The History of Education Part 58

The immediate effect of the reinst.i.tution of the Leaving Examinations was to unify the work of all the different surviving types of cla.s.sical secondary schools--_Gymnasium, Lyceum, Padagogium, Collegium, Lateinische Schule, Akademie_--all standard nine-year schools henceforth taking the name of _Gymnasien_. Those inst.i.tutions which could not meet the standards of a nine-year cla.s.sical school were either permitted to do the first six years of the work, being known as _Pro-Gymnasien_, or the modern languages were subst.i.tuted for the ancient, and they became middle-cla.s.s inst.i.tutions under the name of _Burgerschulen_. A few _Realschulen_ also were in existence, and these were permitted to continue, as middle-cla.s.s inst.i.tutions, but without any state recognition. Thus, without the destruction of inst.i.tutions, the acc.u.mulated foundations of the centuries were transformed into a series of organized state schools to serve the needs of the State.

The next step was the promulgation of a uniform course of instruction for all _Gymnasien_ and _Pro-Gymnasien_. This was done in 1816. The studies were Latin, Greek, German, mathematics, history, geography, religion, and science, the amount of time to be devoted to each ranging, in the order listed, from a maximum for Latin to a minimum for science. Up to 1824 Greek was not absolutely required; from 1824 to 1837 it was required, unless the subst.i.tution of a modern language was permitted; but after 1837, when the type of German secondary school had become fairly well fixed, and the devotion to humanistic studies had reached a climax, Greek became a fixed and unvarying requirement. [17]

FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN. One result of the Treaty of Tilsit (p. 566) was that Prussia had lost all her universities, except three along the Baltic coast. Both Halle and Gottingen were lost, and the loss of Halle was a severe blow. In 1807 Fichte, who had been a professor at Jena, drew up a plan and submitted it to the King for the organization of a new university at Berlin. When Humboldt came to the head of the Department of Public Instruction the idea at once won his enthusiastic approval. In May, 1809, he reported favorably on the project to the King, and three months later a Cabinet Order was issued creating the new university, giving it an annual money grant, and a.s.signing a royal palace to it for a home. The spirit with which the new inst.i.tution was founded may be inferred from the following extract from a memorial, published by Humboldt, in 1810. In this he said:

The State should not treat the universities as if they were higher cla.s.sical schools or schools of special sciences. On the whole the State should not look to them at all for anything that directly concerns its own interests, but should rather cherish a conviction that, in fulfilling their real destination, they will not only serve its own purposes, but serve them on an infinitely higher plane, commanding a much wider field of operation, and affording room to set in motion much more efficient springs and forces than are at the disposal of the State itself.

This university was indeed a new creation, and of far more significance for the future of university work than even the founding of Halle had been. To the selection of its first faculty Humboldt devoted almost all his energies during the period he remained in office. From the first, high attainment in some branch of knowledge, and the ability to advance that knowledge, was placed ahead of mere teaching skill. The most eminent scholars in all lines were invited to the new "chairs," and when it opened (1810) its first faculty represented the highest attainment of scholarship in German lands. From the first the instruction divested itself of almost all that characterized the school. The lecture replaced the cla.s.sroom recitation, and the seminar, in which small groups of advanced students investigate a problem under the direction of a professor, was given a place of large importance in the inst.i.tution. Original research and contributions to knowledge marked the work of both students and professors, the object being, not to train teachers for the schools, but to produce scholars capable of advancing knowledge by personal research.

Even more than at Halle, the inst.i.tution was a place where professors and students worked to discover truth, uninfluenced by any preconceived notions and unmindful of what older ideas might be upset in the process.

The value of such pioneer work for university scholars everywhere is not likely to be overestimated.

SPECIALIZATION IN UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTION EMPHASIZED. Specialization in some field of knowledge soon came to be the ruling idea, and this proved exceedingly fruitful in the years which followed. There Bopp developed the study of comparative grammar on the basis of the Sanskrit. There Dietz founded Romance philology. Ritschl turned his students to the study of Latin inscriptions to reconstruct the past. Lepsius began the study of Egyptology with a spade. Niebuhr's _Roman History_ (1811) was the inst.i.tution's first fruit, and his successor, Ranke, showed his students how to study history from the sources. Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Lotze made over philosophy. Fechner and Wundt began there the study of experimental psychology. Stahl and von Savigny created new standards in the study of law. Muller introduced the microscope into the study of pathological anatomy. Schultze systematized zoology. Liebig, who had opened at Giessen (1824) what was probably the first chemical laboratory in the world open to students, was drawn to Berlin and created there a new chemistry. Still later, Helmholtz created there a new physics.

The effect of all this on the expansion of the work of the philosophical faculty was marked. The new philological and historical sciences, the biological sciences, and the mathematical sciences, were all greatly expanded in scope, and the new philosophical faculty, evolved out of the old arts faculty (p. 554), now attained to the place of first importance in the university--a position it has ever since retained. Law and medicine were also given a new direction and emphasis, and even the teaching of theology was greatly improved under the specialization in instruction and the freedom in teaching which now became the rule.

The effect on the other German universities was marked. Some of the older inst.i.tutions (Erfurt, Wittenberg, Cologne, Mainz) died out, while new foundations (Breslau, 1811; Bonn, 1818; Munich, 1826) after the new model, took their place. Those that continued were changed in character, [18] and a new unity was established throughout the German university world. By 1850 exact scientific research, in both libraries and laboratories, and a sober search for truth, had become the watchword of all the German universities. In consequence they naturally a.s.sumed a world leadership, and were frequented by students from many lands. Especially has the United States been influenced in its university development by the large number of university teachers who received their specialized training in the German universities [19] during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The lecture, the seminar, laboratory investigation, research, the doctorate, and academic freedom in study and teaching are distinctive contributions to our university development drawn from German lands, and superimposed on our earlier English-type college. The founding of Johns Hopkins University, at Baltimore, in 1876, on the German model, marked the erection of the first distinctively research university in America.

A TWO-CLa.s.s STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM CREATED. We thus see that Prussia by 1815, clearly by 1825, had taken over education from the Church and made of it an instrument of the State to serve State ends. For the ma.s.ses there was the _Volksschule_, superseding the old religious vernacular school and clearly designed to create an intelligent but obedient and patriotic citizenship for the Fatherland, and in this school the great majority of the children of the State received their education for citizenship and for life. This was for both s.e.xes, and was entirely a German school.

Attendance upon this school was made compulsory, and beyond this some continuation education early began to be provided (Rs. 274, Section 6; 275 d; 276, Section 15). Within the past half-century continuation education, especially along vocational lines, as we shall point out in a subsequent chapter, has received in German lands a very remarkable development. To insure that this school should serve the State in the way desired, Teachers' Seminaries, for the training of _Volksschule_, teachers, were from the first made a feature of the new state system.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 173. THE PRUSSIAN STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM CREATED Compare with Fig. 269 and note the difference between a European two-cla.s.s system and the American democratic educational ladder.]

For those who were to form the official and directing cla.s.s of Society--a closely limited, almost entirely male, intellectual aristocracy--education in separate cla.s.sical schools, with university or professional training superimposed, was provided, and this type of training offered a very thorough preparation for a small and a carefully selected cla.s.s. Out of this cla.s.s the leaders of Germany for a century have been drawn. [20] For this cla.s.sical school also the universities were early directed to prepare a well-educated body of teachers. The Prussian plan was followed in all its essentials in the other German States, so that the drawing given (Fig.

173) was true for Germany as a whole, as well as for Prussia, up at least to 1914.

