Figure 1.--This is a classroom scene at the Chigny school. We assume that means the village school in Chigny. The boys look to be mostly wearing smocks.

Here we see a French primary school at Chigny in 1933. Chigny is a village. Chigny is a village located in Champagne area, 10 km south from Reims (130km ENE from Paris). The completed name is “Chigny les Roses” which can be seen in the legend of the photograph. There are 530 inhabitants in this relatively small village. That explains why it involved a unique class in the school when it was smaller than it is nowadays. Presumably this is the village school. I'm not sure what the name of the school was. In fact I am not sure if French village schools had names or were just given the name of the village where they were located. There were both boys and girls at the school, but it appears they were not taught together in the same classes. I'm not sure how common this was in France at the time. The boys seem to be wearing smocks, although the image is not real clear.

A French reader tells us, "In these village schools there were both boys and girls. Oten there was only one school in the village. While the children were together in the same school, there were separate classes for each. If the school was too small, the class was arranged so the boys wee on one side and the girls on the other. The smock in primary schoolss was not compulsory, but practicly all children in the 1930s wore them. Only in the kindergarden (maternelle) did the teachers ask the mpthers to dress the children in smocks. About interpreting the school photographs. It may be at some schools, the children took off their smocks for the photograph. Normally students were not informed in advance that the school photograph would be taken. So in most school photos, the pupils are wearing their normal clothes."

Created: 5:26 PM 11/24/2004
Last updated: 8:34 PM 11/25/2004