been realized here in recent years (De Hovre, 1936², pp. 432–433).

3. WANTED: HERO

The major event in [the] history [of education] was the coming of Christ on earth. Before Christ everything was preparing for his coming, after Christ everything radiates from Him (taken from: Rombouts, 1940³, p. 2).

That Catholics, through De Hovre, cited Decroly as an educational hero was, as has already been indicated, not entirely expected. After all, according to (the Catholic) Victor d’Espallier (1904–1975)7 in the VOT, Decroly was on the extreme left of the reform movement in education, who are also sometimes called the revolutionary educationalists (d’Espallier, 1932–1933, p. 7). Indeed, Decroly was a leading figure within the New Education Fellowship (NEF), a group that from 1920 to 1930 formed the international forum par excellence on new education and which was called above all ‘anti-clerical’ and ‘anti-Christian’ (d’Espallier, 1932–1933, p. 15). With these words, d’Espallier was referring to the Dutch Friar Sigebertus Rombouts (1883–1962), who even saw Decroly’s ‘new school’, the Ecole de l’Ermitage (founded in 1907 and better known as the school ‘for life, through life’) as a form of socialist and communist propaganda, although he did note that, despite that fact, the attempt to place the school at the centre of life was greatly to be applauded (Rombouts, 1940³, p. 219). Anyhow, the members of the NEF were

those who put fire under the methodical doubt of the efficiency of our daily actions. They are like a demonic man (…) who has a historical role, to combat accepted opinions to the extreme in order to make a new conclusion possible. (…) They are very winsome as extremists insofar as they are the whiplash that shakes the official educationalists from their proverbial self-assurance but on the other hand only insofar as they do not consider the sense of duty so essential in educational issues as harmful (d’Espallier, 1932–1933, pp. 7–8).

That d’Espallier saw a prominent role preserved for Decroly, and had a lot of affinity for a man who was in the frontline of a ‘revolutionary’ educational movement, had seemingly little to do with ideological questions:

Decroly was not always appreciated as he deserved in this country. A lot can be corrected here. Internationally he was placed amongst the very top spokesmen of our times ([d’Espallier], 1932–1933, pp. 4–5).8

As a theoretician Decroly excelled due to his

clear view of the situations. What he proposed could be realized, it was not a utopia … His threefold ability as a doctor, educator and psychologist give his work added value.9 He has a special place of his own as a psychologist. Objective as a physicist but with much love, he

OVIDE DECROLY, A HERO OF EDUCATION 41

observed and experimented. (…) He was not a psychologist with philosophical concerns, nor a psychologist whose questions were limited by the walls of his laboratory. He was a kind of ‘psychologist-educationalist’ ([d’Espallier], 1932–1933, pp. 4–5).

Decroly, according to d’Espallier in a summary article on psycho-pédagogie in Belgium, could, without doubt, be called the most prepossessing figure of the ‘psychological–educational’ tradition in Belgium. Also, the reason why d’Espallier devoted almost his entire article to this role model was because he felt that Decroly could easily compete with prominent international psychologists/educationalists like the Frenchman Alfred Binet and the Swiss Edouard Claparède. Internationally, Decroly was mainly known as an educationalist, or as a pedagogue, but according to d’Espallier he was also an exceptionally skilled child psychologist (d’Espallier, 1954).

We might say that, within the NEF and the New-School movement, Decroly owed his status of hero in part to his role as a psychologist/educationalist (Verheyen, 1933, p. 9). Nevertheless, we have to make a difference between both kinds of hero worship for, in contrast to De Hovre and d’Espallier, Verheyen did not emphasize Decroly’s merits as psychologist/educationalist (although his scientific methods were recognized) but the prestige he gave to the movement in his capacity as doctor and academic. Identifying heroes with saints was no longer meant to be metaphorical, as it was in the case of De Hovre, but became a reality. The hero Decroly assumed the air of a legend and the hero cult was transformed into hagiolatry (Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2003). As has been argued elsewhere (see our contribution on Verheyen; cf. Depaepe, 1997), cultivation of educational heroism undeniably continued to be part of a ‘mission’, and in the case of Verheyen we might argue that, besides recognizing the importance of connecting with acts of heroism in order to legitimize the child-oriented approach, he probably secretly dreamt that he could obtain a place in the temple of education. Anyhow, Decroly’s canonization as a hero appeared to be a fact. Also, Decroly not only acted as a ‘living example’ and ‘source of inspiration’ in the footsteps of Christ but was Christ himself from whom everything radiated.10

