L’enseignement professionnel pour l’exemple ? Économie minière et besoins de formation aux origines de l’École des maîtres mineurs de Douai (1860–1914)

The increase of professional training’s institutions from the 1850s to the beginning of the XX th century in France and in Europe is regularly explained by the growth of training needs and by the economic development. In the golden age of the mining industry, apprenticeship and training were usually unknown. Under these conditions, how can be explained the beginnings of the École des maîtres mineurs in Douai, in 1878? Why companies and authorities keep up the school? The progressive emergence of the figure of the foreman resulted from the technical development and the needs of authority in coalmine work. The place of this institution in the architecture of the paternalistic system is obvious, but there is also a part of subversion in the utilization of the school by the pupils and their family.