THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION
by
ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
Part 11 out of 18
* Anderson, L. F. "The Manual-Labor-School Movement"; in _Educational
Review_, vol. 46, pp. 369-88. (November, 1913.)
Barnard, Henry. _Pestalozzi and his Educational System_.
* Compayre, G. _Jean-Jacques Rousseau_.
* Compayre, G. _Pestalozzi and Elementary Education_.
* Guimps, Roger de. _Pestalozzi: his Aim and Work_.
* Kruesi, Hermann, Jr. _Life and Work of Pestalozzi_.
* Parker S. C. _History of Modern Education, chaps. 8, 9, 13-16_.
* Pestalozzi, J. H. _Leonard and Gertrude_.
Pestalozzi, J. H. _How Gertrude teaches her Children_.
Pinloche, A. _Pestalozzi and the Foundations of the Modern Elementary
School_.
CHAPTER XXII
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION IN PRUSSIA
I. THE BEGINNINGS OF NATIONAL ORGANIZATION
EARLY GERMAN PROGRESS IN SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. The first modern nation to
take over the school from the Church, and to make of it an instrument for
promoting the interests of the State was Prussia, and the example of
Prussia was soon followed by the other German States. The reasons for this
early action by the German States will be clear if we remember the marked
progress made in establishing state control of the churches (p. 318) which
followed the Protestant Revolts in German lands. Figure 96, page 319,
reexamined now, will make the reason for the earlier evolution of state
education in Germany plain. Wuertemberg, as early as 1559, had organized
the first German state-church school system, and had made attendance at
the religious instruction, compulsory on the parents of all children. The
example of Wuertemberg was followed by Brunswick (1569), Saxony (1580),
Weimar (1619), and Gotha (1642). In Weimar and Gotha the compulsory-
attendance idea had even been adopted for elementary-school instruction to
all children up to the age of twelve.
By the middle of the seventeenth century most of the German States, even
including Catholic Bavaria, had followed the example of Wuertemberg, and
had created a state-church school system which involved at least
elementary and secondary schools and the beginnings of compulsory school
attendance. Notwithstanding the ravages of the Thirty Years' War (1618-
48), the state-church schools of German lands contained, more definitely
than had been worked out elsewhere, the germs of a separate state school
organization. Only in the American Colonies (p. 364) had an equal
development in state-church organization and control been made. As state-
church schools, with the religious purpose dominant, the German schools
remained until near the middle of the eighteenth century. Then a new
movement for state control began, and within fifty years thereafter they
had been transformed into institutions of the State, with the state
purpose their most essential characteristic. How this transformation was
effected in Prussia, the leader among the German States, and the forces
which brought about the transformation, it will be the purpose of this
chapter to relate.
THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF HALLE. The turning-point in the history of German
educational progress was the founding of the University of Halle, in 1694.
This institution, due to its entirely new methods of work, has usually
been designated as the first modern university. A few forward-looking men,
men who had been expelled from Leipzig because of their critical attitude
and modern ways of thinking, were made professors here. Its creation was
due to the sympathy for these men felt by the Elector Friedrich III of
Brandenburg, later the first King of Prussia. The King clearly intended
that the new institution should be representative of modern tendencies in
education. To this end he installed as professors men who could and would
reform the instruction in theology, law, medicine, and philosophy.
In consequence Aristotle was displaced for the new scientific philosophy
of Descartes and Bacon, and Latin in the classrooms for the German speech.
The sincere pietistic faith of Francke (p. 418) was substituted for the
Lutheran dogmatism which had supplanted the earlier Catholic. The
instruction in law was reformed to accord with the modern needs and theory
of the State. Medical instruction, based on observation, experimentation,
and deduction, superseded instruction based on the reading of Hippocrates
and Galen. The new sciences, especially mathematics and physics, found a
congenial home in the philosophical or arts faculty. Free scientific
investigation and research, without interference from the theological
faculty, were soon established as features of the institution, and in
place of the fixed scientific knowledge taught for so long from the texts
of Aristotle (Rs. 113-15) and other ancients, a new and changing science,
that must prove its laws and axioms, and which might at any time be
changed by the investigation of any teacher or student, here now found a
home. Under the leadership of Christian Wolff, who was Professor of
Philosophy from 1707 to 1723, when he was banished by a new King at the
instigation of the Pietists for his too great liberalism in religion, and
again from 1740 to 1754, after his recall by Frederick the Great, [1]
philosophy was "made to speak German" and the Aristotelian philosophy was
permanently displaced. "No thing without sufficient cause" was the ruling
principle of Wolff's teaching.
CHANGES WROUGHT IN OLD ESTABLISHED PROCEDURE. The introduction of the new
scientific and mathematical and philosophical studies soon changed the
arts or philosophy faculty from a preparatory faculty for the faculties of
law, medicine, and theology, as it had been for centuries, to the equal of
these three professional faculties in importance, while the elementary
instruction in Latin and Greek was now relegated to the _Gymnasia_ below.
These were now in turn changed into preparatory schools for all four
faculties of the university. The university instruction in the ancient
languages was now placed on a much higher plane, and a new humanistic
renaissance took place (p. 462) which deeply influenced both university
and gymnasial training. New standards of taste and judgment were drawn
from the ancient literatures and applied to modern life, and students were
trained to read and enjoy the ancient classics. This reawakening of the
best spirit of the Italian Renaissance marked the first outburst of a
national feeling of a people as yet possessed of no national literature of
importance, but unwilling longer to depend on foreign (French) influences
for the cultural elements in their intellectual life.
It was at Halle, too, that Gundling, in 1711, discussed "the office of a
university" and laid down the modern university theory of _Lehrfreiheit
und Lernfreiheit_--that is, freedom from outside interference in teaching
and studying, both teachers and students to be free to follow the truth
wherever the truth might lead, and without reference to what preconceived
theories might be upset thereby. This was a revolution in university
procedure, [2] and the importance of the establishment of this new
conception of university work can scarcely be overestimated. It was a
contribution to intellectual progress of large future value. It meant the
end of the old-type university, ruled by a narrow theological dogmatism
and maintained to give support to a particular religious faith, and the
ultimate transformation of the old university foundations into
institutions actuated by the methods and purposes of a modern world.
