Amédée Jacques
Encyclopedia
Amédée Jacques often known as Amadeo, was a Franco
-Argentine
pedagogue and philosopher and one of the most prestigious educators of his time.
and the École Normale Supérieure
. He received his doctorate in letters from the Sorbonne
at the age of twenty-four, and soon afterwards received a degree in natural sciences. He worked as a docent
at the École Normale Supérieure and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand
.
He collaborated on Adolphe Frank's Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques in 1843, and also worked in publishing. He wrote the sections Introduction and Psychologie of Jules Simon
and Émile Saisset
's Manuel de philosophie à l'usage des collèges.
Jacques clashed with the Minister of Public Education, Victor Cousin
, with whom he, Simon, and Saisset differed politically. In 1847, the three professors founded a journal of opinion, Liberté de penser, although Simon soon resigned due to Jacques's collectivist sympathies.
Jacques emigrated to Montevideo
, bringing with him a recommendation from Alexander von Humboldt
. He intended originally to reorganize the Universidad Mayor
, but his initiatives did not win support. Attracted to Entre Ríos
by the progressive culture fostered there by its governor Justo José de Urquiza
, Jacques decided to move to Paraná
. Here he sold his scientific instruments to the local college and acquired supplies for daguerreotypy
and surveying, by which he hoped to earn a living.
Jacques moved to Buenos Aires to give free physics lectures, but these were not popular. With Alfredo Cosson, he traveled to Rosario
and Entre Rios to produce daguerreotypes. In 1854, now-president Urquiza appointed him director of the land registry. He lived briefly in Córdoba
and spent several years in Santiago del Estero
, where he was married. He became the official surveyor of the province and conducted an expedition down the Salado River into Chaco
. He also continued to work as a baker, and even thought of becoming a sugarcane
planter. An account of his expedition, Excursion ou Rio Salado et dans le Chaco, was published in Paris in 1857. In it, he recalled the events he had witnessed, including descriptions of the scenery and the customs of local people.
He later moved to Tucumán, where he ran a bakery and worked as a surveyor and photographer, among many other activities, until in 1858 the provincial government appointed him director of the Colegio de San Miguel, based in the old cloisters of La Merced Church, whose professors had moved to Buenos Aires and left it unstaffed. Here he developed further his plan to reform the systems and methodologies of pedagogy. Jacques established the first institute of higher learning in Tucumán, which was praised by Hermann Burmeister
and others, which would educate many distinguished Tucumanians such as Delfín Gallo
and Sisto Terán. However, military and political disorder led Jacques to resign in 1860. In the Tucumanian newspapers El Eco del Norte and El Liberal, he published important articles about his educational principles.
He then relocated to Buenos Aires, where Marcos Paz
, at that time vice president of the republic, designated him chief professor of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires
, and following the death of Eusebio Agüero, president of the college. His tenure at the Colegio was recorded by Miguel Cané
in his novel Juvenilia, and in Memoria, a pedagogic memoir left incomplete by Jacques's sudden death. At the Colegio he exercised his impulse to transform, introducing new scientific ideas from Europe into the curriculum, and redesigning the curriculum as a means of preparing students to "learn everything".
Along with Juan María Gutiérrez
he prepared the Plan de Instrucción Pública (Plan of Public Instruction), which had a major influence on education in Argentina. He also taught chemistry and experimental physics, and wrote Curso de Filosofía, published in France, which formed the basis for the teaching of philosophy in Argentina.
He died suddenly in 1865 in Buenos Aires.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
-Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
pedagogue and philosopher and one of the most prestigious educators of his time.
Biography
Jacques was the son of Marie Gérard and Nicolás Jacques, a Parisian painter of miniatures. He studied at the Lycée CondorcetLycée Condorcet
The Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's IXe arrondissement. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. The...
and the École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
. He received his doctorate in letters from the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
at the age of twenty-four, and soon afterwards received a degree in natural sciences. He worked as a docent
Docent
Docent is a title at some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks below professor . Docent is also used at some universities generically for a person who has the right to teach...
at the École Normale Supérieure and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand
Lycée Louis-le-Grand
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand is a public secondary school located in Paris, widely regarded as one of the most rigorous in France. Formerly known as the Collège de Clermont, it was named in king Louis XIV of France's honor after he visited the school and offered his patronage.It offers both a...
.
He collaborated on Adolphe Frank's Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques in 1843, and also worked in publishing. He wrote the sections Introduction and Psychologie of Jules Simon
Jules Simon
Jules François Simon was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leader of the Opportunist Republicans faction.-Biography:Simon was born at Lorient. His father was a linen-draper from Lorraine, who renounced Protestantism before his second marriage with a Catholic Breton. Jules Simon...
and Émile Saisset
Émile Saisset
Émile Edmond Saisset was a French philosopher.He was born at Montpellier. He studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure, and carried on the eclectic tradition of his master along with Ravaisson and Jules Simon...
's Manuel de philosophie à l'usage des collèges.
Jacques clashed with the Minister of Public Education, Victor Cousin
Victor Cousin
Victor Cousin was a French philosopher. He was a proponent of Scottish Common Sense Realism and had an important influence on French educational policy.-Early life:...
