We focus here on the key problems at a time when the designers of the IBE were trying to make their mark in the complex web of associations and organisations that assumed the mission of preserving peace on earth.

The selection of controversies on which we focus shows the difficulty of positioning oneself without generating misunderstanding and dissension, suspicions and reproaches and, worse, blatant ostracism for the IBE promoters. Faced with certain ambiguities, they were constantly debating to clarify among themselves and in respect of their protagonists what the IBE’s position was, aiming to strengthen its independence and legitimacy, without losing supportive alliances.

Avoiding Any Ambiguous Link … with the NEF Too

The relationship between the IBE and the NEF and its French-speaking section, the Ligue internationale pour l’éducation nouvelle (LIEN), was particularly sensitive. The two institutions could be considered as blood relations: the co-directors of the IBE, Ferrière and Rotten, who had joined Beatrice Ensor to found the NEF, were in charge of editing the French- and German-speaking journals of the NEF. But if the NEF and the IBE shared similar pedagogical aspirations, each defended its specific features, territory and pre-eminence.

We have shown elsewhere how tricky these negotiations were to be over the decades (Hofstetter, 2015). While displaying a superficial alliance and occasionally collaborating on conferences (e.g. at the NEF congress in Locarno), the two bodies were at loggerheads. The IBE strove to present itself as a research centre, attributing militancy to the NEF alone; this was far from credible, since the ardent propagandist of the new education, Ferrière, was co-founder of both and directed the journal Pour l’Ère nouvelle [For the New Era] (PEN), which offered hospitality to the IBE’s Bulletins for three years. Piaget even stated, four months after his appointment as director of the now intergovernmental organisation (1929), that the “IBE pursues the same goal as the League”: “to bring new education into the official school”.Footnote 1 He wrote to Beatrice Ensor, the president of the NEF, that “it would be advantageous to signal our union and collaboration as quickly as possible”.Footnote 2

However, we discover in correspondence exchanges that proximity to the NEF provoked immediate criticism of the IBE since it would call into question its impartiality, as well as its pedagogy. Let us take, among many examples, the example of the International Union of Associations for the League of Nations (such as its Swiss and French federations), whose recognition and support the IBE requested as early as 1926. The Union was dubious: firstly, it considered the IBE to be an offshoot of the reformist—and overly revolutionary—NEF/LIEN; secondly, it asserted that the IBE was inevitably imbued with Protestantism, given its roots in the Institut Rousseau and in the city of Calvin, which had long been regarded as the “Protestant Rome”.

Intense exchanges between the secretaries and representatives of these associations, and above all of its International Union,Footnote 3 made it possible to overcome these “misunderstandings”: the IBE obtained the endorsement of the Union, under the guarantee of the Bureau’s strict neutrality and objectivity, both pedagogical and religious. The links of the new education with Protestant or related networks (evangelicals, Quakers, etc.) would nevertheless leave a lasting impression.Footnote 4 It should be noted that the mere mention of Rousseau continued to provoke heated controversy: Catholics as well as conservatives, even from Geneva, persisted in demonising the “pamphlets” from his pen, deemed heretical and revolutionary, while Rousseau remained paradoxically elevated on a pedestal as the “Copernicus of pedagogy” by child psychologists and psychopedagogues.Footnote 5

After the 1930s, the IBE’s reformist commitment was only rarely displayed on the institution’s pediment, and the vigour of its innovative pedagogical challenges diminished. But the links were not broken; collaborations took shape mainly through Piaget, who not only took a place on the editorial board of PEN,Footnote 6 and regularly acted as a speaker at NEF congresses or its national branches, but also sat on the NEF Executive Board for some 40 years as director of the IBE.

Later, it was in the bodies outlining the contours and mandates of UNESCO that the heads of the IBE and the NEF met again, alongside other charismatic personalities from the world of education. Although affinities between researchers may have persisted, there is no evidence of deep solidarity between these two bodies, each trying to promote its pioneering work within the nascent UNESCO.