In 1734 another new university was founded at Goettingen, and in this
Johann Matthias Gesner (1691-1761) raised the new humanistic learning to
the place of first importance. This new university became a nursery for
the new literary humanism, ably supplementing the work done at Halle. From
these two universities teachers of a new type went out, filled with the
spirit of "The Enlightenment," as this eighteenth-century German
renaissance was called, and they in time regenerated all the German
universities. Still more, they regenerated the secondary schools of German
lands as well, and gave Greek literature and life that place of first
importance in their instruction which was retained until the latter part
of the nineteenth century. Gesner at Goettingen, and later Ernesti at
Leipzig, did much to formulate the new pedagogical purpose [3] of
instruction in the ancient languages and literatures for the higher
schools of German lands.
THE EARLIEST SCHOOL LAWS FOR PRUSSIA. In 1713 there came to the kingship
of Prussia an organizing genius in the person of Frederic William I (1713-
40). Under his direction Prussia was given, for the first time, a
centralized and uniform financial administration, and the beginnings of
state school organization were made. He freed the State from debt,
provided it with a good income, developed a strong army, and began a
vigorous colonization and commercial policy. Though he cared nothing and
did nothing for the universities, the religious reform movement of
Francke, as well as his educational undertakings (p. 419), found in the
new King a warm supporter. Largely in consequence of this the King became
deeply interested in attempts to improve and advance the education of the
masses of his people.
The first year of his reign he issued a Regulatory Code for the Reformed
Evangelical and Latin schools of Prussia, and in 1717 he issued the so-
called "Advisory Order," relating to the people's schools. In this latter
parents were urged, under penalty of "vigorous punishment," to send their
children to school to learn religion, reading, writing, to calculate, and
"all that could serve to promote their happiness and welfare." The tuition
fees of poor children he ordered paid out of the community poor-box (R.
273). The following year he directed the authorities of Lithuania to
relieve the existing ignorance there, and sent commissioners to provide
the villages with schoolmasters. From time to time he renewed his
directions. To insure a better class of teachers for the towns and rural
schools, he, in 1722, directed that no one be admitted to the office of
sacristan-schoolmaster [4] except tailors, weavers, smiths, wheelwrights,
and carpenters, and in 1738 he further restricted the position of teacher
in the town and rural schools to tailors.
[Illustration: FIG. 168. THE SCHOOL OF A HANDWORKER
Conducted in his home. A gentleman visiting the school.
After a drawing in the German School Museum in Berlin.]
Becoming especially interested in providing schools for the previously
neglected province of East Prussia, he gave the sum of fifty thousand
thalers as an endowment fund, the interest to be used in assisting
communities to build schoolhouses and maintain schools, and he also set
aside large tracts of land for school uses. Within a few years over a
thousand elementary schools had been established, and some eighteen
hundred new schools in Prussia owed their origin to the interest of this
King. He also took a similar interest in the establishment of schools in
Pomerania (R. 273), a part of which had but recently been wrested from
Sweden.
In 1737 the King issued his celebrated _Principia Regulative_, which
henceforth became the fundamental School Law for the province of East
Prussia. This prescribed conditions for the building of schoolhouses, the
support of the schoolmaster, tuition fees, and government aid. The
following digest of the section of the _Principia_ relating to these
matters gives a good idea as to the nature of the school regulations the
King sought to enforce:
1. The parishes forming school societies were obliged to build school-
houses and to keep them in repair.
2. The State was to furnish the necessary timber and firewood.
3. The expenses for doors, windows, and stoves to be obtained from
collections.
4. Every church to pay four thalers a year toward the support of the
schoolmaster.
5. Tuition fees for each child, from four to twelve years of age, to
be four groschen per year.
6. Government to pay the fee when a peasant sends more than one child
to school.
7. The peasants to furnish the teacher with certain provisions.
8. The teacher to have the right of free pasture for his small stock
and some fees from every child confirmed.
9. Government to give the teacher one acre of land, which villagers
were to till for him.
In 1738 the King further regulated the private schools and teachers in and
about Berlin, in particular dealing with their qualifications and fees.
The King showed, for the time, an interest in and solicitude for the
education of his people heretofore almost unknown. That his decrees were
in advance of the possibilities of the people in the matter of school
support is not to be wondered at. Still, they rendered useful service in
preparing the way for further organizing work by his successors, and in
particular in accustoming the people to the ideas of state oversight and
local school support. Under his successor and son, Frederick the Great,
the preparatory work of the father bore important fruit.
THE ORGANIZING WORK OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. In 1740 Frederick II, surnamed
the Great, succeeded his father, and in turn guided the destinies of
Prussia for forty-six years. His benevolently despotic rule has been
described on a preceding page (p. 474). Here we will consider only his
work for education. In 1740, 1741, and again in 1743 he issued
"regulations concerning the support of schools in the villages of
Prussia," in which he directed that new schools should be established,
teachers provided for them, and that "the existing school regulations and
the arrangements made in pursuance thereto should be permanent, and that
no change should be made under any pretext whatever."
In 1750 he effected a centralization of all the provincial church
consistories, except that of Catholic Silesia, under the Berlin
Consistory. This was a centralizing measure of large future importance, as
it centralized the administration of the schools, as well as that of the
churches, and transformed the Berlin Consistory into an important
administrative agent of the central government. To this new centralized
administrative organization the King issued instructions to pay special
attention to schools, in order that they might be furnished with able
schoolmasters and the young be well educated. One of the results of this
centralization was the gradual evolution of the modern German _Gymnasien_,
with uniform standards and improved instruction, out of the old and
weakened Latin schools of various types within the kingdom.
From 1756 to 1763 Frederick was engaged in a struggle for existence, known
as the Seven Years' War, but as soon as peace was at hand the King issued
new regulations "concerning the maintenance of schools," and began
employing competent schoolmasters for his royal estates. In April, 1763,
he issued instructions to have a series of general school regulations
prepared for all Prussia. These were drawn up by Julius Hecker, a former
pupil and teacher in Francke's Institution (p. 418) and now a pastor in
Berlin and counselor for the Berlin Consistory. After approval by the
King, these were issued, September 23, 1763, under the title of _General
Land-Schule Reglement_ (general school regulations for the rural and
village schools) of all Prussia (R. 274). These new regulations
constituted the first general School Code for the whole kingdom, and mark
the real foundation of the Prussian elementary-school system. Two years
later (1765) a similar but stronger set of regulations or Code was drawn
up and promulgated for the government of the Catholic elementary schools
in the province of Silesia (R. 275). This was a new province which
Frederick had wrested by force a few years previously (1748) from Maria
Theresa of Austria, and the addition of a large number of Catholics to
Prussia caused Frederick to issue specific regulations for schools among
them.