I would argue that this process of canonization can still be best observed by citing the Swiss Adolphe Ferrière (1879–1960), the propagandist and opinion maker par excellence of the New-School movement. Following the idea of child-centred education to the letter, the NEF gathered together at biannual conferences all pioneers, their faithful followers, their friends and curious people (the faithful followers of tomorrow) around the cult of the Child (Ferrière, 1927, p. 94). In essence, Ferrière distinguished between the ‘pioneers’ and the ‘others’. The pioneers were the chieftains who preceded the members of the tribe, the pensadores escolanovistas (after Herrera, 1999, p. 32), in the cult of the Child. But, as a result of the canonization of the pioneers themselves, the cult of the Child quickly gave way to the cult of the Pioneer (Van Gorp, 2004, 2005b). In analogy with Montessori and the Montessorians, Decroly became the patron saint of the Decrolyens. The ‘child-centred approach’ in other words gave way to ‘the hero-centred approach’: the distinction between ‘pioneers’ and ‘others’ translated into a distinction between ‘heroes’ and ‘adepts’, between the ‘saints’ and the ‘faithful’.

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Ferrière’s perception of the Pioneer particularly helps us gain an insight into the reasons and causes for Decroly’s hero status. The Pioneer was after all, not just ‘a pioneer’; the NEF had thousands of pioneers within their movement (Ferrière, 1928, p. 9). The Pioneers related to the others as ‘innovators’ to ‘imitators’ and ‘disciples’. The Pioneer had to be an heir to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, combining intuitive education with rational or scientific education and therefore appealing in particular to psychogenesis (as an applied science this was considered to be the mother science of education) to develop his own progressive educational methods on that basis and to apply and refine these in practice (Ferrière, [1911], 1920, p. 12). We can also add to this that a Pioneer was generally also ‘a founder’ (Hameline, 2002; Oelkers, 1995, p. 43), whose school, as an educational Mekka (Verheyen, 1954, p. 11), would attract pilgrims from all over the world. Montessori and Decroly were model examples of the Pioneer for Ferrière. They were the two great examples to which others could model themselves (Ferrière, 1922, p. 83). The weapon they had was ‘the scientific method’ (Ferrière, 1920, p. 28).

4. TO ARMS! With the hero’s weapon, in this case the ‘Decroly-method’, we return to the core of Verheyen’s elegy. Because what was Decroly’s message of love other than

an eternal source of intellectual and moral love. It is not an educational fashion, destined to die an untimely death like so many other methods. It was never possible sufficiently to indicate the deep and full nature of Decroly’s educational methods. Which the master always transferred and implemented in his tests, is not pure detailed technique, e.g. like general reading or centres of interest, but it brings to us the entire educational question with its most natural principles and methods ([Verheyen], 1952, pp. 7–8).

The Decroly-method was a weapon that bound Decrolyens and ‘non-Decrolyens’ like De Hovre and d’Espallier together in their respective hero worship. However, we have to note an important difference in reasoning. This might be described as the difference between the method as ‘aim’ and the method as a ‘means’.

First, let us note that the Decroly-method was, in the eyes of its creator, intended to ensure the child’s enjoyment of life and the futures of the generations of tomorrow (Decroly, 1904, p. 410). As we have already noted with Rombouts, the method was intended to prepare children ‘for life, through life’. This meant preparing children for a society marked by modernity and characterized by industrialization, urbanization, impoverishment, disease and poor hygiene; a society in which the so-called ‘social plagues’ or ‘social ills’ (alcoholism, syphilis, tuberculosis) held sway (Tollebeek, Vanpaemel & Wils, 2003). A society in which an alarmingly high number of abnormal children – the cost of progress, but also food for the spectre of degeneration (Herman, 1997, pp. 13–45, 109–146; Pick, 1989; Chamberlin & Gilman, 1985) – threatened to place the future of mankind at risk (Decroly, 1924). The Decroly-method was essentially the weapon of a hero fighting under the banner of social hygiene and eugenics (Van Gorp, 2005a; see also Helmchen, 1995; Tollebeek, Vanpaemel & Wils, 2003).

OVIDE DECROLY, A HERO OF EDUCATION 43

‘Through life’ means through a ‘natural’ education. On the one hand, this implied that the method took the ‘natural’ development of the child into account. On the other hand, this entailed that the method was preferably applied in a ‘natural’ environment. Much more than in the school barracks and alleys of the large cities where the child was primarily confronted by low and antisocial scenes, nature was the ideal framework in which to bring up a child. Decroly emphasized:

People know that nature is the true educator of all people. It is well known that only the continual influence of a well-chosen milieu can move the child and make its true and social development of its personality possible (Decroly & Buyse, 1923, p. 56).

