Q.Why did M. Hamel blame himself, the parents and the whole village, and not only the students, for the neglect of learning French? (Answer in 30–40 words.)
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →M. Hamel blamed everyone collectively because the neglect of French was a community-wide failure, not just the students' fault — parents preferred work over school, and adults like himself had prioritised other subjects.
M. Hamel’s speech in the story The Last Lesson is not a simple scolding of his students. It is a profound reflection on how a whole community can drift away from its own language. He begins by blaming himself — he admits he often sent students to water the plants or gave them a holiday when he wanted to go fishing. This is a teacher acknowledging his own complacency.
Then he turns to the parents. They had sent their children to work in the fields or the mills rather than to school, because they saw little value in book learning. The village itself, he says, had become indifferent. People preferred to put their children to work that brought immediate money rather than invest in the slow, invisible work of language and culture.
This collective blame is central to the story’s theme: language is not just a school subject but a living bond that a whole community must nurture together. …
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