The education of women, a stake in the secularization of schools
At the same time as the abolition was pronounced on April 27, 1848, a decree of the provisional government made primary school compulsory and free in the colony. Education in Martinique was segregated by sex with schools for girls or boys and a teacher of the same sex as the schoolchildren it was called upon to educate. In 1824, the first nuns of Saint-Joseph de Cluny landed in Martinique to take charge of the education of young girls on the island.
The teaching was different. In addition to a common core including reading and writing the French language, the little girl learned to be a future good wife and mother of a family. In addition, access to studies was more or less easy depending on the status of the young girl. Thus a young Béké girl could more easily access school because it was said at the time that girls of color were predestined for a position of servant later. This education gap would of course play an important role because it condemned young girls of color to pauperization in the future.
The secularization of the school is an idea defended by the Mulattoes, the deputy Marius Hurard in the lead, who saw themselves as teachers of a secular school. Let us quote for example the Mulatto writer from Martinique Virgile Salavina who depicts the congregational teaching “totally closed to the slightest critical spirit” seeking to "suffocate under the extinguisher of their casuistry, the reason of the student to lead the latter to believe in miracles the most absurd of the Gospel” or Gesner Rafina who declares:
As long as women are educated by nuns who advocate stupidity such as continence, she will remain a slave to the commandments of the Church.
(Les Colonies, October 1882). Also, the anticlerical movement in the West Indies uses all possible data to demonstrate the "misdeeds" for young girls of religious education.
Taking up the figures on the poor results of young girls in the Elementary Brevet, the Martiniquais newspaper "La Petite France" (April 1886) admits that it cannot
resist [...] the pleasure of noting that out of 37 congregational teachers, only the new superior of the Sisters of Saint Joseph has obtained the elementary certificate.
The main stake of this secularization of the public school was of course assimilation to the French nation because the school was the tool which from an early age taught children the republican values and the love of the fatherland.
The idea widely defended by Marius Hurard was that the secularization of public schools would make it possible to fight against the fact that children are trained only to become perfect Christians and not good Republicans. He will obtain the secularization of all public schools in Martinique.
The other problem he mentioned is that in post-slavery Martinique, the fact that the teaching staff either members of the clergy from metropolitan France and therefore White revived the spirit of slavery. Without refusing the attachment to France, he wanted the education of children to be done by local teachers trained on Martinique soil. Thus in April 1882, he opened in Fort-de-France and Saint-Pierre a normal school "for young people who would like to devote themselves to a career in teaching".
If the teaching of young boys will lay more quickly, that of young girls will be provided for longer by the Sisters because it is delicate. Indeed, this required that more teachers be trained and the social standards of the time did not allow it.
However, in 1884, there will no longer be any public schools in Martinique where the nuns of Saint-Joseph de Cluny still teach. They will be replaced by lay teachers. Another innovative change was that women teachers were also going to integrate boys' schools whereas previously they could only teach little girls. They will also be in charge of the small classes, equivalent to the level of the current nursery school.
The law of October 30, 1886, of the General Council on the secularization of teaching staff under 5 years would confirm the situation although the change was already effective when it was promulgated. In 1901, there were only 3 schools and two boarding schools managed by the 22 nuns of Saint-Joseph de Cluny still present on the island.