The History of Education

[2] Paulsen, Fr., _German Education, Past and Present_, p. 157.

[3] Within three years Basedow had collected seven thousand _Reichsthaler_, subscriptions coming to him from such widely scattered sources as Joseph II of Austria, Empress Catherine of Russia, King Christian VII of Denmark, "the wealthy cla.s.s in Basle," the Abbot of the monastery of Einsiedel in Switzerland, "the royal government of Osnabruck," the Grand Prince Paul, and others. Jews and Freemasons seem to have taken particular interest in his ideas. Freemason lodges in Hamburg, Leipzig, and Gottingen were among the generous contributors.

[4] See Barnard's _American Journal of Education_, vol. v, pp. 487-520, for an account of the examinations and the inst.i.tution.

[5] "The pedagogical character of the _Real_ school was established by Basedow and his followers. Originally the plan was to provide for the middle cla.s.ses what would be called nowadays manual training schools, in which the scientific principles underlying the various trades and business vocations should have a prominent place. These schools were to be one step removed from the trade schools for the lower cla.s.ses. But under the influence of the Philanthropinists the _Real_ school was transformed into a modern humanistic school, and placed in compet.i.tion with the humanistic _Gymnasium_." (Russell, J. E., _German Higher Schools_, pp. 65-66.)

[6] His two most important followers were Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746- 1818), who succeeded Basedow at Dessau and later founded a Philanthropinum at Hamburg, and Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (1744-1811), who founded a school at Schnepfenthal, in Saxe-Gotha. Both these men had for a time been teachers with Basedow at Dessau. Campe translated Locke's _Thoughts_ and Rousseau's _emile_ into German, wrote a number of books for children (chief among which was the famous _Robinson der Junger_), and also prepared a number of treatises for teachers. Salzmann's school, opened in 1784 in the Thuringen forest, made much of gardening, agricultural work, animal study, home geography, nature study, gymnastics, and recreation, as well as book study. It was distinctively a small but high-grade experimental school, so successful that in 1884 it celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. A pupil in the school was Carl Ritter, the founder of modern geographical study.

[7] "The picture shown in _Leonard and Gertrude_ is very crude. Everywhere is visible the rough hand of the painter, a strong, untiring hand, painting an eternal image, of which this in paper and print is the merest sketch.... Read it and see how puerile it is, how too obvious are its moralities. Read it a second time, and note how earnest it is, how exact and accurate are its peasant scenes. Read it yet again, and recognize in it the outpouring of a rare soul, working, pleading, ready to be despised, for fellow souls." (J. P. Monroe, _The Educational Ideal_, p. 182.)

[8] "When I now look back and ask myself: What have I specially done for the very being of education, I find I have fixed the highest supreme principle of instruction in the recognition of _sense impression as the absolute foundation of all knowledge_. Apart from all special teaching I have sought to discover the _nature of teaching itself_, and the prototype, by which nature herself has determined the instruction of our race." (Pestalozzi, _How Gertrude teaches her Children_, X, Section 1.)

[9] "What he did was to emphasize the new purpose in education, but vaguely perceived, where held at all, by others; to make clear the new meaning of education which existed in rather a nebulous state in the public mind; to formulate an entirely new method, based on new principles, both of which were to receive a further development in subsequent times, and to pa.s.s under his name; and finally, to give an entirely new spirit to the schoolroom." (Monroe, Paul, _Text Book in the History of Education_, p. 600.)

[10] In 1809 the German, Carl Ritter, a former pupil of Salzmann (see footnote 2, p. 538) and the creator of modern geographical study, visited Pestalozzi at Yverdon. Of this visit he writes:

"I have seen more than the paradise of Switzerland, I have seen Pestalozzi, I have learned to know his heart and his genius. Never have I felt so impressed with the sanct.i.ty of my vocation as when I was with this n.o.ble son of Switzerland. I cannot recall without emotion this society of strong men, struggling with the present, with the aim of clearing the way for a better future, men whose only joy and reward is the hope of raising the child to the dignity of man.

"I left Yverdon resolved to fulfill my promise made to Pestalozzi to carry his method into geography.... Pestalozzi did not know as much geography as a child in our Primary Schools, but, none the less, have I learned that science from him, for it was in listening to him that I felt awaken within me the instinct of the natural methods; he showed me the way." (Guimps, Baron de, _Pestalozzi, his Aim and Work_, p. 167.)