[Illustration: FIG. 169. THE KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA, 1740-86]
These two School Codes did not so much bring already existing schools into
a state system, but rather set up standards and obligations for an
elementary-school system in part to be created in the future. The schools
were still left under the supervision and direction of the Church, but the
State now undertook to tell the Church what it must do. To enforce the
obligation the State Inspectors of Prussia were directed to make an annual
inspection (R. 274, sec 26) of all schools, and to forward a report on their
inspection to the Berlin Consistory, and for Catholic Silesia the
following significant injunction was placed in the Code:
sec 51. In order to render as permanent as possible this reform of
schools, which lies near our heart, we cannot be satisfied with
committing the care of the schools to the clergy alone. We find it
necessary that our bureau of War and Domain, the bureau of the
Episcopal Vicariate, and the dioceses in our Silesian and Glatz
districts, as well as our special school inspectors, give all due
attention to this subject, so important to the State.
THE PRUSSIAN SCHOOL CODES OF 1763 AND 1765. The regulations of 1763 were
issued, so the introduction reads (R. 274), because "the instruction of
youth" in the country had "come to be greatly neglected" and "the young
people were growing up in stupidity and ignorance." The King, therefore,
issued the new regulations "to the end that ignorance, so injurious and
unbecoming to Christianity, may be prevented and lessened, and the coming
time may train and educate in the schools more enlightened and virtuous
subjects."
To this end the King ordered compulsory education for the children of all
subjects from the ages of five to thirteen or fourteen, all apprentices to
be taught, and leaving certificates to be issued on completion of the
course (R. 274, sec 1-4). The school hours were fixed, Sunday and summer
instruction regulated, tuition fees standardized, and the fees of the
children of the poor were ordered paid (R. 274, sec 5-8). A school census,
and fines on parents not sending their children to school were provided
for (R. 274, sec 10-11). The requirements for a teacher, his habits, his
qualifications and examination, the license to teach, and the extent to
which he might ply his trade or business, were all laid down in some
detail (R. 274 sec 12-17). The organization, instruction, textbooks, order
of exercises, and discipline for all schools were prescribed at some
length (R. 274, sec 19-21). The Code closed with a series of regulations
covering the relations of the schoolmaster and clergyman, and the
supervision of the instruction by the clergyman and clerical
superintendents (R. 274, sec 25-26). Incapable teachers were ordered
suspended or deposed. A a final injunction relative to school attendance
the Code closed with the following sentence:
In general we here confirm and renew all wholesome laws, published in
former times, especially, that no clergyman shall admit to
confirmation and the sacrament, any children not of his parish, nor
those unable to read, or who are ignorant of the fundamental
principles of evangelical religion.
The Code of 1765 for the Catholic schools of Silesia followed much the
same line as the Code of 1763, though in it the King placed special
emphasis on the training of schoolmasters, a subject in which he had
become much interested (R. 275 a); the regulation of the conditions under
which teachers lived and worked (R. 275 b); and the supervision of
instruction by the clergyman of the parish (R. 275 e). These directions
throw much light on the conditions surrounding teaching near the middle of
the eighteenth century. The nature of instruction in the Catholic schools,
and the compulsion to attend, were also definitely stated (R. 275 c-d).
These new Codes met with resistance everywhere. The money for the
execution of such a comprehensive project was not as yet generally
available; parents and churches objected to taxation and to the loss of
their children from work; the wealthy landlords objected to the financial
burden; the standards for teachers later on (1779) had to be lowered, and
veterans from Frederick's wars installed; and the examinations of teachers
had to be made easy [5] to secure teachers at all for the schools. While
there continued for some decades to be a vast difference between the
actual conditions in the schools and the requirements of these Codes, and
while the real establishment of a state school system awaited the first
decade of the nineteenth century for its accomplishment, much valuable
progress in organization nevertheless was made. In principle, at least,
Frederick the Great, by the Codes of 1763 and 1765, effected for
elementary education a transition from the church school of the Protestant
Reformation, and for Catholic Silesia from the parish school of the
Church, to the state school of the nineteenth century. It remained only
for his successors to realize in practice what he had made substantial
beginnings of in law. Nowhere else in Europe that early had such progress
in educational organization been made.
THE PRUSSIAN EXAMPLE FOLLOWED IN OTHER GERMAN STATES. The example of
Prussia was in time followed by the other larger German States. Wuertemberg
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 leadership 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 "principal" or higher elementary school in the
principal 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
institution, and on every fitting occasion recommended school authorities
to it for teachers. Similar institutions were opened in Hanover, in 1751;
Wolfenbuettel, 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, sec 2) six
institutions which he had designated as teacher-training schools.
These early Prussian institutions 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 institution 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 class, 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.
[Illustration: 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" (_Maturitaetspruefung_) were
instituted 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 institutions, charged with the
instruction of youth in useful information and scientific knowledge.
Such institutions may be founded only with the knowledge and consent
of the State. All public schools and educational institutions 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 document 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 abolishing 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 citizenship, and laid the foundations
of government by legislative assemblies. 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 noble 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]
[Illustration: 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 institutes in Wuertemberg (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 institutions, 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 Institution 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 entitled to at least
one half the fame of the German popular schools.
[Illustration: 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
principal 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 God, that I would look upon every Prussian peasant child as
a being who could complain of me before God, 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 institutions 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 institutions 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,
analogous 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.
[Illustration: 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 circumstances 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
participation 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 masses, and of teachers for the
masses (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 masses of the people, the older secondary and higher
school system for a directing class (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 headship 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 passed
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 classics. 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
(_Maturitaetspruefung_), instituted in 1788, but ineffective through
clerical opposition, were revived and strictly enforced. In 1834 the
passing 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.
The immediate effect of the reinstitution of the Leaving Examinations was
to unify the work of all the different surviving types of classical
secondary schools--_Gymnasium, Lyceum, Paedagogium, Collegium, Lateinische
Schule, Akademie_--all standard nine-year schools henceforth taking the
name of _Gymnasien_. Those institutions which could not meet the standards
of a nine-year classical school were either permitted to do the first six
years of the work, being known as _Pro-Gymnasien_, or the modern languages
were substituted for the ancient, and they became middle-class
institutions under the name of _Buergerschulen_. A few _Realschulen_ also
were in existence, and these were permitted to continue, as middle-class
institutions, but without any state recognition. Thus, without the
destruction of institutions, the accumulated 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 substitution 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 Goettingen 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 assigning a royal palace
to it for a home. The spirit with which the new institution 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
classical 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 classroom
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 institution. 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 institution 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
institution'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. Mueller introduced the microscope into the study of pathological
anatomy. Schultze systematized zooelogy. 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
institutions (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 assumed 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-CLASS 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 masses 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 sexes, 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 173. THE PRUSSIAN STATE SCHOOL SYSTEM CREATED
Compare with Fig. 269 and note the difference between a European two-class
system and the American democratic educational ladder.]
