Jules Payot

Jules Payot (10 April 1859 - 30 January 1940) was a French educationist.

Career overview
Payot was born in 1859 in Chamonix. Little is known about his education and academic career; however some sources presents him as a leading figure in lay education and in 1907 he was appointed rector at the Aix-Marseille University in Aix-en-Provence. Payot died in 1940.

According to a summary of minutes taken by the secretary of the faculty at the Ecole Normale, Payot presented his candidacy to the vacant chair in Pedagogy previously held by Professor Ferdinand Buisson. The chair eventually was granted to Émile Durkheim, who was noted as being mainly a sociologist, but the electing council argued that pedagogy was a subject within sociology. Payot received ten votes in the first poll, thereby losing to Malapert, who in turn lost to Durkheim.

Among his most famous books are Éducation de la volonté which in 1909 had been published in no less than 32 editions and subsequently translated into several languages.

Quotes
"Une foule n’est accessible qu’à des émotions, elle est incapable d’une attitude d’esprit objective." — A crowd is accessible only to emotions, it is unable of an objective attitude of spirit.

From La Conquête du Bonheur/The Conquest of Happiness

"La plupart attrapent une opinion comme on attrape la rougeole, par contagion." — The majority catch an opinion as one catches measles, by contagion.

From La Faillite de l’Enseignement/The Bankruptcy of Teaching