In the LoN’s Compromising Sphere of Influence

Behind the pedagogical and denominational suspicions, there were also philosophical and political differences. Many of the teachers’ federations, which were particularly courted, rallied around the IBE, at least those which identified with the educational progressivismFootnote 7 supposed to counteract pedagogical conservatism deemed harmful and alienating in the so-called traditional school. Even so, the IBE was not spared by the most left-wing teaching associations, including those with revolutionary connotations. They criticised the IBE’s closeness to the LoN agencies, which were considered emblems of imperialism and capitalism, particularly by the communist and independence movements. One instance is a caustic diatribe by Mikhail Yakovlevich Apletin, secretary of the Education Workers’ International, for whom the alleged neutrality of the IBE was tantamount to a position that would defraud even teachers:

The IBE’s orientation towards the League of Nations is already pure and simple politics. Organisations such as the IBE are harmful, since they seek, consciously or unconsciously, to deceive educators, to make them believe that, through neutrality, the class struggle can be eliminated and social harmony achieved.Footnote 8

In 1927, on the occasion of the IBE Congress “Peace through the School” held in Prague, tensions were exacerbated. An open letter to the Presidium of the Congress (under the responsibility of Bovet, director of the IBE) and signed by the General Secretariat of the EWI, denounced as a “fraud” “the attitude of mind which consists in looking upon war as the consequence of a bad education”. On the contrary, capitalism was entirely responsible and should therefore be destroyed, as peace could only be achieved by “the advent of a classless society!”:

It is not the child or the teacher who will give peace to the world, but the armed fist of the worker. […] the truth must be told to the proletariat, and the EWI cannot but denounce such a pernicious attempt to obscure the consciousness of the oppressed classes. [Can we be satisfied with] recommending pacifist propaganda in schools […] when millions of men are still slaves of colonising imperialism? [It is necessary from now on] to no longer mask the hideous face of an imperialism ashamed of itself […], and to fight the lie of peace by way of the bourgeois school [in favour of] a renovation of the school by the advent of the classless Society!Footnote 9

Did these vigorous challenges oblige the respondents at the IBE to face a blind spot in their positioning? Their faith in the transformative potential of new education, linked to their democratic convictions, certainly made them sensitive to the most vulnerable populations. But, in the name of their political neutrality, and perhaps also of their pacifist ideals, they did not use the IBE forum to raise the issue of social discrimination, even when they were pressed to do so: in the name of the chasm that must not be crossed between “pedagogical science and politics”. But in this argumentation itself, its author, Ferrière, took a stance and revealed his biogenetic and naturalist reading of evolution and progress, thus contesting the relevance of an approach in terms of social classes:

We “intellectual workers” declare that we do not accept the simplistic subdivision into social classes. As pioneers of the New Education we see only too clearly that on the path of truth each one must advance at his own pace, to dare to believe in the success of mass appeals, by heavy blows, addressed to the masses. The “advanced” minds should understand that to impose progress from the outside on those who are not mature enough to accept it or to want it from within is to show themselves to be “backward”. (1927, p. 263)

As we have already observed, the core group of Genevan pedagogues who ran the IBE tended to be on the left of the political spectrumFootnote 10 (but, not on the extreme side nor belonging to the communist party), and most of their families were involved in social and philanthropic works and belonged to intellectual and pedagogical circles committed to the promotion of peace, solidarity and democracy.Footnote 11 But it is clear that some of the characteristics of the spirit of Geneva and of the LoN as well as its agencies can be found in the minds of this small circle: built on Wilsonian internationalism and universalist ideals, it reflects a Eurocentrism that was not always free of civilising ambitions.Footnote 12

As for the principle of international education, held as the common denominator of all those who joined the IBE, it was immediately qualified by sometimes-vigorous pleas for the love of the homeland, the bedrock of all civic anchorage. Did it not seem, for some, that this ideal of international education was opposed to proletarian internationalism? When international education was not considered mystifying and astonishingly naïve at a time that nationalist feelings were being exacerbated.Footnote 13

Although the IBE leaders—with the exception of the ebullient Ferrière—only responded officially to such criticism exceptionally, it did not fail to shake them. They constantly consulted each other to clarify their strategies and positions and to adjust their actions accordingly. The same assessment was made at the end of negotiations with the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC), which were particularly complex at the turn of the 1930s (Image 9.1).

Image 9.1
A photograph of a library in the Palais Wilson. There are multiple book shelves. The library is well lit.

The IBE library in the Palais Wilson. The IBE collected thousands of books, scientific and pedagogical journals, and school books which could be consulted in the majestic library of the Palais. From the beginning of its existence, the IBE collected school books from all over the world in more than a hundred languages, from 140 countries. The collection consists of over 20,000 books, currently being digitised. (© IBE)

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Challenging the IIIC by Advocating Neutrality, Objectivity and Diversity

While Piaget recounts in retrospect that “it was a very exciting sport to work in competition with powerful rivals”,Footnote 14 explicitly citing the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC), the disputes with the latter in fact confronted the IBE with one of its most serious crises. An identity crisis too. The stakes in these disputes went far beyond these two institutions and demonstrated the duplicity of diplomatic negotiations and their inevitably political nature. In this case again, the IBE seized the opportunity not only to state its point of view more precisely but also to reposition itself in its intergovernmental functions and strategies.Footnote 15 Was it possible to challenge the IIIC on the basis of the principles of neutrality, objectivity and diversity, which are the only legitimate ones when it comes to thinking about education at the intergovernmental level?