For those who were to form the official and directing class of Society--a
closely limited, almost entirely male, intellectual aristocracy--education
in separate classical 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 class. Out of
this class the leaders of Germany for a century have been drawn. [20] For
this classical 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 assiduity 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-class society. Lastly, since the end of the eighteenth
century, the Germans have yielded themselves to the influence of the
Hellenic 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
institutions, 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, principalities, and
states, and some fourteen hundred independent noblemen 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 God, 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 constitutional 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 attitude 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 instituted, 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
constitutional 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
instituted. University freedom was markedly restricted; the institutions
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 classes 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
masses 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
peacock, 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-
class 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; reasserted 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 assume 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 classes were
to be made into God-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.
9. Show that the work of Prussia, in using the schools for national ends,
was: (a) in keeping with the work of the French Revolutionary leaders,
and (b) only a further extension of the organizing work done by
Frederick the Great.
10. Show how the universities of Germany early took the lead of the
universities of the world, and the influence of this fact on national
progress.
11. Enumerate the new nineteenth-century tendencies observable in the
early educational organization in Prussia.
12. Explain the marked mid-nineteenth-century reaction to educational
development which set in.
13. Explain the early and marked welcome accorded science-study in German
lands.
14. Explain in what ways Prussia attained an educational leadership, ahead
of other nations.
SELECTED READINGS
In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections,
illustrative of the contents of this chapter, are reproduced:
273. Barnard: The Organizing Work of Frederick William I.
274. Prussia: The School Code of 1763.
275. Prussia: The Silesian School Code of 1765.
276. Austria: The School Code of 1774.
277. Fichte: Addresses to the German Nation.
278. Mann: The Prussian Elementary Teacher and his Training.
279. Dinter: Prussian Schools and Teachers as he found them.
280. Cousin: Report on Education in Prussia.
281. Mann: The Military Aspect of Prussian Education.,
QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS
1. Explain the interest of Frederick William I (273) in elementary
education.
2. Characterize, from the Codes of 1763 (274) and 1765 (275), and cite
paragraph to show: (a) The type of instruction ordered provided; (b) the
type of teacher expected; (c) the character of the attendance required;
and (d) the character of the continuation training ordered.
3. Show the similarity in their main lines of the Prussian (274) and
Austrian (276) Codes.
4. Would the reasoning of Fichte (277) apply to any crushed nation?
Illustrate.
5. Do we select teachers for training as carefully in the United States
today as they did in Prussia eighty years ago (278)? Could we?
6. Did such conditions as Dinter describes (279) exist, even later, with
us?
7. Was the Prussian school system, as described by Cousin (280), a
centralized or a decentralized system?
8. Show that Mann's reasoning as to the strength of the Prussian school
system (281) was thoroughly sound.
SELECTED REFERENCES
* Alexander, Thomas. _The Prussian Elementary Schools_.
* Barnard, Henry. "Public Instruction in Prussia"; in _American Journal
of Education_, vol. XX, pp. 333-434.
Barnard, Henry. _German Teachers and Educators_.
* Cassell, Henry. "Adolph Diesterweg"; in _Educational Review_, vol.
I, pp. 345-56. (April, 1891.)
Friedel, V. H. _The German School as a War Nursery_.
Lexis, W. _A General View of the History and Organization of Public
Education in the German Empire_.
* Nohle, E. "History of the German School System"; in _Report U.S.
Commissioner of Education_, 1897-98, vol. I, pp. 3-82. Translated
from Rein's _Encyclopaedisches Handbuch der Paedagogik_.
* Paulsen, Fr. _German Education, Past and Present_.
* Paulsen, Fr. _The German Universities_.
* Russell, James. _German Higher Schools_.
Seeley, J. R. _Life and Times of Stein_, vol. I.
CHAPTER XXIII
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION IN FRANCE AND ITALY
I. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION IN FRANCE
LINES OF DEVELOPMENT MARKED OUT BY THE REVOLUTION. The Revolution proved
very disastrous to the old forms of education in France. The old
educational foundations, accumulated through the ages, were swept away,
and the teaching congregations, which had provided the people with
whatever education they had enjoyed, were driven from the soil. The ruin
of educational and religious institutions in Russia under the recent rule
of the Bolshevists is perhaps comparable to what happened in France. Many
plans were proposed by the Revolutionary philosophers and enthusiasts, as
we have seen (chapter xx), to replace what had once been and to provide
better than had once been done for the educational needs of the masses of
the people, but with results that were small in comparison with the
expectations of the legislative assemblies which considered or approved
them. Nevertheless, the directions of future progress in educational
organization were clearly marked out before Napoleon came to power, and
the work which he did was largely an extension, and a reduction to working
order, of what had been proposed or established by the enthusiasts of the
pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods. At the time of the Revolution
the State definitely took over the control of education from the Church,
and the work of Napoleon and those who came after him was to organize
public instruction into a practical state-controlled system.
In effecting this organization, the preceding discussions of education as
a function of the State and the desirable forms of organization to follow
all bore important fruit, and the forms finally adopted embodied not only
the ideas contained in the legislation of the revolutionary assemblies,
but the earlier theoretical discussion of the subject by Rolland (p. 510),
Diderot (p. 511), and Talleyrand (p. 513) as well. They embodied also the
peculiar administrative genius of France--that desire for uniformity in
organization and administration--and hence stand in contrast to the state
educational organizations worked out about the same time in German lands.
The German States, as we have seen, had for long been working toward state
control of education, but when this was finally attained they still
permitted a large degree of local initiative and control. The French, on
the contrary, made the transition in a few years, and the system of state
control which they established provided for uniformity, and for
centralized supervision and inspection in the hands of the State. The
forms for state control and education adopted in the two countries were
also expressive of age-long tendencies in each. For three centuries German
political organization, as we have seen, had been extremely decentralized
on the one hand, and had been slowly evolving a system of education under
the joint control of the small States and the Church on the other. In
France, on the contrary, centralization of authority and subordination to
a central government had been the tendency for an even longer period. When
the time arrived for the State to take over education from the Church, it
was but natural that France should tend toward a much more highly
centralized control than did the German States, and the differing
political situations of the two countries, at the opening of the
nineteenth century, gave added emphasis to these differing tendencies.