, with whom he, Simon, and Saisset differed politically. In 1847, the three professors founded a journal of opinion, Liberté de penser, although Simon soon resigned due to Jacques's collectivist sympathies.
Jacques emigrated to Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, bringing with him a recommendation from Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
. He intended originally to reorganize the Universidad Mayor
University of the Republic, Uruguay
The University of the Republic is Uruguay's public university. It is the most important and country's largest university, with a student body of more than 80,000 students. It was founded on July 18, 1849 in Montevideo, where most of its buildings and facilities are still located. Its current...
, but his initiatives did not win support. Attracted to Entre Ríos
Entre Ríos Province
Entre Ríos is a northeastern province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires , Corrientes and Santa Fe , and Uruguay in the east....
by the progressive culture fostered there by its governor Justo José de Urquiza
Justo José de Urquiza
Justo José de Urquiza y García was an Argentine general and politician. He was president of the Argentine Confederation from 1854 to 1860.He was governor of Entre Ríos during the government of Juan Manuel de Rosas, governor of Buenos Aires with powers delegated from the other provinces...
, Jacques decided to move to Paraná
Paraná, Entre Ríos
Paraná is the capital city of the Argentine province of Entre Ríos, located on the eastern shore of the Paraná River, opposite the city of Santa Fe, capital of the neighbouring Santa Fe Province...
. Here he sold his scientific instruments to the local college and acquired supplies for daguerreotypy
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
and surveying, by which he hoped to earn a living.
Jacques moved to Buenos Aires to give free physics lectures, but these were not popular. With Alfredo Cosson, he traveled to Rosario
Rosario
Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....
and Entre Rios to produce daguerreotypes. In 1854, now-president Urquiza appointed him director of the land registry. He lived briefly in Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
and spent several years in Santiago del Estero
Santiago del Estero Province
Santiago del Estero is a province of Argentina, located in the north of the country. Neighbouring provinces are from the north clockwise Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca and Tucumán.-History:...
, where he was married. He became the official surveyor of the province and conducted an expedition down the Salado River into Chaco
Chaco Province
Chaco is an Argentine province located in the north of the country, near the border with Paraguay. Its capital is Resistencia on the Paraná River opposite the city of Corrientes...
. He also continued to work as a baker, and even thought of becoming a sugarcane
Sugarcane
Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...
planter. An account of his expedition, Excursion ou Rio Salado et dans le Chaco, was published in Paris in 1857. In it, he recalled the events he had witnessed, including descriptions of the scenery and the customs of local people.
He later moved to Tucumán, where he ran a bakery and worked as a surveyor and photographer, among many other activities, until in 1858 the provincial government appointed him director of the Colegio de San Miguel, based in the old cloisters of La Merced Church, whose professors had moved to Buenos Aires and left it unstaffed. Here he developed further his plan to reform the systems and methodologies of pedagogy. Jacques established the first institute of higher learning in Tucumán, which was praised by Hermann Burmeister
Hermann Burmeister
Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister was a German zoologist, entomologist, and herpetologist.Burmeister was born in Stralsund and became a professor of Zoology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1837 to 1861...
and others, which would educate many distinguished Tucumanians such as Delfín Gallo
Delfín Gallo
Delfín Gallo was an Argentine politician and journalist.He was born in San Miguel de Tucumán to a family with connections to the Tucumanian oligarchy, and studied under Amédée Jacques at the Colegio San Miguel....
and Sisto Terán. However, military and political disorder led Jacques to resign in 1860. In the Tucumanian newspapers El Eco del Norte and El Liberal, he published important articles about his educational principles.
He then relocated to Buenos Aires, where Marcos Paz
Marcos Paz
Marcos Paz was Governor of Córdoba and Tucumán Provinces, an Argentine Senator, and Vice President of Argentina from October 12, 1862 until his death in 1868.-Biography:...
, at that time vice president of the republic, designated him chief professor of the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires
Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires
Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires is a public high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the tradition of the European gymnasium it provides a free education that includes classical languages such as Latin and Greek. The school is one of the most prestigious in Argentina...
, and following the death of Eusebio Agüero, president of the college. His tenure at the Colegio was recorded by Miguel Cané
Miguel Cané
Miguel Cané was an Argentine writer, lawyer, academic, journalist, and politician....
in his novel Juvenilia, and in Memoria, a pedagogic memoir left incomplete by Jacques's sudden death. At the Colegio he exercised his impulse to transform, introducing new scientific ideas from Europe into the curriculum, and redesigning the curriculum as a means of preparing students to "learn everything".
Along with Juan María Gutiérrez
Juan María Gutiérrez
Juan María Gutiérrez was an Argentine statesman, jurist, surveyor, historian, critic, and poet.He was a major figure in Argentine liberalism and one of the most prominent promoters of Argentine culture during the 19th century...
he prepared the Plan de Instrucción Pública (Plan of Public Instruction), which had a major influence on education in Argentina. He also taught chemistry and experimental physics, and wrote Curso de Filosofía, published in France, which formed the basis for the teaching of philosophy in Argentina.
He died suddenly in 1865 in Buenos Aires.