Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Genest Campan

Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Genest Campan (born Nov. 6, 1752, Paris—died March 16, 1822, Mantes, Fr.) was a preeminent educator of Napoleonic France and champion of a broader curriculum for women students.

Madame Campan served as lady-in-waiting to Marie-Antoinette from 1774 to 1792. But it was her friendship with Napoleon and especially her reputation as a teacher and head of the Institut in Saint-Germain that moved Napoleon to appoint her director of the school founded in 1806 at Écouen for female relatives of members of the Legion of Honour.

Campan was ahead of her time in proposing that women be taught more than merely reading and writing. She urged that women learn to speak modern languages as well as to read them and that their curriculum include science, history, geography, and mathematics. She was also in the avant garde in her attitude toward punishment of children, maintaining that the punishment should neither be excessive nor often repeated. She retired to Mantes in 1815 because of ill health.

Campan’s writings include De l’éducation (“On Education”), Conseils aux jeunes filles (“Advice to Young Women”), Théâtre pour les jeunes personnes (“Theatre for Young People”), and Quelques essais de morale (“Some Essays on Morality”).