[Illustration: FIG. 174. AN OLD FOUNDATION TRANSFORMED
This was an ancient chateau in France. In 1604 Henry IV gave it to the
Jesuits for a school. In 1791 it became national property, and was
transformed into a Military College.]
In consequence, Prussia and the other German States early achieved a form
of state educational organization which emphasized local interest and the
spirit of the instruction, whereas France created an administrative
organization which emphasized central control and, for the time, the form
rather than the spirit of instruction. This was well pointed out by Victor
Cousin (R. 280), in contrasting conditions in Prussia with those existing
in France.
NAPOLEON BEGINS THE ORGANIZATION OF EDUCATION. In 1799 Napoleon became
First Consul and master of France, and in 1804 France, by vote, changed
from a Republic to an Empire, with Napoleon as first Emperor. Until his
banishment to Saint Helena (1815) he was master of France. A man of large
executive capacity and an organizing genius of great ability, whether he
turned to army organization, governmental organization, the codification
of the laws, or the organization of education, Napoleon's practical and
constructive mind quickly reduced parts to their proper places in a well-
regulated scheme. Shortly after he became Consul he took up, among other
things, the matter of educational organization.
His first effort was in 1800, when he transformed the old humanistic
College Louis le Grand (founded 1567) and created four military colleges
from its endowment. One of these colleges he later, in characteristic
fashion, transformed into a School of Arts and Trades (R. 282). In 1802 he
signed the famous Concordat with the Pope. This restored the priests to
the churches, with state aid for their stipends, and virtually turned over
primary education again to the Church for care and control. The "Brothers
of the Christian Schools" (p. 515) were recalled the next year and
especially favored, and soon established themselves more firmly than
before the Revolution.
[Illustration: FIG. 175. COUNT DE FOURCROY (1755-1809)]
In 1802 Napoleon first turned his attention to a general organization of
public instruction by directing Count de Fourcroy, a distinguished chemist
who had been a teacher in the Polytechnic School, and whom he appointed
Director of Public Instruction, to draw up, according to his ideas, an
organizing law on the subject. This became the Law of 1802. It was divided
into nine chapters, as follows:
I. Degrees of Instruction.
II. Primary Schools.
III. Secondary Schools.
IV. Lycees.
V. Special Schools.
VI. The Military School.
VII. The National Pupils.
VIII. The _nationales pensions_
IX. General regulations.
1. PRIMARY SCHOOLS. The chapter on primary schools virtually reenacted the
Law of 1795 (R. 258 b). Each commune [1] was required to furnish a
schoolhouse and a home for the teacher. The teacher was to be responsible
to local authorities, while the supervision of the school was placed under
the prefect of the Department. The instruction was to be limited to
reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the legal authorities were enjoined
"to watch that the teachers did not carry their instructions beyond these
limits." The teacher was to be paid entirely from tuition fees, though one
fifth of the pupils were to be provided with free schooling. The State
gave nothing toward the support of the primary schools.
The interest of Napoleon was not in primary or general education, but
rather in training pupils for scientific and technical efficiency, and
youths of superior ability for the professions and for executive work in
the kind of government he had imposed upon France. To this end secondary
and special education were made particular functions of the State, while
primary education was left to the communes to provide as they saw fit.
They could provide schools and the parents could pay for the teacher, or
not, as they might decide. There was no compulsion to enforce the
requirement of a primary school, and no state aid to stimulate local
effort to create one. In consequence not many state primary schools were
established, and primary education remained, for another generation, in
the hands of private teachers and the Church.
2. SECONDARY SCHOOLS. Chapters III and IV of the Law of 1802 made full
provision for two types of secondary schools--the Communal Colleges and
the Lycees [2]--to replace the Central Higher Schools established in 1795
(p. 518). These latter had lacked sadly in internal organization. They
were merely day schools, lacking the dormitory and boarding arrangements
which for over three centuries had characterized the French _colleges_. As
a result they had not prospered. The Law of 1802 now replaced them with
two types of residential secondary schools, in which the youth of the
country, under careful supervision and discipline, might prepare for
entrance to the higher special schools. These fixed the lines of future
French development in secondary schools.
The standard secondary school now became known as the _Lycee_. These
institutions corresponded to the Colleges under the old regime, of which
the College of Guyenne (R. 136) was a type. The instruction was to include
the ancient languages, rhetoric, logic, ethics, belles-lettres,
mathematics, and physical science, with some provision for additional
instruction in modern languages and drawing. Each was to have at least
eight "professors," an administrative head, a supervisor of studies, and a
steward to manage the business affairs of the institution. The State
usually provided the building, often using some former church school which
had been suppressed, and the cities in which the Lycees were located were
required to provide them with furniture and teaching equipment. The funds
for maintenance came from tuition fees, boarding and rooming income, and
state scholarships, of which six thousand four hundred were provided.
Besides the Lycees, every school established by a municipality, or kept by
an individual, which gave instruction in Latin, French, geography,
history, and mathematics was designated as a secondary school, or Communal
College. These institutions usually offered but a partial Lycee course,
and were tuition schools, being patronized by many parents whose tastes
forbade the sending of their children to the lower-class primary schools.
A license from the Government to operate was necessary before masters
could be employed. They were to be maintained by the municipality, without
any state encouragement beyond some grants for capable teachers and
scholarships in the Lycees for meritorious pupils.
Within two years after the enactment of the Law of 1802 there had been
created in France 46 Lycees, 378 secondary schools of various degrees of
completeness, and 361 private schools of secondary grade had been opened.
A number of these disappeared later, in the reorganization of 1808. For
the supervision of all these institutions the Director General of Public
Instruction appointed three Superintendents of Secondary Studies; and for
the work of the schools he outlined the courses of instruction in detail,
laid down the rules of administration, prepared and selected the
textbooks, and appointed the "professors."
SPECIAL OR HIGHER SCHOOLS. The chapter of the Law of 1802 on Special
Schools made provision for the creation of the following special
"faculties" or schools for higher education for France:
3 medical schools, to replace the _Schools of Health_ of 1794 (p.
518).
10 law schools; increased to 12 in 1804 (Date of _Code Napoleon_,
p. 518).
