Teaching physics to adolescents in France during the second half of the eighteenth century.

History of education reveals that the perimeter of a school subject as well as the manner of teaching it may vary according to the time period, the country, its political situation and its economic needs. Furthermore, if it clearly depends on the level of the learners and on the school itself, sometimes the teacher's preoccupations can adapt it. This paper addresses the teaching of 'physics' in secondary schools in eighteenth-century France. It examines how 'physics' emerged from Natural Philosophy, as a scientific subject and then as a school subject. Before the French Revolution (1789), 'experimental physics' was taught in some royal schools. The revolution presented the opportunity to reorganise the whole education system and to follow Enlightenment ideas. How did that impact on the status of 'physics' in the newly created schools? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]