Reorganization of the public education system in the Kingdom of Naples during the French period

This article examines the school reforms that took place in the Kingdom of Naples during the French period. Between 1806 and 1814, the public school s ystem was radically redesigned. A complex of norms and regulations, largely borrowed from the Napoleonic model, gave public schooling an entirely new look, very different from that of the ancien regime. Despite its importance , this effort at reform has been little studied. This examination looks in particular at institutional aspects. Legislation regarding schools was prog ressively refined, culminating in the Organic Decree for Public Education o f 1811. With this, the south had, for the first time, a public education sy stem that was conceived, and thus regulated, as a complex of parts that wer e closely linked together. What effects did this have? In the short term, i t seems that the results differed not only by economic, social and cultural group, but also according to the sensibilities with which each local admin istration translated the central government's directives into actual practi ce. Looked at in a longer-term perspective, the impact of the reforms is mu ch clearer: the reorganization of the scholastic system, affecting the equi libria between demand for and supply of education, was destined to modify p ermanently the relations between school and society in the south.