4 schools of natural history, natural philosophy, and chemistry.
2 schools of mechanical and chemical arts,
1 mathematical school,
1 school of geography, history, and political economy.
A fourth school of art and design.
Professors of astronomy for the observatories.
In 1803 the School of Arts and Trades was added (R. 282), and in 1804,
after Napoleon had signed the Concordat with the Pope, thus restoring the
Catholic religion (abolished 1791), schools of theology were added to the
above list.
We have here, clearly outlined, the main paths along which French state
educational organization had been tending and was in future to follow. The
State had definitely dispossessed the Church as the controlling agency in
education, and had definitely taken over the school as an instrument for
its own ends. Though primary education had been temporarily left to the
communes, and was soon to be turned over in large part to be handled by
the Church for a generation longer, the supervision was to remain with the
State. The middle-class elements were well provided for in the new
secondary schools, and these were now subject to complete supervision by
the State. For higher education groups of Special Schools, or Teaching
Faculties, replaced the older universities, which were not re-created
until after the coming of the Third Republic (1871). The dominant
characteristics of the state educational system thus created, aside from
its emphasis on secondary and higher education, were its uniformity and
centralized control. These characteristics were further stressed in the
reorganization of 1808, and have remained prominent in French educational
organization ever since.
CREATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANCE. By 1806 Napoleon was ready for a
further and more complete organization of the public instruction of the
State, and to this end the following law was now enacted (May 10, 1806):
Sec. 1. There will be formed, under the name of Imperial University,
a body exclusively commissioned with teaching and public education
throughout the Empire.
Sec. 2. The members of this corporation can contract civil, special,
and temporary obligations.
Sec. 3. The organization of this corps will be given in the form of a
law to the legislative body in the session of 1810.
In 1808, without the formality of further legislation, Napoleon issued an
Imperial Decree creating the University of France. This was not only
Napoleon's most remarkable educational creation, but it was an
administrative and governing organization for education so in harmony with
French spirit and French governmental ideas that it has persisted ever
since, though changed somewhat in form with time.
The Decree began by declaring that "public instruction, in the whole
Empire, is confined exclusively to the University," and that "no school,
nor establishment for instruction, can be formed independent of the
Imperial University, and without the authority of its chief." Unlike the
University of Berlin (p. 574), created a year later, this was not a
teaching university at all, but instead a governing, examining, and
disbursing corporation, [3] presided over by a Grand Master and a Council
of twenty-six members, all appointed by the Emperor. This Council decided
all matters of importance, and exercised supervision and control over
education of all kinds, from the lowest to the highest, throughout France.
[4] To assist the Council, general inspectors for medicine, law, theology,
letters, and science were provided for, to visit and "examine the
condition of instruction and discipline in the faculties, _lycees_, and
colleges; to inform themselves in regard to the fidelity and ability of
professors, regents, and ushers; to examine the students; and to make a
complete survey of those institutions, in their whole administration."
Beneath the Grand Master and Council the State was divided into twenty-
seven "Academies" (administrative districts), each of which had a Rector,
a Council of ten, and Inspectors, all appointed by the Grand Master. These
exercised jurisdiction over teachers and pupils in all schools, and
decided all local matters, subject to appeal to the Grand Master and
Council.
Under this new administrative organization but little change was made in
the schools from that provided for in the law of 1802. Primary education
remained as before, private schools and Church schools supplying most of
the need. All were under the supervision of the University, and all were
instructed to make as a basis of their instruction: (1) the precepts of
the Catholic religion; (2) fidelity to the Emperor, to the imperial
monarchy, the depository of the happiness of the people, and to the
Napoleonic dynasty, the conservator of the unity of France, and of all the
ideas proclaimed by the Constitution.
The _Lycees_ and Communal Colleges continued, much as before, [5] and
during the half-century which followed, experienced a steady and
substantial growth.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE LYCEES
Year 1809 1811 1813 1829 1847 1866
Lycees 35 36 36 36 54 74
Pupils 9,068 10,926 14,492 15,087 23,207 34,442
Free pupils 4,199 4,008 3,500 1,600
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNAL COLLEGES
Year 1809 1815 1830 1849 1855 1866
Colleges 273 323 332 306 244 251
Pupils 18,507 19,320 27,308 31,706 32,500 33,038
The Special Higher Schools were also continued, and to the list given (p.
593) Napoleon added (1808) a Superior Normal School (R. 283) to train
graduates of the _Lycees_ for teaching. This opened in 1810, with thirty-
seven students and a two-year course of instruction, and in 1815 a third
year of method and practice work was added. With some varying fortunes,
this institution has continued to the present.
THE NEW INTEREST IN PRIMARY EDUCATION. The period from 1815 to 1830 in
France is known as the Restoration. Louis XVIII was made King and ruled
until his death in 1824, and his brother Charles X who followed until
deposed by the Revolution of 1830. Though a representative of the old
regime was recalled on the abdication of Napoleon, the great social gains
of the Revolution were retained. There was no odious restoration of
privilege and absolute monarchy. Frenchmen continued to be equal before
the law; a form of constitutional government was provided; the right of
petition was recognized; and the system of public instruction as Napoleon
had organized it continued almost unchanged. For a decade at least there
was less political reaction in France than in other continental States.
In matters of education, what had been provided was retained, and there
seems (R. 285) to have been an increasing demand for additions and
improvements, particularly in the matter of primary and middle-class
schools, and a willingness on the part of the communes to provide such
advantages. Some small progress had been made in meeting these demands,
before 1830.
In 1816 a small treasury grant (50,000 francs) was made for school books,
model schools, and deserving teachers in the primary schools, and in 1829
this sum was increased to 300,000 francs. In 1818 the "Brothers of the
Christian Schools" were permitted to be certificated for teaching on
merely presenting their Letter of Obedience from the head of their Order,
and in 1824 the cantonal school committees were remodeled so as to give
the bishops and clergy entire control of all Catholic primary schools.
Monitorial instruction was introduced from England by private teachers, in
an effort to supply the beginnings of education at small expense, and for
a time this had some vogue, but never proved very successful. In 1815 the
_Lycees_ were renamed Royal Colleges, but in 1848 the old name was
restored, and has since been retained. In 1817 there were thirty-six
_Lycees_, receiving an annual state subsidy of 812,000 francs; thirty
years later the fifty-four in existence were receiving 1,500,000 francs.
From 1822 to 1829 the Higher Normal School was suppressed, and twelve
elementary normal schools were created in its stead.
