The Primacy of Education to Pacify the World?

The first six chapters form Part I tell the story of the IBE. This first one shows that the International Bureau of Education (IBE) was the product of a collective genesis. It was the continuation of a plethora of initiatives which, in the nineteenth century already, were working towards the institutionalisation of networks dedicated to education and childhood, in order to pacify the world. The contours of the IBE were furthermore sketched out in a particular context, in effervescent post-war Geneva when the city was designated to host the League of Nations (LoN). The chapter describes the dynamics of this genesis in order to understand what led the intellectuals, psycho-pedagogues and educators grouped around the Institut Rousseau to conceive of their institution as one of the international agencies representing the values of peace, international solidarity and social justice, emblematic of the “spirit of Geneva”. An insert presents the Institut Rousseau.