The History of Education by Ellwood P. CubberleyEducational practice and progress considered as a phase of the development and spread of western civilization (page 11)

* 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