EARLY WORK UNDER THE MONARCHY OF 1830. In July, 1830, Charles X attempted
to suppress constitutional liberty, and the people rose in revolt and
deposed him, and gave the crown to a new King, Louis-Philippe. He ruled
until deposed by the creation of the Second Republic, in 1848. The
"Monarchy of 1830" was supported by the leading thinkers of the time,
prominent among whom were Thiers and Guizot, and one of the first affairs
of State to which they turned their attention was the extension downward
of the system of public instruction. The first steps were an increase of
the state grant for primary schools (1830) to a million francs a year; the
overthrow of the control by the priests of the cantonal school committees
(1830): the abolition (1831) of the exemption of the religious orders from
the examinations for teaching certificates; and the creation (1830-31) of
thirty new normal schools.
[Illustration: FIG. 176 VICTOR COUSIN (1792-1867)]
The next step was to send (1831) M. Victor Cousin--Director of the
restored Higher Normal School of France--on a mission to the German
States, and in particular to Prussia, to study and report on the system of
elementary education, teacher training, and educational organization and
administration which had done so much for its regeneration. So convincing
was Cousin's _Report_ [6] that, despite bitter national antipathies, it
carried conviction throughout France. "It demonstrated to the government
and the people the immense superiority of all the German States, even the
most insignificant duchy, over any and every Department of France, in all
that concerned institutions of primary and secondary education." Cousin
pronounced the school law of Prussia (R. 280) "the most comprehensive and
perfect legislative measure regarding primary education" with which he was
acquainted, and declared his conviction that "in the present state of
things, a law concerning primary education is indispensable in France."
The chief question, he continued, was "how to procure a good one in a
country where there is a total absence of all precedents and experience in
so grave a matter." Cousin then pointed out the bases, derived from
Prussian experience and French historical development, on which a
satisfactory law could be framed (R. 284 a-c); the desirability of local
control and liberty in instruction (R. 284 f-g); and strongly recommended
the organization of higher primary schools (a new creation; first
recommended (1792) by Condorcet, p. 514) as well as primary schools (R.
284 e) to meet the educational needs of the middle classes of the
population of France.
THE LAW OF 1833. On the basis of Cousin's _Report_ a bill, making the
maintenance of primary schools obligatory on every commune; providing for
higher primary schools in the towns and cities; additional normal schools
to train teachers for these schools; a corps of primary-school inspectors,
to represent the State; and normal training and state certification
required to teach in any primary school, was prepared. In an address to
the Chamber of Deputies, in introducing the bill (1832), M. Guizot [7],
the newly appointed Minister for Public Instruction, set forth the history
of primary instruction in France up to 1832 (R. 285 a); described the two
grades of primary instruction to be created (R. 285 b); and, emphasizing
Cousin's maxim that "the schoolmaster makes the school," dwelt on the
necessity for normal training and state certification for all primary
teachers (R. 285 c). In preparing the bill it was decided not to follow
the revolutionary ideas of free instruction, by lay and state teachers, or
to enforce compulsion to attend, and for these omissions M. Guizot, in his
_Memoires_ (R. 286), gives some very interesting reasons.
[Illustration: FIG. 177. OUTLINE OF THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE FRENCH STATE
SCHOOL SYSTEM]
The bill became a law the following year, and is known officially as the
Law of 1833. This Law forms the foundations upon which the French system
of national elementary education has been developed, as the Napoleonic Law
of 1802 and the Decree of 1808 have formed the basis for secondary
education and French state administrative organization. A primary school
was to be established in every commune, which was to provide the building,
pay a fixed minimum salary to the teacher, and where able maintain the
school. The state reserved the right to fix the pay of the teacher, and
even to approve his appointment. A tuition fee was to be paid for
attendance, but those who could not pay were to be provided with free
places. The primary schools were to give instruction in reading, writing,
arithmetic, the weights and measures, the French language, and morals and
religion. The higher primary schools were to build on these subjects, and
to offer instruction in geometry and its applications, linear drawing,
surveying, physical science, natural history, history, geography, and
music, and were to emphasize instruction in "the history and geography of
France, and in the elements of science, as they apply it every day in the
office, the workshop, and the field." [8] These latter were the
_Buergerschulen_, recommended by Cousin (R. 284 e) on the basis of his
study of Prussian education. [9]
[Illustration: PLATE 14. FRANCOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT (1787-1874)
Creator of the French primary school system]
The primary schools were to follow a uniform plan, and as a guide a
_Manual of Primary Instruction_ was issued, giving detailed directions as
to what was to be done. In sending out a copy of the Law to the primary
teachers of France, M. Guizot enclosed a personal letter to each,
informing him as to what the government expected of him in the new work
(R. 287). During the four years that M. Guizot remained Minister of Public
Instruction he rendered a remarkable service, well described by Matthew
Arnold (R. 288), in awakening his countrymen to the new problem of popular
education then before them.
The results under the Law of 1833 were large [10] and the subsequent
legislation under the monarchy of 1830 was important. For the first time
in French history an earnest effort was made to provide education suited
to the needs of the great mass of the people, and the marked development
of schools which ensued showed how eagerly they embraced the opportunities
offered their children, though the schooling was neither compulsory nor
gratuitous. In 1837 Infant Schools, for still younger children, were
authorized, and in 1840 state aid for these was begun. In 1836 classes for
adults, first begun in Paris in 1820, were authorized generally, but it
was not until 1867 that these were formally incorporated into the state
school system. In 1845 state aid for the Communal Colleges, as well as for
the _Lycees_, was begun.
DEVELOPMENT OF INFANT SCHOOLS
Year...... 1827 1837 1840 1843 1846 1850 1863 1886 1897
Schools... 1 251 555 1489 1861 1735 3308 6696 5683
REACTION AFTER 1848. In France, as in Europe generally, the people were
steadily becoming more liberal, as they became better educated, while the
rulers were becoming more autocratic. The result was the series of
revolutions of 1848, which broke out first in France, and finally extended
to most of the countries of continental Europe. In France the King, Louis-
Philippe, was forced to abdicate; a Republic, based on universal manhood
suffrage, was proclaimed; and Louis Napoleon, a nephew of Napoleon I, was
elected President. In 1851 Napoleon established himself as Dictator;
prepared a new constitution providing for an Empire; and, in 1852,
dissolved the Second Republic and assumed the title of Emperor Napoleon
III. This Second Empire lasted until 1870, when France was humiliated by
the Prussians as the latter had been by Napoleon I in 1806. The Emperor
and his armies were taken prisoners (1870) and, in 1871, the Prussians
occupied Paris and crowned the new Emperor of united and Imperial Germany
in the palace of the French Kings at Versailles. A Third Republic now
succeeded, and this has lasted to the present time.
