A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #348 - History, Education: Popular universities (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The first popular universities, designed as a place where workers could 
come and listen to conferences or general culture courses, free of 
charge, were born "in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair"[5]. ---- Their 
objective is to disseminate knowledge on a larger scale. Unlike the 
Labor Exchanges, they do not offer practical or professional courses; 
there is also no exam to obtain a diploma. They differ from conferences 
given in universities in the sense that the speaker does not have a 
platform: he is on the same level as those who come to listen to him but 
also to discuss with him.

The first popular university was created in April 1898 in Paris.

It was imagined by the wood sculptor and typographer Georges Deherme 
(1870-1937), originally with libertarian ideas (he moved away around 
1894[1]), and a group of workers from Montreuil-sous-Bois joined by 
intellectuals including the republican Gabriel Séailles (1852-1922), 
professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne and one of the founders of the 
League for Human Rights[2].

This first initiative takes the name Cooperation of Ideas, which is the 
title of the monthly review of positive sociology founded by Deherme[3].

Popular universities enjoyed great success, as evidenced by their 
meteoric development in the first decade of the 20th century (in 1914, 
there were 230 in France).

Some are the initiative of anarchist activists, such as that of Grenoble 
founded in 1907 by Charles Guinet (born in 1861)[4].

Despite a desire to offer emancipatory education to the working world, a 
gap is widening between worker expectations and speakers, who are more 
accustomed to speaking to a student audience and not always managing to 
adapt their courses to a diverse audience.

The outbreak of the First World War put a sharp halt to the development 
of popular universities, which were reborn in other forms at the end of 
the war.

Céline (UCL Lyon)

To validate

[1]Jean Maitron, "DEHERME Georges", Le Maitron, 
Maitron.fr/spip.php?article108756.

[2]Hugues Lenoir, "Brief history of popular universities", March 8, 
2014: Hugueslenoir.fr/breve-histoire-des-universites-populaires/.

[3]Laurent Dartigues, "The Popular University. Part 1: Return to a story 
to write", Carnets Vagabonds, June 17, 2012, Doi.org/10.58079/orq6.

[4]Yves Lequin, Rolf Dupuy and Marianne Enckell, "GUINET Charles, 
Antoine", Le Maitron des anarchistes, Maitron.fr/spip.php?article153678.

[5]Christian Verrier, "A brief history of popular universities", 
Ufr-sepf.univ-paris8.fr/une-breve-histoire-des-universites-populaires

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Education-Les-universites-populaires
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