Chapter XXII: National Organization in Prussia (1)

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, reëxamined now, will make the reason for the earlier evolution of state education in Germany plain. Würtemberg, 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 Würtemberg 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 Würtemberg, 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 Göttingen, 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 Göttingen, 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.

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.

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, § 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:

§ 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, §§ 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, §§ 5-8). A school census, and fines on parents not sending their children to school were provided for (R. 274, §§ 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 §§ 12-17). The organization, instruction, textbooks, order of exercises, and discipline for all schools were prescribed at some length (R. 274, §§ 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, §§ 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. Würtemberg 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; Wolfenbüttel, in 1753; in the county of Glatz in Silesia, in 1764 (R. 275); in Breslau, in 1765 and 1767; and in Carlsruhe, in 1768. In the Silesian Code of 1765 Frederick specified (R. 275 a, § 2) six 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.

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" (_Maturitätsprüfung_) 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]

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 Würtemberg (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.

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.

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 (_Maturitätsprüfung_), 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, Pädagogium, 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 _Bürgerschulen_. 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 Göttingen 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. Müller introduced the microscope into the study of pathological anatomy. Schultze systematized zoölogy. 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.