[11] The young German student of geology and mineralogy, Karl George von Raumer (1783-1865), was in Paris, in 1808. While there he read Pestalozzi's _How Gertrude teaches her Children_, and what Fichte had said of his work in his _Addresses to the German Nation_ (see chapter xxii).

These sent him to Yverdon to see for himself. He

[12] In 1814 King Frederick William III himself visited Pestalozzi, at Neufchatel. His queen, Louise, was deeply touched by reading the _emile_, and frequently spent hours in the Prussian schools witnessing work conducted after the ideas of Pestalozzi.

CHAPTER XXII

[1] One of the first acts of the reign of Frederick the Great was to recall Wolff from banishment. In doing so he said: "A man that seeks truth, and loves it, must be reckoned precious in any human society."

[2] "It was a bold declaration, but one which exactly described the great change which had taken place. The older university instruction was everywhere based upon the a.s.sumption that the truth had already been given, that instruction had to do with its transmission only, and that it was the duty of the controlling authorities to see to it that no false doctrines were taught. The new university instruction began with the a.s.sumption that the truth must be discovered, and that it was the duty of instruction to qualify and guide the student in this task. By a.s.suming this att.i.tude the university was the first to accept the consequences of the conditions which the Reformation had created." (Paulsen, Fr., _The German Universities_, p. 46.)

[3] "He who reads the works of the ancients will enjoy the acquaintance of the greatest men and the n.o.blest souls who ever lived, and will get in this way, as it happens in all refined conversation, beautiful thoughts and expressive words.

"We thus receive, in early childhood, doctrines and philosophy and wisdom of life from the wisest and best educated men of all ages; we thus learn to recognize and understand clearness, dignity, charm, ingenuity, delicacy, and elegance in language and action, and gradually accustom ourselves to them." (Gesner, Johann Matthias.)

[4] The sacristan or custodian of the church was frequently also the teacher of the elementary school, the two offices being combined in one person. Out of this combination the elementary teacher was later evolved.

(See p. 446.)

[5] "When the schoolmaster had to pa.s.s an examination before the clergyman of the place by order of the inspector, the local authorities, owing to the lamentable life of a schoolmaster, were glad to find persons at all who were willing to accept an engagement for such a position. In consequence an otherwise intolerable indulgence in examining and employing teachers took place, especially in districts where large landholders had patriarchal sway." (Schmid, K. A., _Encydopadie_, vol. VI, p. 287.)

[6] Austria at that time included not only the Austro-Hungarian Empire of 1914, but extended further into the German Empire and Italy, and included Belgium and Luxemburg as well.

[7] Ba.s.sewitz, M. Fr. von, _Die Kurmark Brandenburg_, p. 342. (Leipzig, 1847.)

[8] These lectures were listened to by Napoleon's police and pa.s.sed to print by his censor, not being regarded as containing anything seditious or dangerous.

[9] "He set all his hopes for Germany on a new national system of education. One German State was to lead the way in establis.h.i.+ng it, making use of the same right of coercion to which it resorted in compelling its subjects to serve in the army, and for the exercise of which certainly no better justification could be found than the common good aimed at in national education." (Paulsen, Fr., _German Education, Past and Present_, p. 240.)

[10] "Never have the souls of men been so deeply stirred by the idea of raising the whole existence of mankind to a higher level. Something like the enthusiasm which had taken hold of the minds at the outbreak of the French Revolution was again at work, the only difference being that the strong current of national feeling directed it toward an aim which, if more limited, was, for that very reason, more practicable and more defined." (Paulsen, Fr., _German Education, Past and Present_, p. 183.)

[11] As a result of the overthrow of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna restored to Prussia and France substantially the boundaries they had at the opening of the Napoleonic Wars. Still more important for the future was the consolidation of some four hundred States and petty German kingdoms into thirty-eight States.

[12] Friedrich Adolph Wilhelm Diesterweg became a pupil in one of the earliest normal schools in Prussia, that at Frankfort; then a teacher; and in 1820 became a director of a Teachers' Seminary at Moers. From 1833 to 1849 he was head of the normal school at Berlin. He has often been called "der deutsche Pestalozzi."

[13] Made in a letter to Baron von Altenstein, Prussian Minister for Education.

[14] "Herbart's seminar at the university of Konigsberg was officially recognized, in 1810; Gedike's seminar in Berlin was formally taken over by the university, in 1812; the seminar in Stettin, founded in 1804, was reorganized in 1816; Breslau began pedagogical work, in 1813; and in 1817 it was stated that the purpose of the reorganized seminar in Halle was 'the training of skilled teachers for the _Gymnasien_.'" (Russell, James E., _German Higher Schools_, p. 97.)

