Holistique movement

The Holisitique movement (from Gaullican: "Holistic") is an Educational system and philosophy which seeks to make accessible a strong education and development ordered towards the perfecting of the whole human person. It advocates a form of liberal education, emphasising that humans are only made truly free through faith in God, the pursuit of speculative knowledge, the freedom from vice through virtue, and healthy and prudent living. It derives much of its intellectual inspiration from Scholasticism and medieval education, while also at the same time taking inspiration from Estmerish Muscular Sotirianity. It is a fundamentally Solarian Catholic movement, although it did inspire other similar movements in other religious groups. It is notably characterised by a rejection of research-based and practical institutions as the primary educational model in favour of schools ordered towards the human person.

The movement was founded shortly after the end of the Capois Rebellion by Charles Saint-Pierre, a Chloéois of Bahian descent, and Archbishop Jean-Baptiste d'Aste, the Archbishop of Port de la Sainte. The first goal of the movement began as a means to educate free blacks in Sainte-Chloé, sponsored and funded by the resources of the Catholic Church on the island. The Church saw the opportunity as a chance for education and evangelisation, while the colonial administration thought it would allow for better integration of the free blacks into a Gaullican society. It quickly spread and grew across the whole island, also spreading schools to poorer white communities on the islands. It caused the growth and development of educational institutions of all levels, and eventually came to dominate most of the schools on the island. It also had an impact on many of the schools across the Viceroyalty of the New Aurean, of which Sainte-Chloé was the chief island. The movement was also important for establishing or popularising certain sports, such as baseball and Arucian football. The rise of functionalism caused a division in the movement, which lead to some accusations of the movement's association with the ideology. Many of the schools in the Sainte-Chloé still claim to follow the educational philosophy of the movement.

However, the movement has faced criticism on various different accounts. Opponents of the education have criticised it for indoctrinating and for using outdated methodology, for "whitewashing" the island's Bahian population, or for being functionalist in nature. Supporters of the education have denied said claims, and uphold that it had a fundamentally good outcome on the country as a whole.

History

Charles Saint-Pierre (1824-1909), principal founder and theorist of the Holisitique movement

Founding

Following the abolition of slavery in 1830, the Viceroyalty of the New Aurean had undergone significant changes, migrating away from a slavery-based plantation economy. However, the poorer classes still remained largely uneducated, and while the wealthy had the ability to educate their children and the University of Sainte-Chloé provided higher education under the auspices of the Church. Born as a slave, Charles Saint-Pierre's family moved to Port de la Sainte following the abolition of slavery. He was able to receive an education from his local Catholic parish, assisting there and being taken under the wing of the Roderican Friars which ran it. Successful at his studies, he was sponsored to go through the University of Sainte-Chloé at age 17, and was able to become a Professor of Philosophy at Sacred Heart College by 1853. Having seen how being educated had allowed him to achieve his current position, began to think about ways to expand education and learning across the island, in particular to the free black communities which did not have much education.

In 1866, in the aftermath of the New Aurean Reforms following the Capois Rebellion, Saint-Pierre approached Jean-Baptiste d'Aste, the recently appointed Archbishop of Port de la Sainte and Primate of the Arucian, with his ideas for expanding education to the free black communities across the island. d'Aste was immediately enthusiastic about the project as good for evangelisation, and quickly began to work with Saint-Pierre on devising a strategy for education. Working together with the Archbishop of Tranquille, they began to plan and to build new schools connected with parishes in Bahian communities in Pays du Sucre and in the city of Port de la Sainte, and began to enlist help from religious orders to run the schools. The early schools were rudimentary, designed as day schools for the students to learn to read and write in Gaullican and Solarian, eventually to expand to match the full curriculum which Saint-Pierre had designed. With the funding of the church and through the work of religious orders, the schools were largely able to be free of charge. Seeing the schools as means of "Gaullicanising" the community, the colonial administration allowed the church to have great oversight over the matter.

Jean-Baptiste d'Aste (1827-1919), sponsor and patron of the Holisitique movement

Growth

With the success of the first schools, the schools began to grow in scope and size. d'Aste invited teaching orders from Euclea to come and establish religious communities on the island. Schools began to become large enough to teach the full curriculum which Saint-Pierre had envisioned, with École (primary) and Collège (secondary) creating a new generation of educated individuals. Religious sisters ran schools for girls, while brothers and priests ran ones for boys. Many of these were encouraged to enter into the religious orders which taught the schools; the new influx of priests and religious in turn increased the number of available teachers for future generations. More and more schools began to increase, leading to the eventual foundation of new universities as the main University was unable to keep up with the expanding need for teritary education.

Seeing the effect of the free schools and the new competition for tertiary education, the wealthy began to found boarding schools and private schools, largely following the same general model, but usually having other aspects to set them apart. Free schools run in the Holisitique method began to spread into the poorer white communities which lacked formal schooling opportunities, and from there into Gowsa communities. Seeing the effectiveness of the education, the colonial administration agreed to help contribute fund Holsitique schools, although the administration of the schools remained in control of the Church and the religious orders which ran it. Saint-Pierre became appointed as Vice-Chancellor of the University, and it became the leading school of the Holisitique movement. Holisitique model schools spread to all parts of the Viceroyalty, but were dominant within the Theme of Sainte-Chloé. The departure of the eastern islands to form the Viceroyalty of the Emerald Isles in 1885 limited the influence of the movement on those islands.

Side effects from the growth in education included a growth of literacy, but also the diminishing of languages such as Chloéois Creole in favour of standardised Gaullican. Religious syncretism and heterodoxy was heavily discouraged, and practices were severely curtailed. Instances of corporal punishment occurred, though more rarely than schools in other countries due to a cultural distaste for corporal punishment, instead relying more heavily on impositions and confinements as means of discipline.

Division

Following the death of Saint-Pierre in 1909, leadership and oversight of the movement fell to then-Cardinal d'Aste. He remained the leader of the movement until his death in 1919. By then, his successor, Joseph Père, was a self-proclaimed firm supporter of d'Aste and Saint-Pierre's vision, took over the position as the spiritual leader of the movement, which had the effect of making the promoter of the movement the Archbishop of Port de la Sainte the leader of the group. Early in his tenure as Archbishop, the rise of Functionalism in Gaullica influenced the political landscape in the Viceroyalty. Archbishop Père opposed Functionalism, but not openly, instead operating covertly and refraining from engaging in the political disputes on the island.

However, some within the Holisitique schools began advocating for the schools to adopt functionalist ideology as part of the curriculum. Among these, the foremost was Claude Jarrets, who had also been a proponent of "modernising" the curriculum to match more closely with developments in sociological science. They advocated that in fact the whole purpose of the Holisitique education had been to bring the Bahian population to take up a "Gaullican identity", and that everything it had ought to be considered through lens of the nationalism which was promoted by Trintignant. When hearing about this, Archbishop Père condemned Jarrets and all those who subscribed to his teaching, while being careful to note that it was not a concern with functionalism, instead insisting that it "strayed from mission of the movement and from the principles of the church". Any school which followed Jarrets' policy would in turn be barred from being called "Catholic" or from having Church sponsorship or funding.

Because of the condemnation, Jarrets and his supporters created the "National Holistique" movement and formally split from the regular movement. They became state schools, instead operated by the Viceroyalty and under the modified curriculum proposed by Jarrets. Although they formed only a minority of schools across the islands, the people who went to these schools had social advantages under the functionalist society. These schools continued to operate throughout the course of the Great War, before in the aftermath they became public schools.