Psychiatric power: Lectures at the college de france, 1973--1974

by Foucault, Michel (2008)

Key Passage

Now a completely new type of institution appears in the second half of the seventeenth century. As an example of this, I will take the Gobelins' professional school of design and tapestry, which was organized in 1667 and gradually improved up until an important regulation of 1737.9 Apprenticeship takes place here in a completely different way. That is to say, the students are first of all divided up according to age, and a certain type of work is given to each age block. This work must be done in the presence either of teachers or supervisors, and it must be assessed at the same time and together with assessment of the student's behavior, assiduity, and zeal while performing his work. These assessments are entered on registers which are kept and passed on up the hierarchy to the director of the Gobelins' manufacture himself, and, on this basis, a succinct report is sent to the minister of the King's Household concerning the quality of the work, the student's abilities, and whether he can now be considered a master. A whole network of writing is constituted around the apprentice's behavior, and this will first codify all his behavior in terms of a number of assessments determined in advance, then schematize it, and finally convey it to a point of centralization which will define his ability or inability There is, then, an investment by writing, codification, transfer, and centralization, in short, the constitution of a schematic and centralized individuality. (p.49)

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