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Social Control and the Volksschule in Vormärz Prussia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Kenneth Barkin
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Extract

The ascension to power and twelve-year rule of National Socialism has had an enormous and continuing impact on the writing of German history. Since the early fifties, the leitmotiv of scholarship has been the search for the origins of Nazi successes in the peculiarities of Germany's or rather Prussia's history in the nineteenth century. Even with the emergence of social and economic history in the late sixties, the task of unearthing National Socialism's roots remained unchanged, although the tools altered and a more sophisticated strategy was adopted. A pervasive tendency developed to view all contemporary institutions as props of the authoritarian Prussian regime. Whereas pre–World War II scholarship glorified the Prussian past uncritically, the past two decades have witnessed across-the-board condemnation.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 31 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1983

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References

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5. The social control model has also become prevalent in studies of U.S. and British elementary schooling. See Simon, Brian, Studies in the History of Education, 1780–1870 (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Hurt, John, Education in Evolution: Church, State, Society and Popular Education, 1800–1870 (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Johnson, Richard, “Educational Policy and Social Control in early Victorian England,” Past and Present, no. 49 (1970)Google Scholar; Donajgrodzki, A. P., ed., Social Control in Nineteenth Century Britain (London, 1977)Google Scholar; McCann, Phillip, ed., Popular Education and Socialization in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Kaestle, Carl, “Between the Scylla of Brutal Ignorance and the Charybdis of Literary Education: Elite Attitudes toward Mass Schooling in Early Industrial England and America,” in Stone, L., ed., Schooling and Society (Baltimore, 1976)Google Scholar; Bowles, Samuel and Gintis, Herbert, Schooling in Capitalist America (N.Y., 1976)Google Scholar; Baethge, Martin, Ausbildung und Herrschaft: Unternehmerinteressen in der Bildungspolitik (Frankfurt, 1970).Google Scholar For a condemnation of all formal schooling see Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J., Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, trans. Nice, R. (London, 1977).Google Scholar

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12. Skopp, “The Mission,” p. 53. Both of these judgments are open to question. Germany experienced revolution in 1848 and a near revolutionary situation existed in Prussia in 1862–63. Peter Lundgreen has shown rather convincingly that German education made only the most marginal contribution to economic growth. See his essays, “Educational Expansion and Economic Growth in 19th Century Germany: A Quantitative Study,” in L. Stone, ed., Schooling, and his essay, “Schulbildung und Frühindustrialisierung in Berlin/Preussen,” in Büsch, O., ed., Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der frühen Industrialisierung vornehmlich im Wirtschaftsraum Berlin/Brandenburg (Berlin, 1971).Google Scholar

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16. Lockridge, Kenneth, Literacy in Colonial New England (N.Y., 1974), pp. 4, 5, 45.Google Scholar Also coming to the conclusion that schooling is not easily controlled by the élites is Thompson, F. M. L., “Social Control in Victorian Britain,” Economic History Review, 2d. ser., 34, no. 2 (05 1981).Google Scholar

17. Critics such as Titze see first Wöllner, followed by Hardenberg, Beckedorff, Eichhorn, and finally Stiehl as all having established rigid conservative control over the schools. It is odd that during each decade it had to be done once again. Conservative efforts may have been quite ineffective. Two recent works dissenting from the social control model are Nipperdey, Thomas, “Mass Education and Modernization: The Case of Germany 1780–1850,” Royal Historical Society Transactions, 5th ser., 27 (1977)Google Scholar, and La Vopa, Anthony, Prussian School Teachers: Profession and Office 1763–1848 (Chapel Hill, 1980).Google Scholar

18. Häusser, Ludwig, Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte der Revolution (Heidelberg, 1851).Google Scholar On the teachers and 1848 La Vopa writes, “In speeches, journal articles, and petitions to the ministry and national assembly the movement profiled an emancipated teaching corps as the guarantor of political democracy and national unity.” La Vopa, Prussian School Teachers, p. 140.

19. On Diesterweg see Bloth, Hugo, Adolph Diesterweg: Sein Leben und Wirken für Pädagogik und Schule (Heidelberg, 1968).Google Scholar On education and the revolution see Skopp, “The Mission,” and Nipperdey, Thomas, “Volksschule und Revolution im Vormärz,” in Kluxen, K., ed., Politische Ideologen und nationalstaatliche Ordnung (Munich and Vienna, 1968)Google Scholar; König, Helmut, Zur Geschichte der bürgerlichen Nationalerziehung in Deutschland, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1972–1973).Google Scholar

20. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Das deutsche Kaiserreich, p. 124. A significant percentage of Volksschule graduates voted against the staatserhaltende parties during the Wilhelmian empire. See the insightful book by Wolk, Monika, Der preussische Volksschulabsolvent als Reichstagswähler, 1871–1912 (Berlin, 1980).Google Scholar

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23. The evidence is presented by Edgar Knight in his Report on European Education (New York, 1930).Google Scholar

24. For a discussion of the accounts of foreign observers on Prussian secondary schools see Albisetti, James, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton, 1983), pp. 36–43Google Scholar; also see Zymek, Bernd, Das Ausland als Argument in der pädagogischen Reformdiskussion (Ratingen, 1975).Google Scholar

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26. Quoted in Barnard, Henry, National Education in Europe (Hartford, Conn., 1854), p. 44.Google Scholar Germany was unique in having periodicals devoted to pedagogy and educational subjects such as the Preussische Volks-Schul Zeitung.

