1934: (Dartigue on Education and Bellegarde as Intellectual Foil — Maurice Dartigue Lecturing on Modern Organization of Education Having Recently Finished St…

1934: (Dartigue on Education and Bellegarde as Intellectual Foil — Maurice Dartigue Lecturing on Modern Organization of Education Having Recently Finished Studies at Columbia’s Teacher’s College, His Wife and LFAS Founding Member Esther Dartigue Likely Inviting Him, Esther Admiring His Support for Elementary Teaching in Kreyòl and Replacing French Textbooks with English Books but Frustrated by the Elite’s Slow Response to Rural Education, Dartigue and Price-Mars Both Presenting Education as a Gender Equalizer — Women Earning Political Rights Through Credentials as Thinking Productive Citizens, Dantès Bellegarde the Final Speaker Being Far More Conservative — Ambassador to France and the US Who Believed in Western Liberal Thought and Desired Haiti’s Integration into White-Anglo Culture as Equals, Publicly Characterized as Ideological Foes with Price-Mars — Their Rivalry the Impetus for Invitation as LFAS Secretary General Fernande Bellegarde Knew the Debates Would Draw Large Crowds): Price-Mars’s and Dartigue’s sentiments occupied the extreme and moderate ends of the political spectrum compared with the final workshop speaker, Dantès Bellegarde. Dartigue had recently finished his studies at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College and developed a reputation as an expert in rural and industrial education. His wife and LFAS founding member Esther Dartigue likely invited him to share his thoughts. Esther admired his insight supporting elementary teaching in Kreyòl and replacing French textbooks with English books, but was frustrated by the elite’s slow response to rural education. Both Dartigue and Price-Mars presented education as a gender equalizer — through education, women would earn political rights based on their credentials as thinking, productive citizens. The injustice was that national belonging was governed by liberal distortions of reason for the purpose of capitalist labor extraction, and men were not held to the same standard. Bellegarde, however, was far more conservative — having served as ambassador to France and the United States, spoken at the second Pan-African Congress, and befriended Du Bois and Rayford Logan. He believed in Western liberal thought and desired that Haiti and Black people integrate into Western society as equals. The philosophical discord between Bellegarde and Price-Mars was perhaps the impetus for their invitation — LFAS secretary general Fernande Bellegarde, Dantès’s daughter, knew the rivalry would draw large crowds. As historian Patrick Bellegarde-Smith explains, their iconic debates were outgrowths of the larger questions: Who are we? and What does it mean to be Haitian in the modern world?