Although, at first sight, this seems a paradoxical turn – it implies that preparing for life means isolating the child from life (Clausse, 1983, p. 58) – Decroly claimed that a natural framework approached real life in the most effective way possible. The child was not alienated from modernity but, on the contrary, was prepared for it. Responding to one of the fundamental characteristics of the Pioneer (cf. Ferrière, as mentioned above), Decroly provided the foundations for the building blocks of his method on his psychogenetic insights, in particular on the recapitulation theory found in the work of Granville Stanley Hall and John Dewey. As man had developed through history (from primitive to modern, civilized man) a child-in-nature experienced this development from the hunger (wild) stage (nomad, shepherd, agriculturalist, industrialist and trader) so it would always be challenged to fulfil new and continually more complex situations until it was sufficiently armed to step into life (Decroly, 1925, p. 10). At the same time, this also assured man’s progress, because progress for Decroly was synonymous with adaptation to new and increasingly more complex living circumstances (Decroly, 1919, p. 6; see also Helmchen, 1995). Or, as Ferrière described it: the active school is a step on an immense ladder to social progress (Ferrière, 1924, p. 35).

‘For life, through life’, however, also meant that Decroly’s weapon had to be attuned to the constantly developing society. An educational programme that both had to prepare for life and should be adapted to life could not possibly be set down on paper. The Decroly-method was consequently a symbol for ‘education in evolution’ and had neither an absolute nor an exclusive character (Decroly, 1907, pp. 3–5). It was not a code of incontrovertible, set dogmas. It has to be a flexible method that could be continually tested as a model of true applied educational science both to the progress realized in the three basic sciences – biology, psychology, sociology (Van Gorp, 2005a, b; cf. Ley, Brien & Jadot, 1939) – and the needs of society (Decroly, 1928, pp. 1–2).

Yes, the Decroly-method was finally recorded, albeit not by the Master himself but by Amélie Hamaïde (1888–1970), one of his most loyal assistants (Hamaïde, 1922). After she taught between 1911 and 1916 at the Ecole de l’Ermitage, she experimented outside Decroly’s institutes (i.e. the Ermitage and his institute for special education) with the Decroly-method during the war in a school in the urban surroundings of Brussels. That initiative was received with considerable scepticism because few people were convinced that Decroly’s progressive ideas would also bear fruit in a non-elitist environment, specifically in popular education. However, the experiment had a favourable evaluation and in September the method was

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applied in eleven classes within nine schools. In the following year, Decroly appointed Hamaïde to the role of head of the Ermitage. When the municipality of Anderlecht (near Brussels) subsequently showed an interest in the Decroly-method, Decroly appealed to Gérard Boon. Boon was Decroly’s right-hand man at the ward for the treatment of speech defects and retarded children in the Brussels polyclinic and was chosen to correctly introduce the method in two municipal schools. Whilst familiarizing the teachers in Brussels and Anderlecht with the method, Hamaïde travelled from school to school with a series of presentations on the Decroly-method. In addition, the educational staff’s need for a written version of the method proved so great that Hamaïde decided to relieve that need.

Although this took place with her master’s blessing, this initiative came into conflict with Hamaïde’s beliefs regarding ‘education in evolution’. Decroly probably saw the advantages of publishing the book in terms of timely exposure and pure necessity. Hamaïde’s La Méthode Decroly ultimately met a concrete need. However, as a result, Decroly’s fears became realities. The Decrolyens quickly reduced the principle ‘for life, through life’ to a slogan which raised both Ermitage and the Decroly-method to the educational ideal par excellence. The weapon was sharpened. The Decrolyens unfurled their banner, dressed with their idol (Decroly) and ideal (the Decroly-method) transformed into icons (de Ruyter, Bertram-Troost & Sieckelinck, 2005; Frijhoff, 1998, 2005). The Decroly-method became the weapon in commercio that the Decrolyens used in the conquest of the educational market (Van Gorp, 2004; Hameline, 2002, pp. 167–170). The child was removed from his pedestal and the idol was guided through the main gates to the pantheon of educational heroes.

