The concept was devised in 1867 by Marie Pape-Carpantier who was overlooking the écoles maternelles (nursery schools) of that time and who thoroughly renovated the instruction for the early childhood [source - Pdf in French]. She was some sort of radical who wanted to turn the early school into something more plesant where you could learn in contact with real things. Among the real-life objects proposed to the children's attention was the farm, an important thing in the late 19th century, the farm being also an economic structure where both nature and science played a role. You guess it, children were offered along these leçons de choses to take a closer look at viticulture and winemaking. We need to be reminded that virtually every farm would make wine then, the beverage was really mainstream in the nation's daily diet and it would have been unthinkable to shun this economic and cultural sector from the young children's view.
I found this old school book in a street flea market in the Loire. the 126-page book was printed in 1953. Its 62 lessons are divided into 4 seasons, autumn, winter, spring and summer. The leçon de choses dealing with wine is the 9th (page 16) but somehow it proved important enough to appear symbolically on the cover page under the form of a bunch of grapes with leaves, which would be an anathema for school authorities today. The school system was probably more austere than today, with a curriculum more focused on writing skills and simple learnings based on everyday life than on shaping their political views. Children had also less opportunitiess in terms of education in these years without the huge possibilities brought by certain TV programs or the Internet.
The first page of the leçon de choses devoted to winemaking puts the spolight on the grapes. The pupils would have each a cluster of grapes on their school desk, something widely available in autumn (the teacher would have brought them himself), and would shell a grape to see what's inside,peeling one to find the seeds and so on. And then you'd be free to eat the grapes, 6-year-olds love that usually.
Here is my translation of this last paragraph :
1-Cut and paste - There are two ways to grow vines, on a wall and in an open filed. Look for images representing a wall vine and a vineyard; paste them on the same page.
Crush other red grapes in a bowl with a fork and put the whole in a 3rd glass. The skins and the seeds go up to the surface. Push them down from time to time back into the juice.
I can't believe that we French were taught a mere 50 years ago in elementary schools how to make wine (I mean, really, with the pupils' own little hands).... How this country could drift from this common-sense coolness to the present chilliness and accepting being bullied in the hands of political correctness and thought police ?
Our villainous corrupters of youth keep on with their shady schemes, giving them the recipe for these hellish drinks : (my traduction)
-1 A few days ago, you crushed some grapes. What did you put into each glass ? What was the taste of the liquid then ? Did you notice some transformation ?
-2 What do you notice today ? Did the color change in each of the glasses ? How the juice in the glass # 1 turned out ? What about glass # 2 and glass # 3 ? Does the liquid in each glass still taste sweet ?
-3 Separate the wine from the residues. Press the residues to get the remaining juice.
The book doesn't say it that clearly, but kids, you've just made your first wine...Raise your glass and make a toast !
Notice how simple and unsophisticated the winemaking is on this description, and to a large extent I think that it reflects well the way wine was being made then, it's not only that children were fed with an easy-to-remember story, wine was mostly uncorrected in the 1950s', there was no sophisticated enology then, and if not always good this wine was true to its origin and easily drinkable, especially when purchased in small wineries that were selling their wines in the vicinity. The correction and additives business realy began to take its toll on the wines in the 1980s'.
First, the must, the unfermented grape juice [moût in French] : After 2 or 3 days, the juice gets turbid, bubbles appear and reach the surface "like in a lemonade bottle that has just been opened". The must bubbles, it ferments; a few days later it calms down and gets clear again, it has lost its sweet taste, this is now wine. The highlighted sentence (in yellow) reads : The fermentation trasforms the sweet juice into wine.
The wine : When you crush red grapes, the running juice isn't colored yet. During the fermentation, it turns pink, then red; it gets its color from the skins in the must. That's how you get red wine.
If you take awy the skins, the juice ferments but doesn't get any color. Then you get white wine.
Then the lesson gives a cautionary advice tio the children : Wine is an enjoyable drink, but it contains alcohol and it must be drunk in moderate amounts. It can be mixed with water and it can stain cloths.
French research on the leçons de choses and science teachings in the French schools from 1887 to 2001
I understand why this country is so big in the world of wine, thanks Bert
Posted by: Rafa Bernabé | March 09, 2014 at 01:31 PM
Thanks for this nice article, it is really interesting.
Posted by: Arsène Bacchus | March 27, 2014 at 01:59 PM