Let us recall that the IIIC was “offered” by France to the LoN in 1926, to serve its International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC); the latter was created in 1922 following appeals made by a number of associations and intellectuals for the LoN to also work for understanding between peoples through channels other than diplomatic ones.Footnote 16 Based on the conviction that the world can only be pacified through the pacification of minds, the IIIC favoured collaboration between intellectuals. But from the outset, it questioned the scope of its educational action, and then expanded it.Footnote 17 It was, by the way, often in Paris, in the very premises of the IIIC, that the Liaison Committee of the major international associationsFootnote 18 came together; it was there that IBE representatives conversed with delegates from other educational institutions in order to keep attuned to the pulse of international associative life.

The creation of the IIIC partly shifted the centre of gravity of educational internationalism to Paris; it also gave new resources to intellectual cooperation, under the auspices of the LoN, allowing it to expand its scope, which was envied by the IBE. Early correspondence showed reciprocal attempts to collaborate from time to time and avoid duplication. This led each of the bodies to specify its mandates, projects and approaches:

  • Pedagogy and its methods were the responsibility of the IBE, while intellectual cooperation was the responsibility of the IIIC.

  • The IBE was responsible for primary and secondary school networks and the professionals who worked in them; the IIIC was responsible for the intellectual community and scientific institutions.

Overlaps were inevitable, as both institutions aimed to build global brotherhood and an awareness of interdependence between peoples: the IBE’s peace educationFootnote 19—and the “transformation of the whole spirit” it presupposed (Piaget 1931b)—in some way echoed the IIIC’s “Society of Minds”. Here are just two examples, among many others,Footnote 20 of the overlapping work sites that required subtle negotiations. The IBE took advantage of this to position itself and to circumscribe its role and therefore the nature of its work as best as it could.

  • History teaching. Initiated by a number of bodies and teachers’ associations, this field was already at the heart of the International Congress of Moral Education of 1922 under the aegis of Ferrière, where it was the occasion for negotiating the possibility of an International Bureau in Geneva and, above all, for elucidating its concept. Now, teaching of history had been a major feature of the two institutions since their foundation. For the IBE, it was a question of how psychopedagogy and its didactic applications could contribute to world solidarity. For the IIIC, it was up to historians to define the contours and spirit of this teaching, and to write the textbooks; the Institute immediately set up a commission to purge the textbooks of any content likely to harm understanding between peoples. Although the IBE agreed to take a back seat in 1929, it nevertheless claimed that its previous initiatives should be recognised. Piaget revealed himself here as a fierce strategist in accepting the overshadowing of the Bureau and setting himself up personally as its legitimate spokesman with the IIIC in this field.Footnote 21

  • The extension of compulsory education. This too lay on the borderline between the two institutions. Since 1934, the IBE had been committed to ensuring that everyone in the world had the right to education and access to secondary education, the vocational purposes of which were also the subject of particular attention. The IIIC could not address the issue of intellectual work without questioning the organisation of secondary education and its programmes. Here it was agreed that the extension of compulsory education would remain an IBE task, while the questions of transitions between secondary and higher education and the working conditions of intellectuals would be the responsibility of the IIIC, in conjunction with the ILO.

The two bodies eventually agreed that they should at least keep each other informed of their work and exchange reports and publications. This shows how limited were the planned collaborations, which in any case were not always adhered to. As early as 1936, Piaget officially protested when he discovered that the IIIC was multiplying its surveys on education—secondary education in particular—without taking into account or quoting the work of the IBE.Footnote 22

Although the representatives of the two organisations solicited one another as experts or invited one another to certain bodies, misunderstandings, cowardice and conflicts followed one after the other. Nothing could quench the IBE’s thirst for legitimacy, as it pursued its initiatives for greater cooperation with the IIIC, which seemed rather inclined to go it alone; at least that is how the IBE’s spokespersons interpreted it, constantly complaining about the exclusion they felt they were suffering.

The situation became explosive in early 1932, when the LoN announcedFootnote 23 that the ICIC would make international collaboration in education a priority. Considering that the LoN was “poaching on its preserves”, the IBE clearly expressed its disapproval. An internal IBE memo—stamped confidential—disassociated itself from the LoN, which was said to be primarily concerned with its own propaganda under cover of pacifism. The note decries the expansionist logic of the IIIC, and consequently the way France used it to impose itself culturally.