The instigator of these developments was in fact Hamaïde, whose book took on the allure of a bible for Decrolyens. The vitriol at the end of her book particularly spoke volumes in that regard. In the conclusion, Hamaïde had specifically and apparently inadvertently (although it may have been a strategic move) included a passage in which she made a comparison between the methods of Decroly and Montessori (Hamaïde, 1922, pp. 194–197). As well as including a pointless exergesis on which method was the oldest, she alternates between making subtle digs and unleashing the most poisonous arrows. Although both pioneers were doctors by training she consistently spoke of ‘Doctor’ Decroly and ‘Mrs’ Montessori. Furthermore, the Decroly-method greatly ‘resembled’ the educational principles of John Dewey, but Montessori ‘imitated’ the French doctor Edouard Séguin. The Montessori-method was anything but original, had an artificial nature, lacked the important principle of globalization and used ‘the tools of intelligence’ (reading, writing, and arithmetic) in a completely incorrect way. In short, when Hamaïde was asked what she thought of the Montessori-method, she would reply that in relation to Decroly’s ideas, Montessori’s musings were as broken and dead branches are to intact and living trees. Montessori had failed to attach the branches to the tree.

OVIDE DECROLY, A HERO OF EDUCATION 45

5. WEAPON OR WOUND? While the Decroly-method in the hands of the Decrolyens was forged into a weapon to the services of the cult of the Pioneer, the ideal to be achieved had, as a result, deteriorated into a frozen and fixed method. The same weapon was dismantled in the framework of Catholic educational hero worship, to enable the use of the best parts in the fight against ‘crisis education’. D’Espallier criticized the lack of unity and clarity that characterized the pedagogy and education of the 1920s and 1930s (d’Espallier, 1938², pp. 9, 42, 89). It seemed incoherent: educational slogans were like materials that change colour as one looks at them from different points of views. According to d’Espallier, two main causes were at the bottom of this crisis.

First, d’Espallier drew attention to the obstinacy, which characterized the controversy between opposing ideologies; every single educational discussion got bogged down in a Kulturkampf. He also mentioned the longing for innovation:

As in publicity it is said that the most recent developments are the best. Technical terms, mostly from exotic origin, seem to have a kind of magic power and are a panacea for all kinds of difficulties (d’Espallier, 1938², p. 11).

D’Espallier disliked this attitude. After all, the educationalist, belonging to any ideology whatsoever, could agree with the opponent’s views when it came to the more neutral, technical questions. For d’Espallier the Decroly-method was, unlike Verheyen’s, a detailed technique. Dropping subjects, starting from centres of interest and acknowledging the principle of globalization, aided the pedagogy of tomorrow to develop along new paths and consequently combat the crisis in the educational sector. In d’Espallier’s view, the main principles of Decroly’s educational method came into their own in the 1936 curriculum reform – which is generally seen as an important innovation in the history of Belgian primary education and which was partly inspired by Decroly’s ideas – and were not properly realized in the dogmatic approach of Decroly’s disciples (Depaepe, De Vroede & Simon, 1991).

D’Espallier’s (and De Hovre’s) handling of the Decroly-method depended in essence on an eclecticism that was contrary to the orthodoxy of the Decrolyens who, in militant fashion, raised idol and ideal to iconic status (Hameline, 1995, p. V). We might call it the tragedy of the hero Decroly that it was not the ‘believers’, the Decrolyens, who aimed at his ideal of education in evolution, but the ‘non-believers’, such as d’Espallier. However, from d’Espallier’s point of view, we might call this aspiration obvious, for the Belgian psycho-pédagogie was situated on a crossroads of ideas and trends and was by definition eclectic (d’Espallier, 1954, p. 44). Contrary to what the Decrolyens intended with the canonization of Decroly, there could not be any question of a ‘Belgian (read: Decrolyan) School’, as was the case (according to d’Espallier) with the German, English, American and French school. Decroly’s educational ideas and principles, established in the Decroly-method, constituted a part of the melting pot or travelling library of ideas (De Coster, Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2005). Decroly was essentially someone who, with the existing concepts, synthesized, compiled, and combined ideas (Depaepe,

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Simon & Van Gorp, 2003, p. 249). According to d’Espallier these ideas were universal and could not be commandeered by any militant group. D’Espallier hesitated to talk of the Decroly-method, because this was not in accordance with the concepts of the master, who rightly considered that his concepts were still in full development (d’Espallier, 1951, p. 438). Adopting identical positions, both d’Espallier and Ferrière emphasized that Decroly’s epigones had, particularly after his death, changed his ideas into a static system; the dynamic element had consequently been lost (d’Espallier, 1951; Ferrière, 1928, p. 13; see also d’Espallier, 1938², p. 42; De Hovre, 1936², pp. 5–6). As the Dutch Decrolyen Van Liefland commented, the cause for this was in the method itself:

A Decroly-‘method’ in the meaning we generally attach to that: an instruction manual – preferably very detailed – with books, pictures, maps and all kinds of other aids, that all have a fixed place in the method and an accurately defined meaning, such a ‘method’ does not exist and cannot exist. (…) Every method that – in contrary to this assumption – results in fixation is wrong and even the most experienced, most gifted educationalist is not able to design a method that can be used for all pupils, all educators and in all circumstances. Good education is before everything dynamic, must always fit with the abilities of each new group, of each individual child and in the environment from which the child comes and in which the school community lives. It is only possible to give living education and bringing [children] up for life if these constantly changing factors are taken into account. Anyone who does not do so, but who follows any other method author without question will inevitably fall into template work, that misses all inner vitality (Van Liefland, 1959³, pp. 11–13).

