Was the teaching of physical sciences revolutionary? Experimental physics in Nantes, from the college oratorien to the ecole centrale

The creation of the Ecole Normale and the Ecole Polytechnique established a tradition of scientific education that would provide the structure for the hierarchy of the French educational system. All the same, even before the Revolution, experimental physics was taught in colleges as well as technica l and military schools in the possession of physics laboratories. A study o f the College Oratorien allows us to not the existence of an effective prog ram of education in the physical sciences, all the more remarkable as the s chool was a long way from the scientific furor centered on the salons of Pa ris. The materials, the conditions and the place of experiment, the teacher s, the timetables: all these data allow us to evaluate the value of this te aching. With the Revolution, the College de Nantes became an Ecole Centrale where the physical sciences continued to be taught in the same problematic conditions as before. Does the Revolution simply mark the continuation of a tradition initiated under the Ancien Regime? In fact, even though the pra ctical conditions of the teaching evolved little, the Revolutionary period saw innovations in the conception of the place of this teaching and, to use a modern term, the pedagogy. Moving from an experimental science to an app roach akin to that of natural sciences, the Revolution turned the physical sciences into a science of models based on mathematical knowledge.