Figure 1.--This is the 4rd class Lycée E.F Gautier during 1955-56 academic year. The boys all wear European-stle clothes, both short and long pants as well as knickers. It looks like all the students are French boys. Note how few boys wear ties.

We have no information about the history of the school t this time. All of the boys in the photograph look to be French boys. We have some photographs here from the Lycée E.F Gautier in Algeria during the 1955-56 academic year, of classes 3 and 4 years from graduation. That would be the equivalent of American 9th and 10th grades. In the photograph here taken in 1955-56, most boys wear long panys, but some bous wear short pants and knickers. Few boys wearties.

History

We have no information about the history of the school t this time. We do not know when the school was founded. The photographs here shoew that the school was functioning in the 1950s. We do not know what happened to the school after Algeria achieved its independece in 1962.

Students

All of the boys in the photograph look to be French boys. We do not know what the admission rules were, but there do not look like Algerian boys were attending the school. At the time only the best students went on to secobary school from promary school. Only about 15-20 percent of primary children went in to secondary schools. A exam was taken to measure student achievement. As the schools and tests were in French, relatively few of the children entering secondary school were Algerian.

Schoolwear

We have some photographs here from the scholduring the 1955-56 academic year, of classes 3 and 4 years from graduation. That would be the equivalent of American 9th and 10th grades. Note how few boys wear ties. They wear a variety of jacjets and sweatrs. This is about the latest that I've found it common for boys to be wearing knickers. They seem to have been commonest among boys in their early to mid teens. Younger boys wore either shorts or longs, and older teens wore longs. I suspect that the boys in knickers were those that had reached a compromise with their more old-fashioned parents who didn't think that a boy under 16 should wear longs, while the boys didn't want to be among the few in shorts.

School Website

Former French students at the school have constructed at web site. Curiously, there seem to be more of these web sites for French North African schools than schools in France itself. Perhaps our French readers can explain why this is. One reader writes, "I believe that the reason that there are more such nostalgic sites about French North Africa than about communities in France itself is that France still exists, while French North Africa doesn't. I've found similar sites for Americans from the Panama Canal Zone, or from an American coal mining company town that closed down when the mine closed, or from Jewish villages in Eastern Europe that were destroyed in World War II. A French reader writes, "In general, we French don't like to explain our life to everybody and even less our family photographs. Older French generation have some unwillingness with the web. But that could change in the future."