After having stayed away from educational issues for a few years because it considered them to be the most sacred area of national sovereignty, the League of Nations has suddenly changed its tactics and, taking advantage of the Conference on Disarmament, is trying to bind states by means of conventions on education under the guise of “moral disarmament”. This project […] will see the OIC in Paris play a leading role in this attempt to regulate education internationally. The LoN has not entrusted this work to its Geneva secretariat, but to the OIC in Paris, an institution financed by the French Government and headed by a French personality. All those who wish to see educational matters dealt with from a strictly objective point of view must have reservations about the influence of a given country on a delicate and important question.Footnote 24

From 1932, Piaget used these arguments as they stood to convince various governments to join the IBE.Footnote 25 After recalling the specificity of the IBE’s educational and scientific mission, and then showing that the LoN—going beyond its initial purpose—was now claiming it as its own, the note criticised the French institute’s “ambitions for cultural hegemony”, which threatened the pedagogical freedom of the major powers:

One may ask whether such a sensitive issue as education can be dealt with objectively in a body that is inevitably subject to political influences, such as the IIIC, whether it can be dealt with in an institute that is not based in a neutral country, but in the capital of a large country where, necessarily, ambitions for cultural hegemony are very likely to exert their influence.

While fundamentally questioning the IIIC, Piaget claimed that the IBE was free from such abuses, and cited its Bureau’s pre-eminence in intergovernmental conferences on education. The IBE had the triple advantage of being located on neutral ground, in a small country and, above all, of confining itself to exclusively technical and documentary work.

Piaget took the opportunity to clarify officially the position of the Bureau: strict independence, objectivity and neutrality, rejection of all standardisation, and resistance to all prescription and constraint. The IBE aspired “on the contrary, to strengthen the characteristics of the educational systems of each country by making them known”. Thus, rather than competing to impose its model, each country would feel “stimulated to benefit from the experiences of others”. By limiting its activity to “scientific research and educational information […] it [the IBE] ensures it cannot interfere with any national educational movement”.Footnote 26

In 1959, in his account of this “exciting […] intergovernmental adventure”, Piaget even claimed that the Organisation for Intellectual Co-operation “desired our demise”.Footnote 27 The archives enable us to show that the IBE authorities seized upon this contradictory dynamic—which is evidence of the intense rivalry between pacifist authorities—to clarify their own principles of action: to build “unity in diversity”, a motto that would last for decades. It is consistent with the ideological background of their psychopedagogical theories, based on the ability to reciprocate—to which we now turn (Image 9.2).Footnote 28

Image 9.2
A poster of the congress and exhibition of the W F E A. It has an illustration of planet Earth under a magnet. The text is at the bottom. It is in a foreign language.

Poster of the congress and exhibition of the World Federation of Education Associations (WFEA) congress held in 1929 in Geneva, co-organised with the IBE and sponsored by local authorities. The slogan: “Education will take the world away from war”. (© BGE)

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Insert 9.1 Conquering the United States: Rivalry with the WFEA

No universalist ambition could be confined to Europe, even if the Old World was then willingly seen as the cradle of civilised culture. The United States was from the outset in the sights of the IBE bureau. It had close contacts with various leading educators of the world—such as John Dewey (1859–1952) and Daniel Alfred Prescott (1898–1970)—and with a number of American organisations working in a similar spirit. In particular, the International Institute of Teachers Colleges, which was establishing itself as a centre for comparative education, and had been conceived as a tool for understanding between peoples, and where Paul Monroe (1869–1947), one of their most faithful supporters, worked.

As early as 1925, the IBE began to work towards a closer relationship with the World Federation of Education Associations (WFEA), which had been created by the National Education Association of the United States in San Francisco in 1923. This World Federation was a particularly privileged interlocutor. Firstly, because the WFEA federated educational associations, namely primary and secondary teachers’ societies, which were also within the scope of the IBE of the Institut Rousseau, were convinced of the fruitfulness of the alliance between scholars and practitioners. Secondly, because the WFEA brought together dozens of associationsFootnote 29 and through them, potentially, several hundred thousand members. The first two biennial meetings of the WFEA (Edinburgh, 1925; Toronto, 1927) were a clear success, and extended to an audience beyond the Anglo-Saxon countries. However, within this framework, projects similar to those of the IBE were taking shape: the WFEA also envisaged the long-term institutionalisation of an office that would have a similar federating mission, driven by the same pacifist ambition. In other words, “its programme is exactly the same as the IBE’s”, conceded the latter in May 1927.

