Prospered for over a century. These phases of the work, namely, physical training, natural history, object teaching, school gardening, manual training, excursions, and nontheological religious training, show how thoroughly the idea of a secular education adapted to the understanding and needs of children had been carried out in practice by Salzmann. The institution prospered under his management until his death in 1811, after which it was continued in successful operation by his descendants, and celebrated its one hundredth anniversary in 1884, an unusual example of an experimental school of long and happy life, surviving the founder. It served as a model of the possibilities of a better education, anticipating in successful practice most of the reforms of Pestalozzi.

Secular schools for peasant children: Rochow. The secular schools of Basedow and Salzmann were intended primarily as boarding schools for children of means. But it was not long before the reforms which they embodied were attempted to some extent in the ordinary elementary schools or Volksschulen. The first experiment in this direction was tried by Baron von Rochow (1734-1805), in schools which he established for the children of the peasants living on his estates in Prussia.

Distress of peasants to be relieved by education. He had been an officer in the royal Prussian guard, but had retired on account of injuries and devoted his time to the efficient management of his country estates. He pitied the unfortunate peasants who often suffered from failure of crops, from pestilence, disease, and starvation. This was due in a considerable degree to their own stupidity, ignorance, and improvidence, which rendered them incapable of profiting by the assistance which Rochow offered. During a particularly bad winter it suddenly occurred to Rochow that the only way to improve conditions was by a better and more practical elementary education, which would be the basis of more intelligent methods of farming and living. He immediately determined to provide such an education, and as a first step

wrote (1772) a book intended to aid teachers in carrying out his ideas of reform. The title, "A Schoolbook for Country Children, or for Use in Village Schools," is misleading, as it was not a book for children but for teachers. Rochow had been captivated by the early publications of Basedow and reproduced many of the latter's ideas.

Famous model schools for peasant children. - The next step was to open a model school on his farm at Reckahn. As teacher he installed a young man who had lived with him as secretary and musician for six years. The school soon had over seventy pupils, and the novelty and success of the instruction attracted visitors from Germany and other countries. The Prussian government sent official investigators to examine the work. All reported very favorably. They were particularly impressed with the ease and skill with which the teacher taught lessons on things to a school of seventy-three children. These lessons were conducted by means of Socratic questions, which kept up a continual conversation between teacher and class. In all the instruction every point was made clear and significant to the children, not by wordy explanations, but by connecting it with their real experience and discussing its application in the practical affairs of their lives.

Changed social life resulting from the new education. — Similar schools were opened by Rochow on his other estates, and the influence was soon evident in the changed social life of the region. This change is described by Rochow in these words:

To-day at Reckahn the parents have lost their bestial stupidity, thanks to the influence of the children; they believe in the physicians rather than the sayings of old women. The mortality has diminished on all my estates. Attendance at school, in summer as well as in winter, is now one of the things that the parents most prize, and often they thank me with tears in their eyes.

To assist in the maintenance of similar schools in other parts of Germany, Rochow prepared two popular reading

books, "The Peasant's Friend" (1773) and "The Children's Friend" (1776). The latter was very successful and was widely used as a textbook even as late as 1850. It consisted mainly of short instructional stories or discussions relating to agriculture, domestic affairs, and good citizenship. It also contained two rimed prayers for little children.

Christian morality and national regeneration emphasized, not theology. Although the main emphasis was on training for practical affairs, Rochow's school was not irreligious. He provided training in Christian morality, however, instead of in theology, and criticized severely the dull memorizing of the catechism, which constituted the work of the ordinary elementary school. Consequently he aroused the opposition of the ecclesiastics, who tried in vain to discredit his work.

Rochow did not rest satisfied with the local results of his endeavors, but published in 1779 a book entitled “The Improvement of the National Character by Means of Popular Schools" (Volksschulen), in which he advocated universal education for national reasons instead of merely religious or utilitarian ones. "Without a national education," he said, "it is impossible to have a national character, and that is precisely what is lacking in Germany."

One of the most famous of the visitors to Rochow's school, a very influential German professor, wrote: "To admire and praise the worthy founder of this school is not enough either for me or for him. His work should be imitated not only in the mark of Brandenburg, but also in the whole kingdom." How the king and his minister attempted to establish such a system of national secular schools will be described in the next section.

Official steps for secularizing Prussian schools. We will study the official secularization of the Prussian schools as the best example of the general movement for secularization of German schools, which is summarized by Paulsen in these words:

The principal innovation during this period [1650-1800] was the taking over of the elementary schools from the Church by the State, the compulsory attendance of all children at school being recognized and enforced as a civic duty. Up to the sixteenth century the elementary school was little more than an annex to the Church. At the end of the eighteenth century it was, in all German countries, no longer an ecclesiastical but a political institution. The State had assumed full control over the schools, although clergymen continued to be entrusted to a large extent with the exercise of that power in the name of the State. In the sixteenth century school attendance was regarded as a duty toward the Church, being enjoined by visitation charges and admonitions from the pulpit with varying success. At the end of the eighteenth century it was generally acknowledged that education belonged to the sphere of civic duties, which implied an obligation on the part of the community to contribute toward the maintenance of the schools, and an obligation on the part of the family, enforced if necessary by penalties, to see to the attendance of the children. (6: 136.)

Social reforms by Hohenzollern kings. — In order to understand the educational developments in Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century it is necessary to keep in mind that they were the culmination of endeavors of the Hohenzollern kings since the beginning of the century. In Chapter VI the despotic but progressive and effective measures taken by these rulers for the improvement of the national life and character, and especially for the amelioration of the conditions of the poor peasants, were described. The two kings, Frederick William I (r. 1713-1740) and his son Frederick the Great (r. 1740–1786), were both intensely interested in the development of adequate elementary schools, particularly for the rural population, which constituted the largest and most unhappy part of the people. The decrees of the kings, however, were generally so far in advance of public opinion that their provisions were seldom realized completely in practice. In this respect they differed from the seventeenth-century reforms in the small duchy of Gotha, which we studied in Chapter VII. Four important official enactments. In the secularization of Prussian education there were four important enactments.

These were: I. The order of 1717, making school attendance compulsory wherever schools existed; II. The famous General Code of Regulations for Rural Schools, issued in 1763-the real foundation of the Prussian elementaryschool system; III. The establishment in 1787 of a special State board, the Oberschulcollegium, to have charge of all the schools of the kingdom; IV. The publication, in 1794, of the fundamental code of the Prussian Law (the Allegemeine Landrecht), in one chapter of which it was definitely affirmed that the schools and universities are state institutions.

We will now consider, in some detail, the development represented in these enactments.

I. Compulsory attendance decreed by the king in 1717.— The decree of 1717 by Frederick William I recognized that elementary schools were impossible under existing conditions in many rural districts, but required that where schools did. exist, children should attend daily in winter, and when they could be spared from the home in summer, which should be at least once a week. The king also set actively to work to establish rural schools, giving land and money for this purpose. In a few years he brought about the establishment of more than a thousand such schools. The almost insurmountable difficulty which he encountered was the lack of educated teachers.

Apart from the detailed provisions of these acts they are significant as indicating that the king assumed that it was the business of the state to provide for elementary education instead of leaving it to local and ecclesiastical authorities.

II. Rural schools organized by Frederick the Great; code of 1763. Frederick the Great continued the work of his father, the most significant of his decrees being the General Code of Regulations for Rural Schools, issued in 1763. The act is sometimes called the real foundation of the Prussian elementary-school system because so many of its features are reproduced in later enactments. The following sections are interesting: