The History of Education Part 57

THE PRUSSIAN EXAMPLE FOLLOWED IN OTHER GERMAN STATES. The example of Prussia was in time followed by the other larger German States. Wurtemberg issued a new School Code in 1792, which remained the ruling law for the church schools throughout the eighteenth century. The Saxon King, Augustus the Just, inspired by the example of Frederick, issued a mandate, in 1766, reminding parents as to their duty to send children to school, and in 1773 issued a new Regulation, filled with "generous enthusiasm for the cause."

A teachers' training-school was founded at Dresden, in 1788, and four others before the close of the century. In 1805 a comprehensive Code was issued. This required that every child must be able to read, write, count, and know the truths of religion to receive the sacrament; clergymen were ordered to supervise the schools; school attendance was required from six to fourteen; the pay of teachers and the government appropriations for schools were increased; and a series of fines were imposed for violations of the Code. Bavaria issued new school Codes in 1770 and 1778, and additional schoolhouses were built and new textbooks written. After the suppression of the Jesuits (1773) a new progressive spirit animated the Catholic States, and Austria in particular, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Maria Theresa and Joseph II (p. 475), made marked progress in school organization and educational reform.

In 1770 Maria Theresa appointed a School Commission to have charge of education in Lower Austria; in 1771 established the first Austrian normal school in Vienna; and in 1774 promulgated a General School Code (R. 276), drawn up by the Abbot Felbiger, who had been most prominent in school organization in Silesia. This Code provided for School Commissions in all provinces [6] ordered the establishment of an elementary school in all villages and parishes, a "princ.i.p.al" or higher elementary school in the princ.i.p.al city of every canton, and a normal school in every province; laid down the course of study for each; and gave details as to teachers, instruction, compulsory attendance, support, and inspection similar to Frederick's Silesian Code (R. 275). Continuation instruction up to twenty years of age also was ordered. That such demands were much in advance of what was possible is evident, and it is not surprising that, in the reaction under Francis I, following the outburst of the French Revolution, we find a decree (1805) that the elementary school shall be curtailed to "absolutely necessary limits," and that the common people shall get in elementary school only such ideas as will not trouble them in their work, and which will not make them "discontented with their condition; their intelligence shall be directed toward the fulfillment of their moral duties, and prudent and diligent fulfillment of their domestic and communal obligations."

THE BEGINNINGS OF TEACHER-TRAINING. The beginning of teacher-training in German lands was the _Seminarium Praceptorum_ of Francke, established at Halle (p. 419), in 1697. In 1738 Johann Julius Hecker (1707-68), one of Francke's former students and teachers, and the author of the Prussian Code of 1763, established the first regular seminary for teachers in Prussia, to train intending theological students for the temporary or parallel occupation of teaching in the Latin schools. In 1747 he established a private _Lehrerseminar_ in Berlin, in connection with his celebrated Realschule (p. 420), and there demonstrated the possibilities of teacher-training. Frederick the Great was so pleased with the result that, in 1753, he gave the school a subsidy and changed it into a royal inst.i.tution, and on every fitting occasion recommended school authorities to it for teachers. Similar inst.i.tutions were opened in Hanover, in 1751; Wolfenb.u.t.tel, in 1753; in the county of Glatz in Silesia, in 1764 (R.

275); in Breslau, in 1765 and 1767; and in Carlsruhe, in 1768. In the Silesian Code of 1765 Frederick specified (R. 275 a, -- 2) six inst.i.tutions which he had designated as teacher-training schools.

These early Prussian inst.i.tutions laid the foundations upon which the normal-school system of the nineteenth century has been built. In Prussia first, but soon thereafter in other German States (Austria, at Vienna, 1771; Saxe-Weimar, at Eisenach, in 1783; and Saxony, at Dresden, 1788) the Teachers' Seminary was erected into an important inst.i.tution of the State, and the idea has since been copied by almost all modern nations. This early development in Prussia was influential in both France and the United States, as we shall point out further on.

Despite these many important educational efforts, though, the type and the work of teachers remained low throughout the whole of the eighteenth century. In the rural and village schools the teachers continued to be deficient in number and lacking in preparation. Often the pastors had first to give to invalids, cripples, shoemakers, tailors, watchmen, and herdsmen the rudimentary knowledge they in turn imparted to the children.