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31. Payne, Joseph, A Visit to German Schools (London, 1876), p. 129.Google Scholar For the figures on America see Prince, J. T., Methods of Instruction and Organization of the Schools of Germany (Boston, 1892), pp. 220–22.Google Scholar In 1902, over 50% of English teachers had no formal training. Roberts, Robert, The Classic English Slum (Manchester, 1971), p. 133.Google Scholar

32. Ravitch, Diane, The Great School Wars: New York City 1805–1973 (N.Y., 1974), p. 16Google Scholar; Wines, Enoch, Hints on a System of Popular Education (Philadelphia, 1838), pp. 187–91.Google Scholar On American teachers see Mattingly, Paul, The Classless Profession (N.Y., 1975)Google Scholar; and Sugg, R. S. Jr,. Mother-Teacher: The Feminization of American Education (Charlottesville, 1978).Google Scholar La Vopa details the social and economic grievances of Prussian teachers, who like their counterparts elsewhere believed themselves to be underpaid. Social and economic demands headed the lists of radical school teachers in 1848. La Vopa, Prussian School Teachers, chaps. 4 and 5.

33. Adams, John Quincy, Letters on Silesia (London, 1804), p. 366.Google Scholar

34. Quoted in Messerli, Jonathan, Horace Mann (N.Y., 1971), p. 405.Google Scholar

35. Bache, Report, p. 250. Bache thought that too much questioning by pupils and insufficient practical training took place.

36. Kay, Joseph, The Social Condition and Education of the People of England and Europe, 2 vols. (London, 1850), 2:23–25.Google Scholar Kay also wrote “It is the educational system and teachers that have increased the love of freedom and led to a constitution being granted,” 2:132. Both Nipperdey and La Vopa argue that Volksschule teachers played a major role in the revolution. La Vopa, Prussian School Teachers, pp. 140–54; Nipperdey, “Mass Education,” pp. 169–72.

37. Nipperdey, “Volksschule,” pp. 138–42; Bigler, Robert, The Politics of German Protestantism (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 32, 230.Google Scholar See Bloth, pp. 104–8 for the support that Diesterweg received from church leaders. Nipperdey attributes the relative openness of Prussian schools to the impact of the enlightenment, Pestalozzi, and the reform movement respectively. “Mass Education,” p. 165.

38. Quoted in Ravitch, The Great School Wars, p. 12. Pestalozzi's pedagogical ideas began to be discussed in New York in the 1880s, or seventy years later than in Prussia. Also see Reigart, J. F., The Lancastrian System of Instruction in the Schools of New York City (N.Y., 1916), p. 100.Google Scholar For an account of the sadism rife in English schools see Altick, Richard, The English Common Reader (Chicago, 1957), pp. 146ff.Google Scholar

39. Pestalozzi's own writings are the best source for his pedagogical techniques, especially How Gertrude Teaches her Children, trans. Holland, L. and Turner, F. (London, 1894).Google Scholar Also see Barnard, Henry, Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism (N.Y., 1859)Google Scholar; Silber, Kate, Pestalozzi: The Man and his Work (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Downs, Robert, Heinrich Pestalozzi (Boston, 1975).Google Scholar

40. Mann, Reply to the Remarks, pp. 104, 129.

41. Cousin, Report, p. 259.

42. Bache, Report, p. 239. La Vopa writes that peasants were furious at teachers who adopted an honor system and rejected the rod. La Vopa, Prussian School Teachers, p. 74.

43. Payne, A Visit, p. 134. He attributed the healthy atmosphere of Prussian classrooms to the use of Diesterweg's Wegweiser, which he considered “worth all the books taken together that have ever been written in England on practical teaching,” p. 106. Discipline evidently changed by 1891 when John Prince noticed “lots of ear-cuffing, hair-pulling, shaking, etc.” Prince, Methods of Instruction, p. 32.

44. Kay, Joseph, The Condition and Education of Poor Children in English and in German Towns (London, 1853), pp. 31–32Google Scholar; also Kay, The Social Condition, 1, p. 355, 2, p. 209.

45. Diesterweg's reputation as a radical was well known and only after the archbishop of the Moers region, William Gottfried Ross, supported his candidacy would the Kultusminister, von Altenstein, confirm his appointment. On Diesterweg see Titze, Die Politisierung, pp. 158ff.

46. Prince, Methods of Instruction, p. 36. La Vopa's study of three school districts confirms the heterogeneity of teachers' backgrounds. La Vopa, Prussian School Teachers, p. 71. Kay was struck by the modest social backgrounds of the teachers. “It is easy to see how invaluable for any country a great privileged class like that of the Prussian teachers must be, especially when many of its members are, as in Prussia, chosen by the state from amongst the most highly gifted of the peasant class, and educated at the expense of the country.” Kay, The Social Condition, 2, p. 108. La Vopa estimates that one third to one half of those in teaching colleges paid no fees.