Alas, the evil had been done. The hero’s weapon was also his undoing. The Decrolyens had dirtied the legacy of their Master as a result of their excessively orthodox, rigid handling of the Decroly-method. D’Espallier noted for that reason: ‘It is a very striking phenomenon, although not new in world history, that today it is necessary to defend the great educationalists in relation to their epigones’ (d’Espallier, 1938², p. 11). While the method that bore his name was, in Decroly’s hands, more spirit than recipe, without his vitality it threatened to become the latter. D’Espallier gave the Decrolyens the following message:

The educationalists must break the habit of destroying each other with a few killing arguments, arguments that blind them to anything valuable that may be learned from the opponent (d’Espallier, 1932–1933, p. 14).

6. CONCLUSION Decroly’s educational creed, laid down in his slogan ‘par la vie, pour la vie’ [‘for life, through life’], constituted part of a universal educational canon bridging every ideological boundary. It demonstrates what we previously called ‘sliding’ into the educational canon (De Coster, Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2005, p. 97). But, as a result of the canonization of the hero, which manifested itself in the cult of the Pioneer and resulted in a dogmatic Decroly-method, the reception and implementation of Decroly’s progressive educational inheritance was characterized

OVIDE DECROLY, A HERO OF EDUCATION 47

by a current curve between eclecticism and orthodoxy, between depersonalization and personalization.

To a certain extent we can see that ‘the method’ worked, either in an eclectic or in an orthodox way. In the former approach, the method worked for it was appealing to the hero’s ideal of ‘education in evolution’. The latter approach, for its part, was appealing not to the ideal of their hero, but to the ideals of the Decrolyen themselves. At the same time, we might argue that neither approach worked. After all, the eclectic approach dismantled and depersonalized the method, with the result that it arguably became unrecognizable. With regard to the orthodox approach, we might say that, from the hero’s point of view, it failed, for the hero was slain by his own weapon. After all, if you sharpen your weapon with the intention of harming an opponent, you run the risk of cutting yourself.

NOTES 1 Montessori survived Decroly by 20 years, which is not something trivial within this context of hero worship. 2 It was Alice Descoeudres from Geneva who, in 1909, after a few months of training at the Ecole de l’Ermitage, released with the aid of the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the first two series of Decroly’s educational games (e.g. lotto’s), together with the firm of ASEN (which literally means Au Service de l’Education Nouvelle or ‘In Service of New Education’). Other collections of educational games were produced by the firm of Nathan in Paris. Also, Monchamp would be responsible for the release of some series of games. We notice that the Decroly-method, in practice, was often restricted to the application of these games. 3 See e.g. the series Hors des Sentiers Battus (Walking outside the beaten path). 4 De Hovre has been generally considered one of the leading figures in Flemish Catholic education during the period between the First and Second World Wars. 5 See also our contribution (together with Marc Depaepe and Frank Simon) on Verheyen which appears in this volume. The discourse focusing on Decroly became rooted in Flanders as the core of the ideologically ‘neutral’ public education, a tradition that can be traced through the works of, amongst others, Verheyen at the University of Ghent. 6 Italicized by the author of this chapter. 7 D’Espallier, a former student of De Hovre, was also one of the main figures within Catholic education at the time and an exponent of the Flemish psycho-pédagogie. 8 As we have noted elsewhere (Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2003, p. 244) in ‘higher pedagogy’ – which we have to distinguish from ‘lower pedagogy’ (Depaepe et al., 2000) – a dichotomy may well be established between ‘neutral’ (non-catholic) and Catholic education, although such a dividing line has certainly not always been an ideological rift, as the case d’Espallier is demonstrating. 9 A sentence he borrowed from Edouard Claparèdes, which features in the preface (p. X) to Hamaïde, 1922. 10 In a letter of condolence to Decroly’s widow, the Colombian Agustín Nieto Caballero made a literal comparison between Decroly and Christ (Depaepe, Simon & Van Gorp, 2003, p. 237).

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