In the towns of fair size the conditions were not much better than in the villages. The elementary school of the middle-sized towns generally had but one cla.s.s, common for boys and girls, and the magistrates did little to improve the condition of the schools or the teachers. In the larger cities, and even in Berlin, the number of elementary schools was insufficient, the schools were crowded, and many children had no opportunity to attend schools. [7] In Leipzig there was no public school until 1792, in which year the city free school was established. Even Sunday schools, supported by subscription, had been resorted to by Berlin, after 1798, to provide journeymen and apprentices with some of the rudiments of an education. The creation of a state school system out of the insufficient and inefficient religious schools proved a task of large dimensions, in Prussia as in other lands. Even as late as 1819 Dinter found discouraging conditions (R. 279) among the teachers of East Prussia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 170. A GERMAN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SCHOOL (After a picture in the German School Museum in Berlin)]

FURTHER LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PROGRESS. Frederick the Great died in 1786. In the reign of his successors his work bore fruit in a complete transfer of all schools from church to state control, and in the organization of the strongest system of state schools the world had ever known. The year following the death of Frederick the Great (1787), and largely as an outgrowth of the preceding centralizing work with reference to elementary education, the Superior School (_Oberschulcollegium_) Board was established to exercise a similar centralized control over the older secondary and higher schools of Prussia. Secondary and higher education were now severed from church control, in principle at least, as elementary education had been by the "Regulations" of 1763 and 1765. The year following (1788) "Leaving Examinations" (_Maturitatsprufung_) were inst.i.tuted to determine the completion of the gymnasial course. These, for a time, were largely ineffective, due to clerical opposition, but the centralizing work of this Superior School Board for the supervision of higher education, and the state examinations for testing the instruction of the secondary schools, were from the first important contributing influences.

In 1794 came the culmination of all the preceding work in the publication of the General Civil Code (_Allgemeine Landrecht_) for the State, in which, in the section relating to schools, the following important declaration was made:

Schools and universities are state inst.i.tutions, charged with the instruction of youth in useful information and scientific knowledge.

Such inst.i.tutions may be founded only with the knowledge and consent of the State. All public schools and educational inst.i.tutions are under the supervision of the State, and are at all times subject to its examination and inspection.

The secular authority and the clergy were still to share jointly in the control of the schools, but both according to rules laid down by the State. In all cases of conflict or dispute, the secular authority was to decide. This important doc.u.ment forms the _Magna Charta_ for secular education in Prussia.

During the decade which followed the promulgation of this declaration of state control but little additional progress of importance was accomplished, though the Minister of Justice, to whom (1798) the administration of Lutheran church and school affairs had been given, maintained a correspondence for some years with the King regarding "provisions for a better education and instruction of the children of citizens and peasants," and stated to the King that "the object of reform is national education, and its field of operation, therefore, all provinces of the monarchy." The King, though, a weak, deeply religious, and unimaginative man (Frederick William III, 1797-1840), who lacked the energy and foresight of his predecessors, did little or nothing. Under Frederick William III the State lacked vigor and drifted; the Church regained something of its former power; and the army and the civil service became corrupt. In 1806 a blow fell which brought matters to an immediate crisis and forced important action.

II. A STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM AT LAST CREATED

THE HUMILIATION OF PRUSSIA. At the close of 1804 France, by vote, changed from the Republic to an Empire, with Napoleon Bonaparte as first Emperor of the French, and for some years he took pains that Frenchmen should forget "Liberty and Equality" amid the surfeit of "Glory" he heaped upon France. The great nations outside France, fearful of Napoleon's ambition and power, did not take his accession to the throne of France so complacently, and, in 1805, England, Sweden, Austria, and Russia formed the "Third Coalition" against Napoleon in an effort to restore the balance of power in Europe. Of the great powers of Europe only Prussia held aloof, refused to take sides, and in consequence enjoyed a temporary prosperity and freedom from invasion. For this, though, she was soon to pay a terrible price. Having humiliated the Austrians and vanquished the Russians, Napoleon now goaded the Prussians into attacking him, and then utterly humiliated them in turn. At the battle of Jena (October 14, 1806) the Prussian army was utterly routed, and forced back almost to the Russian frontier. Officered by old generals and political favorites who were no longer efficient, and backed by a state service honeycombed with inefficiency and corruption, the Prussian army that had won such victories under Frederick the Great was all but annihilated by the new and efficient fighting machine created by the Corsican who now controlled the destinies of France. By the Treaty of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) Prussia lost all her lands west of the Elbe and nearly all her stealings from Poland--in all about one half her territory and population--and was almost stricken from the list of important powers in Europe. In all its history Prussia had experienced no such humiliation as this. In a few months the constructive work of a century had been undone.

