Jersey As It Is: The Preface - Part 1

This Friday I start a new blog in which I have transcribed a translation of an essay called "Jersey as It Is", published in 1844, as the result of a winning entry by F. Robious de La Trehonnais which won first prize in the competition of the Jersey Emulation Society.

What is "emulation", you might ask? The definition given for that period in history is that it is a kind of learning which reflects back on the learner: "In emulation learning, learners see the movement of the objects involved and then come to some insight about its relevance to their own problems"

As Carol E. Harrison has shown, in " The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France:Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation", this featured strongly in society of that time:

"Poems addressing emulation, voluntary associations calling themselves emulation societies, and bourgeois Frenchmen describing themselves as emulators - all suggest that 'emulation' bore a significantly heavier burden of meaning for the nineteenth-century bourgeois than for the twentieth-century reader."

And John Iverson notes that: "emulation figured frequently in proposals for responding to the complex social and political questions that faced France at this time. During a period when traditional markers of distinction were increasingly subject to criticism, theorists in a variety of areas sought new ways of promoting virtue, evaluating individual merit, and inspiring a greater commitment to communal and national interests. In this context, emulation held the advantage of retaining some elements of traditional value structures even while opening the door to innovation." ( Emulation in France, 1750-1800)

Although I have not been able to trace any other mention of the Jersey Emulation Society, it is most probably that it would have been formed along similar lines and for similar objects as those in neighbouring France - namely "promoting virtue, evaluating individual merit, and inspiring a greater commitment to communal and national interests".

I have however been able to trace details about the President of the Society, Henry L. Manuel.
https://members.societe-jersiaise.org/geraint/jerriais/manuel.html

This preamble gives the background.

Jersey As It Is: The Preface - Part 1

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION: THE JERSEY EMULATION SOCIETY TO THE PUBLIC.

TOWARDS the end of last year the members of the Jersey Emulation Society, foreseeing the great advantages which might result from the establishment of an annual literary concourse in this island, unanimously resolved to offer yearly, some prizes to the authors of the best Essays which should be presented to them on a subject given by their committee.

The subject proposed for the first year was “Jersey as it is," and four gentlemen, as distinguished by their education and their science as they are by their social station, the Rev. Jeune, Dean of Jersey, the Rev. Clement Perrot, M. Le Sueur, Constable of St. Helier’s, and V. Thompson, Esq., accepted, with their usual kindness the invitation made to them of becoming the judges of the merit of the different Essays that might be forwarded to the Society.

On the day fixed for awarding the prizes, five Essays were submitted to the umpires, who unanimously awarded the first prize to Mons. F. Robiou de la Trehonnais, the author of the following Essay.

Another Essay, written in English, was thought worthy of the second prize, a silver medal. The author of this distinguished but incomplete work is Mr. Symons, from Cornwall.

The members of the Emulation Society, agreeing entirely in the high opinion expressed by the umpires on the Essay of Mons. de la Trehonnais, did not hesitate in ordering its publication, and they have now the satisfaction to offer it to the public, convinced that it will not only prove interesting in a literary point of view, but that it will also be eminently useful to the country.

Strangers will feel some delight in reading in it the true, poetical, and brilliant description of the romantic spots with which this island is so rich ; and, at the same time, this book will make them acquainted with the antiquities of Jersey, the customs and manners of its inhabitants, etc. Jerseymen will read in it, with a noble pride, the beautiful history of their ancestors, and will be taught useful lessons for the future ; for M. De la Trehonnais, as a faithful writer, has not only spoken of things worthy of praise and admiration, but has also marked out, with much perspicuity and judgment, those which are defective, and whose reform is become necessary.

Impressed, then, with the literary merit of this Essay, and sincerely convinced of its utility, the Emulation Society inscribes it TO THE JERSEY PEOPLE, who will no doubt confirm the high opinion entertained by the distinguished umpires of the talent of the author, and will know also how to appreciate the true motives which have induced the Emulation Society to establish an annual literary contours in this island.

HENRY L. MANUEL, President of the Emulation Society. Jersey, 1st July, 1843.