Celebrating the School Building: Educational Intentions and Collective Representations (The End of the 19th Century)

Abstract

Inscribed in a new typology of public festivities, the placing of the foundation stone and the building’s inauguration celebrated the erection of the new public institutions of the modern state and legitimated them. They form part of the official commemorations organized by the political and intellectual elites to enforce a collective identity and to maintain social cohesion. Both manifestations imply imposing settings, a language and vocabulary purposely conceived, adapted to the audience (especially the students), while the authorities and the school personnel give them a strong educational flavour, noticeable at the level of discourse. The speeches have a strong ideological content, are inhabited by places of memory meant, in the opinion of the speakers to unite, to mobilize, to legitime and to persuade the audience. They are focused on some main themes: history, patriotism, social responsibilities, behavioural norms, and are constructed through exaggerations, distortions and inventions.

“It is just a splendid proof, this foundation

Placed today with so much joy,

For a grand building, the school’s saint shrine

Is talking to us, through its loving name,

…

Let’s erect the beautiful and magnificent building

For the glory of the dead one

And for the pride of us all!

To our beloved school leta’s erect the building”.

(Improvisation on the occasion of placing the foundation stone at the Normal School for Boys, Bucharest)