at Dijon on the 4th of March 1770. He was educated at the university of Dijon, where in his nineteenth year he was chosen professor of Latin, after which he studied law, became advocate, and at the same time devoted a large amount of his attention to mathematics. In 1788 he organized a federation of the youth of Dijon for the defence of the principles of the Revolution; and in 1792, with the rank of captain, he set out to take part in the campaign of Belgium, where he conducted himself with bravery and distinction. After for some time filling the office of secretary of the “commission d’organisation du mouvement des armées,” he in 1794 became deputy of the director of the Polytechnic school, and on the institution of the central schools at Dijon he was appointed to the chair of the “method of sciences,” where he made his first experiments in that mode of tuition which he afterwards developed more fully. On the central schools being replaced by other educational institutions, Jacotot occupied successively the chairs of mathematics and of Roman law until the overthrow of the empire. In 1815 he was elected a representative to the chamber of deputies; but after the second restoration he found it necessary to quit his native land, and, having taken up his residence at Brussels, he was in 1818 nominated by the Government teacher of the French language at the university of Louvain, where he perfected into a system the educational principles which he had already practised with success in France. His method was not only adopted in several institutions in Belgium, but also met with some approval in France, England, Germany and Russia. It was based on three principles: (1) all men have equal intelligence; (2) every man has received from God the faculty of being able to instruct himself; (3) everything is in everything. As regards (1) he maintained that it is only in the will to use their intelligence that men differ; and his own process, depending on (3), was to give any one learning a language for the first time a short passage of a few lines, and to encourage the pupil to study, first the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the meaning, until a single paragraph became the occasion for learning an entire literature. After the revolution of 1830 Jacotot returned to France, and he died at Paris on the 30th of July 1840.
His system was described by him in Enseignement universel, langue maternelle, Louvain and Dijon, 1823—which passed through several editions—and in various other works; and he also advocated his views in the Journal de l’émancipation intellectuelle. For a complete list of his works and fuller details regarding his career, see Biographie de J. Jacotot, by Achille Guillard (Paris, 1860).
JACQUARD, JOSEPH MARIE (1752–1834), French inventor,
was born at Lyons on the 7th of July 1752. On the death of
his father, who was a working weaver, he inherited two looms,
with which he started business on his own account. He did
not, however, prosper, and was at last forced to become a lime-burner
at Bresse, while his wife supported herself at Lyons by
plaiting straw. In 1793 he took part in the unsuccessful defence
of Lyons against the troops of the Convention; but afterwards
served in their ranks on the Rhône and Loire. After seeing
some active service, in which his young son was shot down at
his side, he again returned to Lyons. There he obtained a
situation in a factory, and employed his spare time in constructing
his improved loom, of which he had conceived the idea
several years previously. In 1801 he exhibited his invention at
the industrial exhibition at Paris; and in 1803 he was summoned
to Paris and attached to the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers.
A loom by Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–1782), deposited there,
suggested various improvements in his own, which he gradually
perfected to its final state. Although his invention was fiercely
opposed by the silk-weavers, who feared that its introduction,
owing to the saving of labour, would deprive them of their livelihood,
its advantages secured its general adoption, and by 1812
there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in use in France. The loom
was declared public property in 1806, and Jacquard was rewarded
with a pension and a royalty on each machine. He died at
Oullins (Rhône) on the 7th of August 1834, and six years later
a statue was erected to him at Lyons (see Weaving).
JACQUERIE, THE, an insurrection of the French peasantry
which broke out in the Île de France and about Beauvais at the
end of May 1358. The hardships endured by the peasants in
the Hundred Years’ War and their hatred for the nobles who
oppressed them were the principal causes which led to the rising,
though the immediate occasion was an affray which took place
on the 28th of May at the village of Saint-Leu between “brigands”
(militia infantry armoured in brigandines) and countryfolk.
The latter having got the upper hand united with the
inhabitants of the neighbouring villages and placed Guillaume
Karle at their head. They destroyed numerous châteaux in the
valleys of the Oise, the Brèche and the Thérain, where they
subjected the whole countryside to fire and sword, committing
the most terrible atrocities. Charles the Bad, king of Navarre,
crushed the rebellion at the battle of Mello on the 10th of June,
and the nobles then took violent reprisals upon the peasants,
massacring them in great numbers.
See Simeon Luce, Histoire de la Jacquerie (Paris, 1859 and 1895). (J. V.*)
JACTITATION (from Lat. jactitare, to throw out publicly), in
English law, the maliciously boasting or giving out by one party
that he or she is married to the other. In such a case, in order
to prevent the common reputation of their marriage that might
ensue, the procedure is by suit of jactitation of marriage, in which
the petitioner alleges that the respondent boasts that he or she
is married to the petitioner, and prays a declaration of nullity
and a decree putting the respondent to perpetual silence thereafter.
Previously to 1857 such a proceeding took place only in
the ecclesiastical courts, but by express terms of the Matrimonial
Causes Act of that year it can now be brought in the probate,
divorce and admiralty division of the High Court. To the suit
there are three defences: (1) denial of the boasting; (2) the
truth of the representations; (3) allegation (by way of estoppel)
that the petitioner acquiesced in the boasting of the respondent.
In Thompson v. Rourke, 1893, Prob. 70, the court of appeal laid
down that the court will not make a decree in a jactitation suit
in favour of a petitioner who has at any time acquiesced in the
assertion of the respondent that they were actually married.
Jactitation of marriage is a suit that is very rare.
JADE, or Jahde, a deep bay and estuary of the North Sea,
belonging to the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, Germany. The bay,
which was for the most part made by storm-floods in the 13th
and 16th centuries, measures 70 sq. m., and has communication
with the open sea by a fairway, a mile and a half wide, which
never freezes, and with the tide gives access to the largest vessels.
On the west side of the entrance to the bay is the Prussian naval
port of Wilhelmshaven. A tiny stream, about 14 m. long,
also known as the Jade, enters the head of the bay.
JADE, a name commonly applied to certain ornamental stones,
mostly of a green colour, belonging to at least two distinct
species, one termed nephrite and the other jadeite. Whilst the
term jade is popularly used in this sense, it is now usually
restricted by mineralogists to nephrite. The word jade[1] is
derived (through Fr. le jade for l’ejade) from Span. ijada (Lat. ilia),
the loins, this mineral having been known to the Spanish conquerors
of Mexico and Peru under the name of piedra de ijada or
yjada (colic stone). The reputed value of the stone in renal
diseases is also suggested by the term nephrite (so named by
A. G. Werner from Gr. νεφρός, kidney), and by its old name
lapis nephriticus.
Jade, in its wide and popular sense, has always been highly prized by the Chinese, who not only believe in its medicinal value but regard it as the symbol of virtue. It is known, with other ornamental stones, under the name of yu or yu-chi (yu-stone). According to Professor H. A. Giles, it occupies in China the highest place as a jewel, and is revered as “the quintessence of heaven and earth.” Notwithstanding its toughness or tenacity, due to a dense fibrous structure, it is wrought into complicated
- ↑ The English use of the word for a worthless, ill-tempered horse, a “screw,” also applied as a term of reproach to a woman, has been referred doubtfully to the same Spanish source as the O. Sp. ijadear, meaning to pant, of a broken-winded horse.