NEW NINETEENTH-CENTURY TENDENCIES MANIFESTED. In this early evolution of the Prussian state school systems we find two prominent nineteenth-century ideas expressing themselves. The first is the new conception of the State as not merely a government organized to secure national safety and protection from invasion, but rather an organization of the people to promote public welfare and realize a moral and political ideal. To this end state control of the whole range of education, to enable the State to promote intellectual and moral and social progress along lines useful to the State, became a necessity, and some form of this education, in the interests of the public welfare, must now be extended to all. Though France and the new American nation gave earlier political expression to this new conception of the State, it was in Prussia that the idea attained its earliest concrete and for long its most complete realization. Seeing further and more clearly than other nations the possibilities of education, the practical workers of Prussia, and after them the other German States, took over education as a function of the State for the propagation of the national ideas and the promotion of the national culture. Of this development Paulsen says:

In the nineteenth century Germany took the lead in the educational movement among the nations of Europe. The German universities have become acknowledged centers of scientific research for the whole world.... In the domain of primary and technical education Germany has also become the universal teacher of Europe.

But it must not be forgotten, in this connection, that the German people had been the pupils of their neighbors during a greater length of time and with greater a.s.siduity than any other European nation.

Thus, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Germany imported the culture of Humanism from Italy. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries she introduced the modern courtly culture and language of the French people, besides giving admission, since the middle of the eighteenth century, to the philosophy, science, and literature of English middle-cla.s.s society. Lastly, since the end of the eighteenth century, the Germans have yielded themselves to the influence of the h.e.l.lenic spirit with greater fervor than any other nation.

The second nineteenth-century idea which early found expression in the Prussian State, and one which became a dominant factor during the latter half of the century, was the idea of utilizing the schools, as state inst.i.tutions, to promote national ends--to unify and nationalize peoples.

National self-consciousness here first found concrete expression, and with wonderful practical results. From a geographical expression, consisting of nearly four hundred petty self-governing cities, princ.i.p.alities, and states, and some fourteen hundred independent n.o.blemen and prelates, before the Napoleonic wars, their close found the German people free from serfdom, united in spirit, and organized politically into thirty-eight modern-type States. In 1870, largely as a result of the nationalizing efforts of government and education, working hand in hand, an Imperial Empire of twenty-two States and three Free Cities was formed. The struggle for national realization, begun by Prussia after 1807, and with education as the important constructive tool of the State, has since been copied by nation after nation and has become the dominant force of modern history.

To awaken a national self-consciousness, to acquire national unity, and to infuse into all a common culture has supplanted the humanistic cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth century and become the dominant characteristic of nineteenth-century political history. In this Prussia led the way.

THE PERIOD OF REACTION. Through the period preceding the Wars of Liberation (1813-15), and afterward for a few years, an educational zeal animated the Government. The schools during this period were free on the one hand from politics and on the other from minute official regulation.

As one writer well stated: [21]

It was difficult to decide whether the schools derived their importance from the life which surged around them, or whether their importance was due to their intrinsic power, very carefully fostered by the state authorities.... There was spirit and life in Prussia; there was much activity and liberty in contriving, with little outward parade. Any foreigner, visiting Prussia, might observe that the vitalizing breath of government, like the spirit of G.o.d, was acting upon the whole people.

Napoleon was finally vanquished at Waterloo (1815) and sent to Saint Helena, and the Congress of Vienna (1815) remade the map of Europe. In doing so it forgot that the people wanted const.i.tutional government, instead of a return to absolute rulers. It restored old thrones, rights, and territories, and inaugurated a policy of political reaction which increased in intensity with time and dominated the governments of continental Europe until after the middle of the century. Under the lead of the Austrian minister, Metternich, and by "third-degree" methods, the so-called Holy Alliance [22] of continental Europe suppressed free speech, democratic movements, political liberties, university freedom, and liberalism in government and religion. The governments in this Alliance redirected and restricted the people's schools, as much as could be done, to make them conform in purpose to their reactionary ideas. In consequence, the development of popular education in Germany, as well as in France and other continental lands, was for a time checked. The great start obtained by Prussia and the German States before 1820, though, was such that what had been done there could not be wholly undone. In France, Spain, the Italian Kingdoms, the Austrian States, and Russia, on the other hand, what had not been developed to any extent could be prevented from developing, and in these lands popular education was given back to the Church to control and direct. In England, also, though for other reasons there, the Church retained its control over elementary education for half a century longer.