47. Arnold's exact words were, “this institution [provincial school boards] of Germany is well suited to our habits, supplies a basis for local action, and preserves one from the inconveniences of an overcentralized system like that of France.” Arnold, Matthew, Schools and Universities on the Continent (London, 1868), p. 285.Google Scholar

48. Actually it is not so ironic since on many issues, conservatives in Prussia were for local control and liberals sought a powerful central government. Harkort, Friedrich, Bemerkungen über die preussische Volksschule und ihre Lehrer (Hagen, 1842).Google Scholar It is reprinted in Jeismann, Karl-Ernst, ed., Schriften und Reden in Volksschule und Volksbildung (Paderborn, 1969).Google Scholar

49. Nipperdey, “Volksschule,” p. 129; Skopp, “The Mission,” p. 63. Skopp quotes Gustav Rümeln to the effect that Stiehl's Regulativ of 1853 was the first attempt to centralize the schools. Previously, every school councillor directed local schools in accordance with his own judgment. Skopp, “The Mission,” pp. 191–92.

50. Roebuck, J. A., “Speech on Prussian Education,” 07 10, 1833Google Scholar, Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., 20:139–71. Kay, Joseph, The Education of the Poor in England and Europe (London, 1846), p. 141.Google Scholar

51. Engels, Friedrich, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (London, 1892), pp. 143–44.Google Scholar

52. Mann, Report on an Educational Tour, p. 36. Mann also wrote about England, “But at least nine tenths of all the monitorial schools I have seen, would suggest to me the idea that the name ‘monitorial’ has been given them by way of admonishing the world to avoid their adoption,” p. 58. Harkort, Friedrich, Bemerkungen über die Hindernisse der Civilisation und Emancipation der unteren Klassen (1843), in Jeismann, , ed., Schriften, p. 88.Google Scholar

53. Arnold, Schools, p. 155. Also see the anonymous essay, “Elementary Instruction in Scotland, the United States, Silesia, and Bavaria,” in the Quarterly Journal of Education 1 (1831): 16–33.Google Scholar

54. Bache, Report, p. 172.

55. Mann claimed that American schools were so poor that parents with money had begun educating their children in private schools. Mann, Reply to the Remarks, p. 101.

56. Wines, Hints, pp. 110–15.

57. Report of the Newcastle Commission, 1, p. 300.

58. Laing, Samuel, Notes of a Traveller on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy (London, 1854), pp. 94, 111–12Google Scholar. Laing argued that the reduction in postal rates would stir demand to write letters and subsequently lead to greater literacy or the demand for it.

59. Engelsing, Analphabetentum; idem, “Zur politischen Bildung”; idem, Massenpublikum und Journalistentum im 19. Jahrhundert in Nordwestdeutschland (Berlin, 1966).Google Scholar See the superb article by Thomas Laqueur on English popular demand for local private schools, “Working Class Demand and the Growth of English Elementary Education, 1750–1850,” in Stone, Schooling. For the size of the British reading public see Altick, The English; and Webb, Robert, The British Working Class Reader: Literacy and Social Tension (N.Y., 1971).Google Scholar

60. Nipperdey argues that Prussia's schools were a modernizing force. “Mass Education,” pp. 141–42. On the importance of literacy see Goody, Jack, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar; Goody, J. and Watt, I., “Literate Culture: Some General Considerations,” in Musgrave, P. W., ed., Sociology, History and Education (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Lee, Dorothy, “Codifications of Reality: Lineal and Nonlineal,” in Lee, , ed., Freedom and Culture (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1959).Google Scholar

61. On literacy see Engelsing, Analphabetentum, pp. 75–101; Lundgreen, “Educational Expansion”; idem, “Analyse Preussischer Schulbücher als Zugang zum Thema ‘Schulbildung und Industrialisierung,’” International Review of Social History 15 (1970).Google Scholar Lockridge, Literacy; Altick, The English.

62. Barnard, National Education, p. 87. Nipperdey echoes many of the travelling educators when he notes, “here is a case where an authoritarian non-democratic state itself introduced the modern, potentially revolutionary elementary school system. It … wished to carry out sectional modernization without endangering its conservative structure.” Nipperdey, “Mass Education,” p. 157. La Vopa similarly notes, “The irony of the seminar experiment is that it had backfired despite these [administrative] controls.” La Vopa, Prussian School Teachers, p. 76.

63. On the reactionary changes introduced by Stiehl see Jeismann, , “Die Stiehlschen Regulativ,” in Dauer und Wandel der Geschichte: Festgabe für Kurt von Raumer (Münster, 1966)Google Scholar; Bloth, Peter, Religion in den Schulen Preussens (Heidelberg, 1968)Google Scholar; Helmreich, E. C., Religious Education in German Schools: An Historical Approach (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).Google Scholar

64. Pattison, “Report,” p. 263.

65. Kellner, Lorenz, Lebensblätter, Erinnerungen aus der Schulwelt (Freiburg, 1892), p. 99.Google Scholar Quoted by Titze, Die Politisierung, pp. 181–82.