GIRARD, GRÉGOIRE - in the world Giovanni Battista, a great Swiss pedagogue, of the Friars Minor Conventual, b. at Fribourg on 17 Dec. 1765, d. there on 6 March 1850. Ordained a priest at Fribourg in 1788, he devoted the first years of his ministry to teaching in the colleges of the Order at Überlingen and Fribourg. Having made a name for himself with his Plan for public education for the Helvetic Republic, in 1799 he was appointed Catholic counsellor to the minister of Education at Lucerne. When the government moved to Bern, G. became the first Catholic parish priest of that city after the "Reformation". Recalled to Fribourg in 1804 to reorganize and direct the city's elementary schools, he revealed his genius by transforming the artificial system of the school of his time into a nursery of culture, where interest and activity took the place of memory, and joy and the desire to know took the place of the coercion of a body of knowledge already fixed and imposed upon the minds of the pupils.
The results were magnificent, and the fame of the school of Fribourg spread throughout Europe, the Americas and India. Everywhere in Switzerland, in England, in France, in Greece, in Russia "Girardine" schools arose, introduced also into Italy by the pedagogue d. Baghetti. Lambruschini too, later, paid homage to G. "as a disciple to his master". But the method of mutual teaching, which entrusted a group of children to the teaching of a more intelligent companion of theirs under the guidance of the master, was regarded at Fribourg as an overthrow of the social order, an annihilation of the principle of authority. Despite the astonishing results and the recognition given to G. by the most valiant pedagogues of the time, on 2 June 1827 the civil authorities, in agreement with the ecclesiastical authority, abolished mutual teaching. G. withdrew to Lucerne, where he taught philosophy in the state lyceum from 1827 to 1834. He was repeatedly sought out for advice and directives for the organization of the schools of various Swiss cantons, took part in meetings and congresses, and was several times guardian and provincial minister in his Order.
G.'s name has remained linked to the method of mutual teaching, a method occasioned at the outset by the insufficient number of teachers in his school, but from which he knew how to draw the greatest advantages. His fundamental principle was to respond to the innate need for vitality and movement in children. The mechanism consisted in a contest of emulation among the pupils to reach the grade of being able to teach their own fellow pupils, since, as G. used to say, "the best way of learning is that of teaching". Another result of this method was that of training future leaders in the art of commanding, and of instilling in the pupils the civic sense of obedience to the laws and to the constituted authorities. This self-education, education from within, not imposed but developed naturally on the principles of freedom and personality, manifested itself finally in the jury of children, called upon to settle the disciplinary questions arising within the school. The effectiveness of this educational system was founded on the fundamental principle of the maternal method, which, by favouring the natural development of all the faculties, formed the complete man by dint of love and acquired conviction: "If you care about the progress of your pupils, make them love you". It was the method that his mother, "an educator by nature", had taught him. An intuitive method at first, and an abstractive one afterwards. G. knew how to deduce his method above all by referring to the way in which a mother teaches her child the mother tongue. This became for him the great instrument of the formation of the complete man. In studying the mother tongue the child becomes aware by himself of the notions that he acquires, exercising all his natural faculties, without limiting himself to the mere exercise of rote learning. The same maternal principle applies to moral and religious formation, not instilling virtue, but awakening and cultivating the good tendencies that are present as a germ in the heart of the child. "To form Christ in man" is for G. the ideal and the supreme goal of education.
At his death, the Grand Council of Fribourg ordered that his effigy be displayed in all the schools, and a public subscription erected for him in the city a bronze monument, which perpetuates his memory even today.
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Alfonso Pompei