CHANGE IN THE SPIRIT OF THE SCHOOLS. The King of Prussia, Frederick William III (1797-1840), though he had given full adherence to the movement for general education during the dark period of Prussian history, was after all never fully in sympathy with the liberal aspect of the movement. After Austria, by the settlement at Vienna, became the leader of the German States, and Metternich the dominating political personality of Europe, the King came more and more to favor a restriction of liberties and the holding of education to certain rather limited lines, fearful that too much education of the people might prove harmful to the Government.

Accordingly, under the influence of the King and against the desires of the liberal leaders, Prussia now changed direction and embarked on a policy of reaction which checked normal educational progress; led to the unsuccessful revolution of 1848 and the subsequent almost fanatical governmental opposition to reforms; and was in large part responsible for the disaster of 1918. It is an interesting speculation as to how different the future German and world history might have been had Prussia and the German States held to the liberal ideas of the earlier period, and drawn their political conceptions from England and the new American nation, rather than from Austria and Russia.

Accordingly, in November, 1817, the Department of Public Instruction was replaced by a Ministry for Spiritual, Educational, and Medical Affairs, and Karl, Baron von Altenstein, was made Minister. He continued in office until his death, [23] in 1840, and his administration was marked by an increasing state centralization and limitation of the earlier plans. In 1819 he codified all previous practices into a general school law for the kingdom. While the King never really approved and issued it, it nevertheless became a basis for future work and is the law so enthusiastically described by Cousin, in 1830 (R. 280). Under his administration the earlier creative enthusiasm and the energy for the execution of great ideas disappeared, and the earlier "stimulating and encouraging att.i.tude on the part of the authorities was now replaced by the timid policy of the drag and the brake." The earlier preparatory work in the development of Teachers' Seminaries and the establishment of elementary schools was allowed to continue; Pestalozzian ideas were for a time not seriously restricted; compulsory attendance was more definitely ordered enforced, in 1825; the abolition of tuition fees for _Volksschule_ education was begun in 1833, but not completed until 1888; and a more careful supervision of schools was inst.i.tuted, in 1834. The great change was rather in the spirit and direction of the instruction. The early tendency to emphasize nationalism and religious instruction (p. 571) was now stressed, and the liberal aspects of Pestalozzianism were increasingly subordinated to the more formal instruction and to nationalistic ends. The soldier and the priest joined hands in diverting the schools to the creation of intelligent, devout, patriotic, and, above all else, obedient Germans, while the universal military idea, brought in by the successful work of Scharnhorst (p. 567), and retained after the War of Liberation as a survival of the old dynastic and predatory conception of the State, was more and more emphasized in the work of the schools and the life of the citizen. When Horace Mann reported on his visit to the schools of the German States, in 1843, he called attention to this element of weakness (R. 281), as well as to their many elements of strength.

FURTHER INTOLERANCE AND REACTION. The reactionary tendencies which set in after the settlement of Vienna had, by 1840, produced stagnation in the life of the Governments of Europe, and the revolutions of 1848, which broke out in France, Italy, Switzerland, and the different German and Austrian States, were revolts against the reactionary governmental rule and an expression of disappointment at the failure to secure const.i.tutional government. The revolutions were both successful and unsuccessful--successful in that the greater liberty they sought came later on, but unsuccessful at the time. In consequence, immediately following 1848, an even more reactionary educational policy was inst.i.tuted. University freedom was markedly restricted; the inst.i.tutions lost their earlier vigor; and the number of students suffered a marked decline in consequence. The secondary schools also felt the new influences. Latin and Greek were made compulsory; uniform programs for work were insisted upon; and Latin in particular was reduced to a grammatical drill that destroyed the spirit of the earlier instruction and put gymnasial teaching back almost to the type made so popular by Sturm.

