Favre, Julie Velten (1834–1896)

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Favre, Julie Velten (1834–1896)

French educator and philosopher who was the director of École Normale Superieure de Sevres (1881–96). Name variations: Mme. Jules Favre. Born Julie Velten in Wissembourg, France, on November 5, 1834; died in January 1896; daughter of a Lutheran pastor and official; had two brothers and three sisters; obtained teacher's degree from Wissembourg; married Gabriel Claude Jules Favre (1809–1880, French lawyer and diplomat), in 1870.

Selected works:

La Morale des Stoïciens (The Morality of the Stoics, 1887); La Morale de Socrate (The Morality of Socrates, 1887); Montaigne moraliste et pédagogue (Montaigne as a moralist and a pedagog, 1887); La Morale d'Aristotle (The Morality of Aristotle, 1888); La Morale de Ciceron (The Morality of Cicero, 1889); La Morale de Plutarque (The Morality of Plutarch).

Julie Favre rebelled against her strict Lutheran upbringing even in childhood. Although her work reflected a belief that morality, the main subject of her writings, was related to spirituality, she argued that it could be learned without religious enforcement. Favre believed wholeheartedly in the importance of freedom and choice, and she aligned herself with the French Republicans, who resisted monarchy.

She was trained as a teacher in Wissembourg, the town in which she had grown up. In Paris, she started as the head assistant of a boarding school for girls run by Mme Frèrejean . They became close friends and would remain so until Frère-jean's death in 1860, at which time Favre took over as director. Both practiced liberal education, emphasizing the health, well-being, and freedom of the students, while trying to build their students' moral education and personal strengths.

In 1870, Julie married Jules Favre, also a Republican, who had been leader of the opposition to the Second Empire (1863–68), and would be minister of foreign affairs and vice-president of the Government of National Defense (1870–71), as well as a member of the Senate (1876–80). After Frère-jean's death, Julie ran the school and translated German and Swiss books into French. Her husband died in 1880, and during her long mourning Favre compiled his writing, which was published in several multivolume sets.

In 1881, she began the directorship of the new École Normale Superieure de Sevres, which allowed young women to receive a broad secondary education. In a move unusual for a European nation at the time, the French government, which had instituted the school, emphasized the importance of having women instructors. Favre's program stressed student freedom, and the strong devotion she earned from her students was attributed to her commitment to following her convictions. The school was very popular, attracting pupils from all over France, but was resented by members of the local community, who were sometimes at odds with the ideas of student independence fostered by Favre.