The period from 1848 to 1870 in France was a period of middle-class rule,
and reaction in education as in government. In 1848 a Sub-Commission on
Primary Education reported in opposition to the state primary schools. The
troubles of 1848 had brought to view the political restlessness which had
taken possession of the teachers, as well as other classes in society. The
new schools were naturally suspected of being the source of the popular
discontent. Many teachers had sympathized with, and some had taken part in
the disturbances, and teachers generally were now placed under close
surveillance. Some of the leaders were forced into exile until after 1870.
Religious schools, regarded as more favorable to monarchical needs and
purposes, were now encouraged, and the number of religious schools
increased from 6464 in 1850, to 11,391 by 1864. Private schools, too, were
given full freedom to compete with the state schools, and the pay of the
primary teachers was reduced. The course in the normal schools was
condemned as too ambitious, and, in 1851, was cut down. The course of
instruction in the primary schools, on the other hand, was, unlike in
Prussia, broadened instead of restricted, and in particular emphasis was
placed, in keeping with nearly a century of French tradition, on
scientific and practical subjects. [11] The law of 1850 stated the
requirements for primary schools as follows:
Art. 23. Primary instruction comprises moral and religious
instruction, reading, writing, the elements of the French language,
computation, and the legal system of weights and measures. It may
comprise, in addition, arithmetic applied to practical operations, the
elements of history (a required subject after 1867) and geography,
notions of the physical sciences and of natural history applicable to
the ordinary purposes of life, elementary instruction in agriculture,
trade, and hygiene; and surveying, leveling, linear drawing, singing,
and gymnastics.
Religious instruction prospered under the Second Empire, and the state
primary schools lost in importance. The _Lycees_ continued largely as
classical institutions, though after 1865 the crowding of the rising
sciences began to dispute the supremacy of classical studies. There were,
however, many voices of discontent, particularly from exiled teachers (R.
289), and the way was rapidly being prepared for the creation of a
stronger and better state school system as soon as political conditions
were propitious.
REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS AT LAST REALIZED. With the creation of the Third
Republic, in 1870, a change from the old conditions and old attitudes took
place. Up to about 1879 the new government was in control of those who
were at heart sympathetic with the old conditions, but were forced to
accept the new; from 1879 to 1890 was a transition period; and since 1890
the Republic has grown steadily in strength and regained its position
among the great powers of the world. The first few years of the new
Republic were devoted to paying the Prussian indemnity and clearing the
soil of France of German armies, but, after about 1875, education became a
great national interest among leaders of France. [12] France saw, somewhat
as did Prussia after 1806, the necessity for creating a strong state
system of primary, secondary, and higher schools to train the youth of the
land in the principles of the Republic, strengthen the national spirit,
advance the welfare of the State, and protect it from dangers both within
and without.
PROGRESS OF PRIMARY EDUCATION IN FRANCE, DURING THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY, AS SHOWN BY THE REDUCTION IN THE PERCENTAGE OF ILLITERACY
AMONG ARMY CONSCRIPTS, AND AMONG PERSONS SIGNING THE MARRIAGE RECORDS
Years Army Marriage records
conscripts Men Women
1790 53.0% 73.0%
1827 58.0%
1833 47.8
1840 42.8
1845 37.8
1850 35.7
1855 33.7 32.0 47.0
1860 30.0 30.4 44.8
1865 24.4 27.5 41.0
1870 19.7 26.8 39.4
1875 16.0 20.0 31.0
1880 14.7 16.1 24.5
1885 11.5 13.0 20.2
1890 7.8 8.7 12.8
1896 5.1 5.8 7.8
1901 4.4 4.4 6.3
Millions were put into the building of schoolhouses (1878-88); new normal
schools were established; a normal school for women was created in each of
the eighty-seven departments of France; the academic and superior councils
of public instruction were reorganized to eliminate clerical influences
(1881); religious instruction was replaced by moral and civic instruction
(R. 290); and clerical "Letters of Obedience" were no longer accepted, and
all teachers were required to be certificated by the State. The Law of
1881, eliminating instruction in religion from the elementary schools, was
followed, in 1886, by a law providing for the gradual replacement of
clerical by lay teachers. In 1904, the teaching congregations of France
were suppressed. All elementary education now became public, free,
compulsory, and secular, [13] and teachers were required to be neutral in
religious matters. [14]
Since 1871, also, technical and scientific education has been emphasized;
the primary and superior-primary schools have been made free (1881) and
compulsory (1882); classes for adults have been begun generally; the state
aid for schools has been very greatly increased; _lycees_ and colleges for
women have been created (1880); the _lycees_ modernized in their
instruction [15] and the reorganization and reestablishment of a series of
fifteen state universities of a modern type, begun in 1885, was completed
in 1896. The reorganization and expansion of education in France since
1875 is a wonderful example of republican interest and energy, and is
along entirely different lines from those followed, since the same date,
in German lands.
After the lapse of nearly a century we now see the French Revolutionary
ideas of gratuity, obligation, and secularization finally put into effect,
and the state system of public instruction outlined by Condorcet (p. 514),
in 1792, at last an accomplished fact.
II. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION IN ITALY
IMPORTANCE OF THE WORK OF NAPOLEON. So much has been written about the
deluge of blood that took place in Paris in the days of the Commune and
the time of the National Conventions, and of the military victories and
autocratic rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, that it is difficult to appraise
the importance of either, from the point of view of the progress of
civilization and of the organization of modern political institutions, at
its true worth. The faults of both are prominent and outstanding, but it
nevertheless was the merit of the Revolution that it enabled France, and
along with France a good portion of western Europe, to rid itself of the
worst survivals of the Middle Ages, while to Napoleon much of western
Europe is indebted for the foundation of its civil institutions, unified
legal procedure, beginnings of state educational organization, and modern
governmental forms. Writing on this subject, Matthew Arnold [16] well
said:
With all his faults, his [Napoleon's] reason was so clear and strong
that he saw, in its general outlines at least, the just and rational
type of civil organization which modern society needs, and wherever
his armies went he instituted it.
[Illustration: FIG. 178. EUROPE IN 1810
Showing the control of France when Napoleon was at the height of his
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