The few _Realschulen_, which had continued to exist and were tolerated before, were now treated with positive dislike. In 1859 they were able to force their first official recognition, but only when changed from practical schools for the middle cla.s.ses to secondary schools, on the same basis as the _Gymnasien_, and for parallel ends.

It was upon the elementary schools (_Volksschulen_) and the Teachers'

Seminaries that the most severe official displeasure now fell. A number of _Volksschule_ teachers had been connected with the revolutions of 1848, and "over-education" was regarded as responsible. The Teachers' Seminary at Preslau, which had for long given a high grade of training, was closed, and the head of the Seminary at Berlin, Diesterweg, was dismissed because of his strong advocacy of Pestalozzian ideas. Anything savoring of individualism was especially under the ban. Bitter reproaches were heaped upon the elementary-school teachers, and the new King, Frederick William IV (1840-61) considered their work as the very root of the political evils of the State. To a conference of Seminary teachers, held in 1849 in Berlin, he said: [24]

You and you alone are to blame for all the misery which the last year has brought upon Prussia! The irreligious pseudo-education of the ma.s.ses is to be blamed for it, which you have been spreading under the name of true wisdom, and by which you have eradicated religious belief and loyalty from the hearts of my subjects and alienated their affections from my person. This sham education, strutting about like a peac.o.c.k, has always been odious to me. I hated it already from the bottom of my soul before I came to the throne, and, since my accession, I have done everything I could to suppress it. I mean to proceed on this path, without taking heed of any one, and, indeed, no power on earth shall divert me from it.

Thus easily did an autocratic Hohenzollern cast upon the shoulders of others the burden of his own failure to grasp the evolution in political thinking [25] which had taken place in Europe, since 1789. Unfortunately for the future of the German people he was able to force his will upon them.

PROGRESS OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION AS SHOWN BY THE DECREASE IN ILLITERACY IN PRUSSIA, BY PROVINCES (From _Rep. U.S. Com. Educ._, 1890-1900, I, p. 781)

_Provinces_ 1841 1864-65 1881 1894-95

_Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent._ East Prussia / 7.05 .99 15.33 16.54 West Prussia / 8.79 1.23 Brandenburg 2.47 .96 .32 .06 Pomerania 1.23 1.47 .43 .12 Posen 41.00 16.90 9.97 .98 Silesia 9.22 3.78 2.33 .43 Saxony 1.19 .49 .28 .09 Westphalia 2.14 1.03 .60 .02 Rhenish Prussia 7.06 1.13 .23 .05 Hohenzollern .00 .00 .00 .00 ===== ===== ===== ===== The State 9.30 5.52 2.38 .33

In 1854 new "Regulations" were issued which put the course of instruction for elementary schools back to the days of Frederick the Great. The one- cla.s.s rural elementary school was made the standard. Everything beyond reading, writing, a little arithmetic, and religious instruction in strict accordance with the creeds of the Church, was considered as superfluous, and was to be allowed only by special permit. The elimination of illiteracy, the creation of obedient citizens, and the nationalizing of new elements became the aim of the schools.

The instruction in the Teachers' Seminaries was reduced to the merest necessities, and they were given clearly to understand that they were to train teachers, and not to prepare educated men. All theory of education, all didactics, all psychology were eliminated. A return was made to the subject-matter theory of education, and a limited subject-matter at that, and it once more became the business of the teacher to see that this was carefully learned. Religious instruction naturally once more came to hold a place of first importance. Similar reactionary movements took place in other German States, all being sensitive to the reactionary spirit of the time and the leadership of Austria and Prussia.

THE MODERN GERMAN EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE. After about 1860, largely in response to modern scientific and industrial forces among a people turning from agriculture toward industrialism, a slight relaxation of the reactionary legislation began to be evident. This expressed itself chiefly in a diminution of the time given to memoriter work in religion, and the introduction in its place of work in German history and geography, with some work in natural science. In the Teachers' Seminaries instruction in German literature, formerly rigidly excluded, was now added. It was not, however, until after the unification of Germany, following the Franco- Prussian War, and the creation of Imperial Germany under the directive guidance of Bismarck, that any real change took place. Then the changes were due to new political, religious, social, industrial, and economic forces which belong to the later period of German history.