THE REGENERATION OF PRUSSIA. The new national German feeling, which had been slowly rising for half a century, now burst forth and soon worked a regeneration of the State. In the school of adversity the King and the people learned much, and the task of national reorganization was entrusted to a series of able ministers whom the King and his capable Queen, Louise, now called into service. His chief minister, Stein, created a free people by abolis.h.i.+ng serfdom and feudal land tenure (1807); eliminated feudal distinctions in business; granted local government to the cities; and broke the hold of the clergy on the educational system. His successor, Hardenburg, extended the rights of citizens.h.i.+p, and laid the foundations of government by legislative a.s.semblies. Another minister, Scharnhorst, reorganized the Prussian army (1807-13) by dismissing nearly all the old generals, and introducing the principle of compulsory military service. In all branches of the government service there were reorganizations, the one thought of the leaders being to so reorganize and revitalize the State as to enable it in time to overthrow the rule of Napoleon and regain its national independence.

Though the abolition of serfdom, the reform of the civil service, and the beginnings of local and representative government were important gains, nothing was of secondary importance to the complete reorganization of education which now took place. The education of the people was turned to in earnest for the regeneration of the national spirit, and education was, in a decade, made the great constructive agent of the State. Said the King:

Though we have lost many square miles of land, though the country has been robbed of its external power and splendor, yet we shall and will gain in intrinsic power and splendor, and therefore it is my earnest wish that the greatest attention be paid to public instruction.... The State must regain in mental force what it has lost in physical force.

His minister Stein said:

We proceed from the fundamental principle, to elevate the moral, religious, and patriotic spirit in the nation, to instil into it again courage, self-reliance, and readiness to sacrifice everything for national honor and for independence from the foreigner.... To attain this end, we must mainly rely on the education and instruction of the young. If by a method founded on the true nature of man, every faculty of the mind can be developed, every n.o.ble principle of life be animated and nourished, all one-sided education avoided, and those tendencies on which the power and dignity of men rest, hitherto neglected with the greatest indifference, carefully fostered--then we may hope to see grow up a generation, physically and morally vigorous, and the beginnings of a better time.

FICHTE APPEALS TO THE LEADERS. Still more did the philosopher Fichte (1762-1814), in a series of "Addresses to the German Nation," delivered in Berlin during the winter [8] of 1807-08, appeal to the leaders to turn to education to rescue the State from the miseries which had overwhelmed it.

Unable forcibly to resist, and with every phase of the government determined by a foreign conqueror, only education had been overlooked, he said, and to this the leaders should turn for national redemption (R.

277). He held that it rested with them to determine

whether you will be the end and last of a race ... or the beginnings and germ of a new time, glorious beyond all your imaginings, and those from whom posterity will reckon the years of their welfare.... A nation that is capable, if it were only in its highest representation and leaders, of fixing its eyes firmly on the vision from the spiritual world, Independence, and being possessed with a love of it, will surely prevail over a nation that is only used as a tool of foreign aggressiveness and for the subjugation of independent nations.

With a fervor of emotion that was characteristic of a romantic age, impelled by a conviction that the distinctive character of the German people was indispensable to the world, and holding that what was necessary also was possible, Fichte made the German leaders feel, with him, that

to reshape reality by means of ideas is the business of man, his proper earthly task; and nothing can be impossible to a will confident of itself and of its aim. [9]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 13. TWO LEADERS IN THE REGENERATION OF PRUSSIA

JOHANN GOTTLEIB FICHTE (1762-1814) Philosopher, university teacher

WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT (1767-1835) Philosopher, scholar, statesman]

Fichte's Addresses stirred the thinkers among the German people as they had not been stirred since the days of the Reformation, [10] and a national reorganization of education, with national ends in view, now took place. As Duke Ernest remade Gotha, after the ravages of the Thirty Years'

War, by means of education (p. 317), so the leaders of Prussia now created a new national spirit by taking over the school from the Church and forging it into one of the greatest constructive instruments of the State.

The result showed itself in the "Uprising of Prussia," in the winter of 1812-13; the "War of Liberation," of 1813-15; the utter defeat of Napoleon at the battle of Leipzig by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, in 1813; and again at the battle of Waterloo by England and Prussia, [11] in 1815.