[15] Gesner at Gottingen and Wolff at Halle laid down the lines for these in the middle eighteenth century. The early nineteenth-century foundations were at Konigsberg, 1810; Berlin, 1812; Breslau, 1812; Bonn, 1819; Griefswald, 1820; and Munster, 1825.

[16] All prospective gymnasial teachers, whether graduates of the universities or not, were now required to take examinations in philosophy, pedagogy, theology, and the main gymnasial subjects, showing marked proficiency in one of the following groups, and a reasonable knowledge of the other two: namely, (1) Greek, Latin, German; (2) Mathematics and the Natural Sciences; (3) History and Geography.

[17] See Russell, Jas. E., _German Higher Schools_, p. 101, for the detailed "Gymnasial Program" promulgated in 1837.

[18] In 1840 there were six Prussian universities; by 1900 the number had increased to eleven, and three technical universities in addition. In the other German States eleven additional universities and six technical universities were in existence, in 1900.

[19] Benjamin Franklin visited Gottingen, as early as 1766, but the first American student to take a degree at a German university was Benjamin S.

Barton, of Philadelphia, who took his doctor's degree at Gottingen, in 1799. By 1825 ten American students had studied one or more semesters at Gottingen. That year the first American student registered at Berlin, and in 1827 the first at Leipzig. (See Hinsdale, B. A., in _Report, U.S.

Commissioner of Education_, 1897-98, vol. 1, pp. 603-16.)

[20] The remark attributed to Bismarck is interesting in this connection.

"Of the students who attend the German universities," he said, "one-third die prematurely as the result of disease arising from too great poverty and undernourishment while students; another one-third die prematurely or amount to little due to bad habits and drinking and disease contracted while students; the remaining third rule Europe."

[21] Barnard, Henry, _American Journal of Education_, vol. xx, p. 365.

[22] This was proposed by Czar Alexander I of Russia in 1815, and became a personal alliance of the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and the King of Prussia, "to promote religion, peace, and order." Other princes were asked to join this continental League to enforce peace and, under the rule of Prince Metternich, chief minister of Austria, it dominated Europe until after the political revolutions of 1848.

[23] As a young man Altenstein had been in charge of a subordinate division of the Department of Public Instruction under Humboldt, and was a man of somewhat liberal ideas. Now he was compelled to fall in with the ideas of the political leaders and the wishes of the king, though he still did something to hold back the reactionary forces and preserve much of what had been gained.

[24] Paulsen, Fr., _German Education, Past and Present_, p. 246.

[25] It was this same Frederick William IV who had for a time refused to grant const.i.tutional government to Prussia, saying: "No written sheet of paper shall ever thrust itself like a second providence between the Lord G.o.d in heaven and this land." In 1850, however, he was forced to grant a limited form of const.i.tutional government to his people.

[26] "The motive which dictated the law of 1872 on school supervision (namely, placing the State in complete control of the supervision of religious as well as other instruction) was, as is well understood, to strengthen the hands of the government in its struggle with the Catholic hierarchy, which was then prominently before the public. The law affirmed again the sovereign right of the State over the whole school system, including the elementary or people's schools." (Nohle, Dr. E., _History of the German School System_, p. 79.)

[27] Alexander, Thomas, _The Prussian Elementary Schools_, pp. 537-38.

CHAPTER XXIII

[1] The commune in France was the smallest unit for local government, and corresponded to the district, town, or towns.h.i.+p with us, or with the Church parish under the old regime. There were approximately 37,000 communes in France. The Department was a much larger unit, France being divided, for administrative purposes, into 82 Departments, these corresponding to a rather large county.

[2] By this term what is known elsewhere as secondary school must be understood. See footnote, page 272, for explanation of the term.

[3] The University had at its disposal approximately 2,500,000 francs a year. This was derived from a state grant of 400,000 francs, the income from the property still remaining from the old confiscated universities, and the remainder largely from examination fees. In 1850 its property was taken over by the State, and the University was changed into a state department.

[4] This type of administrative organization is at first not easy for the American student to understand. The University of the State of New York-- virtually the department of public instruction for the State--is our closest American a.n.a.logy. On the banishment of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy, in 1815, the Grand Master and Council were replaced by a Commissioner of Public Instruction, with a.s.sistant Commissioners for the different divisions, and in 1820 this was further changed into a Royal Council of Public Instruction.