In 1872 a new law gave to the Prussian elementary schools a new course of study; rea.s.serted the authority of the State in education; extended the control of the public authorities; and made the State instead of the Church the authority even for their religious instruction. [26] The schools were now to be used as of old to build up and strengthen the nation, but particularly to support the new Prussian idea as to the work and function of the State. _Realien_ were given a new prominence, because of new industrial needs, and the instruction in religion was revamped. The old memoriter work was greatly reduced, and in its place an emotional and political emphasis was given to the religious instruction. To make the school of the people an instrument for fighting the growth of social democracy, and a support for the throne and government, instruction in religion was "placed in the center of the teacher's work," and teachers were given to understand that they were "members of an educational army and expected loyally to follow the flag." The secondary schools also were redirected. A new emphasis on scientific subjects and modern languages replaced the earlier emphasis on Greek. The Emperor interfered (R. 368) to force a revision of the gymnasial programs better to adapt them to modern needs. In particular were the universities of all the States unified and nationalized, and great technical universities created. Science, commerce, technical work, modern languages, and government were stressed in the instruction of the leaders.

Deciding clearly where the nation was to go and the route it was to follow, and that education for national ends was one of the important means to be employed, the different parts of the educational systems in the States--elementary schools, secondary schools, universities, normal schools, professional schools, technical schools, continuation schools-- were carefully integrated into a unified state system, thoroughly national in spirit, and given a definite function to perform in the work which the Nation set itself to carry through. Nowhere have teachers been so well trained to play their part in a national plan, and nowhere have teachers acquitted themselves more worthily, from the point of view of the Government. As Alexander [27] has well said:

During the nineteenth century the leaders of Germany decided that Germany should a.s.sume leadership in the world in every line of endeavor, particularly in commerce and world power. They set this as the very definite goal of their national ambition. The next question was how that aim could be accomplished. It was to be done through education. Accordingly school systems were organized with this aim in view. In a State such as the Germans proposed building there were be leaders and followers. The followers were to be trained for a docile, efficient German citizenship; that is, the lower cla.s.ses were to be made into G.o.d-fearing, patriotic, economically-independent Germans. This was the task of the _Volksschule_, and it has been wonderfully well accomplished. This type of German is created to do the manual labor of the State.

The leaders were to be trained in middle and higher schools and in the universities. There were to be different grades of leaders; leaders in the lower walks of life, leaders in the middle walks of life, and leaders of the nation. The higher schools and the universities were employed to produce these types of leaders.... The leaders think and do; the followers merely do. The schools were organized for the express purpose of producing just these types.

So well was this system and plan working that, had the Imperial Government not been so impatient of that slower but surer progress by peaceful means, and staked all on a gambler's throw, in another half-century the German nation might have held the world largely in fee. As it is, the results which the Germans attained by reason of definite aims and definite methods are both an encouragement and a warning to other nations.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Point out the extent of the educational reorganization which resulted from the reform work begun at Halle.

2. How do you explain the very early German interest in compulsory school attendance, when such was unknown elsewhere in Europe?

3. Compare the Prussian Regulations of 1737 with what was common at that time in practice in the parishes of the American Colonies.

4. Show the wisdom of the early Prussian kings in working at school reform through the Church. Could they well have worked otherwise? Why?

5. How do you explain such a slow development of a professional teaching body in Prussia, when all the state influences had for so long been favorable to educational development?

6. Show that the Oberschulcollegium Board marked the beginnings of a State Ministry for Education for Prussia.

7. Show that the spirit of the Prussian leaders, after 1806, was a further expansion of the German national feeling which arose in the Period of Enlightenment.

8. Show that the reorganization of elementary education, and the creation of the University of Berlin, were almost equally important events for the future of German lands.