Still more clearly was the result shown in the humiliating defeat of France, in 1870, when it was commonly remarked that the schoolmaster of Prussia had at last triumphed. The regeneration of Prussia in the early part of the nineteenth century, as well as its more recent humiliation, stand as eloquent testimonials to the tremendous influence of education on national destiny, when rightly and when wrongly directed.

THE REORGINATION OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. The first step in the process of educational reorganization was the abolition (1807) of the _Oberschulcollegium_ Board, established (p. 564) in 1787 to supervise secondary and higher education, in order to get rid of clerical influence and control. The next step was the creation instead (1808) of a Department of Public Instruction, organized as a branch of the Interior Department of the State.

One of the first steps of the acting head of the new department was to send seventeen Prussian teachers (1808) to Switzerland to spend three years, at the expense of the Government, in studying Pestalozzi's ideas and methods, and they were particularly enjoined that they were not sent primarily to get the mechanical side of the method, but to

"warm yourselves at the sacred fire which burns in the heart of this man, so full of strength and love, whose work has remained so far below what he originally desired, below the essential ideas of his life, of which the method is only a feeble product.

"You will have reached perfection when you have clearly seen that education is an art, and the most sublime and holy of all, and in what connection it is with the great art of the education of nations."

In 1809 Carl August Zeller (1774-1847), a pupil of Pestalozzi, who had established two Pestalozzian training-colleges in Switzerland and had just begun to hold Pestalozzian inst.i.tutes in Wurtemberg (p. 545), was called to Prussia to organize a Teachers' Seminary (normal school) to train teachers in the Pestalozzian methods. The seventeen Prussian teachers, on their return from study with Pestalozzi, were also made directors of training inst.i.tutions, or provincial superintendents of instruction. In this way Pestalozzian ideas were soon in use in the elementary school rooms of Prussia, and so effective was this work, and so readily did the Prussian teachers catch the spirit of Pestalozzi's endeavors, that at the Berlin celebration of the centennial of his birth, in 1846, the German educator Diesterweg [12] said:

By these men and these means, men trained in the Inst.i.tution at Yverdon under Pestalozzi, the study of his publications, and the applications of his methods in the model and normal schools of Prussia, after 1808, was the present Prussian, or rather Prussian- Pestalozzian school system established, for he is ent.i.tled to at least one half the fame of the German popular schools.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 171. DINTER (1760-1831) Director of Teachers' Seminaries in Saxony; Superintendent of Education in East Prussia.]

Similarly Gustavus Friedrich Dinter, who early distinguished himself as princ.i.p.al of a Teachers' Seminary in Saxony, was called to Prussia and made School Counselor (Superintendent) for the province of East Prussia.

Wherever Prussia could find men, in other States, who knew Pestalozzian methods and possessed the new conception of education, they were called to Prussia and put to work, and the statement of Dinter was characteristic of the spirit which animated their work. He said: [13]

I promised G.o.d, that I would look upon every Prussian peasant child as a being who could complain of me before G.o.d, if I did not provide him with the best education, as a man and a Christian, which it was possible for me to provide.

WORK OF THE TEACHERS SEMINARIES. Napoleon had imposed heavy financial indemnities on Prussia, as well as loss of territory, and the material means with which to establish schools were scanty indeed. With a keen conception of the practical difficulties, the leaders saw that the key to the problem lay in the creation of a new type of teaching force, and to this end they began from the first to establish Teachers' Seminaries.

Those who desired to enter these inst.i.tutions were carefully selected, and out of them a steady stream of what Horace Mann described (R. 278) as a "beneficent order of men" were sent to the schools, "moulding the character of the people, and carrying them forward in a career of civilization more rapidly than any other people in the world are now advancing." Mann described, with marked approval, both the teacher and the training he received.

So successful were these inst.i.tutions that within a decade, under the glow of the new national spirit animating the people, the elementary schools were largely transformed in spirit and purpose, and the position of the elementary-school teacher was elevated from the rank of a trade (R. 279) to that of a profession (R. 278). By 1840, when the earlier fervor had died out and a reaction had clearly set in, there were in Prussia alone thirty-eight Teachers' Seminaries for elementary teachers, approximately thirty thousand elementary schools, and every sixth person in Prussia was in school. In the other German States, and in Holland, Sweden, and France, a.n.a.logous but less extensive progress in providing normal schools and elementary schools had been made; but in Austria, which did not for long follow the Prussian example, the schools remained largely stationary for more than half a century to come.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 172. DIESTERWEG (1790-1866) Director of Teachers' Seminaries at Maurs (1820-33) and Berlin (1833-49).