The IBE representatives therefore considered it essential to be recognisedFootnote 30 and to work together, to avoid the powerful WFEA sidelining the IBE by imposing itself on the international scene. The WFEA claimed to be potentially endowed with substantial funds, which the IBE could also draw on. Couldn’t the embodiment of the American dream—the extent of its reach and influence, the power of its patrons and their dollars—be transposed to Geneva and realised there? This is what the IBE officials were aiming at, supported by several delegates of the Liaison Committee of the major international associations and even by the Geneva government, interested inmaintaining Geneva’s reputation as a capital of educational internationalism. Indeed, it was the head of the Department of Public Education of the Geneva State Council, Albert Malche, who took the official steps to have the WFEA Congress held in Geneva in 1929 under the aegis of the IBE.

The representatives of the WFEA shared this enthusiasm. Its News-Bulletin of 1 April 1928 claimed that it wanted to make this “Geneva Conference the greatest educational meeting in the history of the world”, in terms of both audience and outcomes:

Geneva is the ideal location for our next meeting. Its ancient renown, its incomparable scenery, and its present exalted position as the spiritual capital of the world, make it the one city of the earth [sic] best suited to be the meeting place of a world-wide educational conference. (1928, 1/3 April, p. 1)Footnote 31

And a few months later, a document drawn up by the two bodies on 23 November 1928, carefully preserved in the archives of the Institut Rousseau, proposed that the IBE should fully integrate the WFEA. It should then dissolve its General Assembly and recommend to its members to join the WFEA, on condition, and only on condition, that the World Federation assumed this integration and supported the IBE by devoting an annual sum of not less than 20,000 dollars; and this for the next five years.Footnote 32 This document was obviously not followed up and each organisation retained its own identity.

For two years, the IBE secretariat worked flat out to clarify the practical arrangements for the WFEA Congress in Geneva in 1929. From the outset, the problem of the delimitation of prerogatives between the two organisations arose. Both were striving to extend their activities and gain access to each other’s contact lists, whilejealously guarding their own. Their internal deliberations approximated to a division of the world, with the IBE secretariat in Geneva aspiring to become the WFEA’s instrument in the regions that the latter had not yet conquered: “We should become the executive office for Europe, South America, French Africa, etc. of the World Federation, leaving America, the United States and probably the British Empire, China and Japan for its future executive office.”Footnote 33 Butts competed skilfully to present the IBE in Geneva as the host of the WFEA, ensuring that the propaganda for the conference allowed the IBE itself to stand out on the world stage, preventing publicity from being monopolised by the WFEA:

I have given a lot of thought to the question of the representation of European countries in Geneva. If we limit ourselves to delegates from associations belonging to the World Federation, we will have very few Europeans. On the other hand, if we campaign for new Associations to join the World Federation in order to be represented here, we will be working for it and against ourselves. This is something that will be very delicate to resolve […] it would obviously be necessary for all the large and even medium-sized associations in Europe to be represented in Geneva, and moreover, it would be necessary for this to serve the interests of the IBE.Footnote 34

Butts suggested that the WFEA see the IBE as its representative in Europe, with the English members of the World Federation even wishing to establish their headquarters in Geneva. Within the Liaison Committee, the IBE secretariat also received broad support, as well as innumerable suggestions in which the ambivalence of the Europeans towards this “big, vague cloud”,Footnote 35 whose scope nevertheless aroused much envy, could be perceived.

The 1929 Conference did take place, but the American dream did not materialise, at least in terms of finance, since the IBE struggled to pay off the substantial financial deficit: only a quarter (435) of the promised Americans took part in what was billed as the “World Education Forum”. Letters mention a distrust of Geneva and the overly pacifist spirit of the League of Nations; the very Anglo-Saxon spirit of the WFEA may also explain this (as they showed little interest in Europe), as well as internal dissension within the WFEA, which moreover found its federating force, and even its credibility in the United States diminished.Footnote 36

On the other hand, in terms of content, the archives testify to the richness of the work carried out for this conference, contributing to the institutionalisation and internationalisation of the disciplinary field of educational sciences in Europe, a field then driven by the pacifist ideal of the 1920s. These sources also show the extent of the connections consolidated or newly instituted, notably between delegates from learned societies and professional and militant associations as well as international and governmental organisations, who all rubbed shoulders for 15 days, during the administrative and scientific sessions and the receptions, as well as in the aisles of the gigantic exhibition which allowed each organisation to illustrate its work.