Discuss the view of education as sophisticated opium for the masses

We will discuss the education under the early Third Republic, and we cannot move away from the context. In 1881 and 1882, when the Ferry's Law was promulgated, the Republic was not comfortably established in France. Monarchists and Bonarpatists were very much present in the country and the restoration was still possible. Socialists and anarchists are present and the episode of La Commune was only ten years old. These laws were a means for forging the minds and precisely to forge the citizen's mind. The Franco-Prussian war was over ten years ago, and France lost a part of its territory, which were the departments of Alsace and Lorraine. On the other hand, France built its colonial empire in Africa and in Asia. Its industry and trade broke. This economic situation was reached during the second industrial Revolution with the development of electric energy and the rising of car industry. This period was called the Belle époque.