"Der deutsche Pestalozzi".]

NATIONALIZING THE ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION. That the system of elementary vernacular or people's schools (the term _Volksschule_ now began to be applied) now created should be permeated by a strong nationalistic tone was, the times and circ.u.mstances considered, only natural. Though the Pestalozzian theories as to the development of the mental faculties, training through the senses, and the power of education to regenerate society were accepted, along with the new Pestalozzian subject-matter and methods in instruction (p. 543,) all that could be rendered useful to the Prussian State in its extremity naturally was given special emphasis. Thus all that related to the home country--geography, history, and the German speech--was taught as much from the patriotic as from the pedagogical point of view. Music was given special emphasis as preparatory for partic.i.p.ation in the patriotic singing-societies and festivals, which were organized at the time of the "Uprising of Prussia" (1813). Drawing and arithmetic were emphasized for their practical values. Physical exercises were given an emphasis before unknown, because of their hygienic and military values. Finally religion was given an importance beyond that of Pestalozzi's school, but with the emphasis now placed on moral earnestness, humility, self-sacrifice, and obedience to authority, rather than the earlier stress on the Catechism and church doctrine.

Clearly perceiving, decades ahead of other nations, the power of such training to nationalize a people and thus strengthen the State, the Prussian leaders, in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, laid the foundations of that training of the ma.s.ses, and of teachers for the ma.s.ses (R. 280), which, more than any other single item, paved the way for the development of a national German spirit, the unification of German lands into an Imperial German Empire, and that blind trust in and obedience to authority which has recently led to a second national humiliation.

THE REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. Alongside this elementary- school system for the ma.s.ses of the people, the older secondary and higher school system for a directing cla.s.s (p. 553) also was largely reorganized and redirected. The first step in this direction was the appointment, in 1809, of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), "a philosopher, scholar, philologist, and statesman" of the first rank, to the heads.h.i.+p of the new Prussian Department of Public Instruction. During the two and a half years he remained in charge important work in the reorganization of secondary and higher education was accomplished. In 1817 the Department of Public Instruction was changed from a bureau to an independent Ministry for Spiritual and Instructional Affairs. By 1825, when governing school boards were ordered established in each province, and made responsible to the Ministry for Education at Berlin, the organization of the state school system was virtually complete. For the next half-century the changes made were in the nature of the perfection of bureaucratic organization, rather than any fundamental organizing change. During the early years improvements of great future importance for secondary education were effected in the creation of a well-educated, professional teaching body, and in the standardization of courses and of work.

In 1810 the examination of all secondary-school teachers, according to a uniform state plan, was ordered. The examinations were to be conducted for the State by the university authorities; to be based on university training in the gymnasial subjects, with an opportunity to reveal special preparation in any subject or subjects; and no one in the future could even be nominated for a position as a gymnasial teacher who had not pa.s.sed this examination. This meant the erection of the work of teaching in the secondary schools into a distinct profession; the elimination from the schools of the theological student who taught for a time as a stepping- stone to a church living; and the end of easy local examination and approval by town authorities or the patrons of a school. To insure still better preparation of candidates, Pedagogical Seminars were begun in the universities [14] for imparting to future gymnasial teachers some pedagogical knowledge and insight, while Philological Seminars also appeared, about the same time, [15] to give additional training in understanding the spirit of instruction in the chief subjects of the gymnasial course--the cla.s.sics. In 1826 a year of trial teaching before appointment (_Probejahr_) was added for all candidates, and in 1831 new and more stringent regulations for the examination of teachers were ordered. [16] At least two generations ahead of other nations, Prussia thus developed a body of professional teachers for its secondary schools.

UNIFICATION OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS. In 1812 the Leaving Examinations (_Maturitatsprufung_), inst.i.tuted in 1788, but ineffective through clerical opposition, were revived and strictly enforced. In 1834 the pa.s.sing of such an examination was made necessary to entering nearly all branches of the state civil service, thus securing an educated body of minor public officials. This same year the universities gave up their entrance examinations, and have since depended entirely on the Leaving Examinations of the State.