I. All children were required to attend school from the fifth to the thirteenth or fourteenth year; or,

2. They were to attend school until they learned the principles of Christianity, could read and write well, and could pass an examination on the textbooks required by the consistory (a body of clerical and lay officers appointed by the sovereign to superintend ecclesiastical affairs).

3. If proficient in these subjects before thirteen years of age, children were permitted to stop only on receiving a proper dismissal certificate issued by the teacher, preacher, and inspector.

4. Where it was customary to employ children to look after cattle in the summer, one common cowherd was to be employed so that the children might attend school. If the community was too scattered, children were to take turns, so that each child would get to school at least three times a week.

5. Definite school hours were prescribed.

6. Unmarried young folks, beyond school age, were to attend a continuation school to be kept by the schoolmaster on Sunday.

7. Tuition fees were regulated.

8. If parents were too poor to pay, the tuition fees were to be paid from the Church or poor funds.

14. No one was permitted to teach unless examined and approved by the inspector and admitted by the preacher.

25. Village preachers were required to visit and inspect the schools twice a week, and to hold conferences with the teacher with a view to improving his methods of instruction.

26. The Lutheran superintendent and the inspector of each administrative district were to inspect all the schools under their direction at least once a year and report to the central authority.

Administration of schools still in hands of clergy. These summarized sections from the General Code of 1763 indicate how sincere and vigorous were the king's endeavors to

improve rural elementary education. But though the authority of the state is evident, the execution of the law was still left in the hands of the Church authorities.

Effective enforcement of law opposed by public opinion. The law could not be effectively enforced in many places, owing to the numerous difficulties. There was opposition from many teachers, who were too ignorant to be eligible under the new requirements. There was opposition from the farmers, who wished to use their children for work at home. There was opposition from the nobility, who viewed the law with alarm, maintaining that "like cattle, the more stupid the peasant, the better will he accept his fate." In spite of this strenuous opposition the king was very active in his endeavors to enforce the law, which he supplemented by additional orders intended to decrease "the great stupidity of the peasant children."

III. Control of schools transferred from Church to national council of education, 1787. The third enactment in the development of the Prussian system which we have selected for discussion was the creation of the central administrative board, or Oberschulcollegium, to have direction of all the school affairs of the kingdom. Although this occurred in 1787, after the death of Frederick the Great, it represented the culmination of the tendencies of his reign as well as the influence of the Basedow tendencies described in the first part of this chapter.

Minister Zedlitz reiterated suggestion of Basedow. — The creation of this board was suggested by the king's minister, Zedlitz, who had been made head of the Department of Lutheran Church and School Affairs, by Frederick the Great in 1771. A similar suggestion for the creation of such a "national council of education" was contained, as we noticed, in Basedow's "Address to Philanthropists," issued in 1768. Zedlitz was an enthusiastic champion of Basedow's ideas and was especially influenced by Rochow's experiments in applying

these ideas to the improvement of rural education. Zedlitz kept up an active correspondence with Rochow and consulted with him concerning many of his own (Zedlitz's) plans for national educational reforms. In 1788 Zedlitz wrote:

It is wrong to let the peasant grow up like an animal, having him memorize only a few things which are never explained to him. His instruction should include besides religion, reading, writing and arithmetic, also some experience with mechanics, the study of nature and dietetic rules, and some knowledge of government. Certain industrial activities like spinning and weaving should also be taught in the country schools. (8: 28.)

In his suggestions to the king for the establishment of the Oberschulcollegium, Zedlitz said that such a board, with some degree of expert permanent membership, would be much more competent to direct school affairs wisely than were the consistories of the Church under the direction of a king's minister, as was the existing arrangement. Hence the establishment of the Oberschulcollegium represents the transition from Church administration of the schools under state direction to expert state administration by a specialized board.

Zedlitz removed through conservative reaction of new king.- Zedlitz was made president of the new board, but he held his place under the new king for only two years. The latter was directly the opposite of Frederick the Great in his general attitude. Instead of aiming to broaden and secularize the elementary schools, he maintained that their chief function should continue to be the teaching of religion, and that he would do his best to see that they were protected from the influence of rationalism, naturalism, and deism. Owing to this reaction no further progress was made in elementary education until the reforms at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which will be described in the chapter on the Pestalozzian movement. But one other step in preparation for this later development was to be taken.

IV. Fundamental Prussian legal code (1794) defined schools as state institutions. Under Frederick the Great was begun the codification of the fundamental Prussian civil law, known as the Allgemeine Landrecht. The greatest scholars and jurists of Germany were engaged in this undertaking, the results of which were not published until 1794. The twelfth chapter of the code was devoted to education. In it were formulated the culminating principles of the tendencies which had been developing during the century. Of the one hundred twenty-nine sections in this chapter the following are especially significant as showing the subordination of all schools, both public and private, to state control:

1. Schools and universities are state institutions charged with the instruction of youth in useful information and scientific knowledge.

2. Such institutions may be founded only with the knowledge and consent of the state.

9. All public schools and educational institutions are under the supervision of the state and are at all times subject to its examination and inspection.

Attendance at school not to be restricted by religious belief. The code also recognized the equal rights of both churches, Lutheran and Catholic. While religious instruction remained an essential part of the curriculum, no one was to be kept from attending any public school on account of difference in religious belief. Moreover, children of a different religious belief from that taught in the public school which they were attending could not be required to attend the religious instruction offered.

The pro

School support to be by common contribution.visions for school support were especially significant. This was made a common duty, all heads of families in a given community being required to contribute whether they had children or not, even if they differed in religious belief from that taught in the public schools.

The fundamental provisions of the code which related to education are summarized by a German authority as being: 1. Definition of the school as a state institution.

2. Equal rights to the recognized churches.

3. Compulsory school attendance.

4. School support made a matter of general contribution. Secularization achieved without eliminating religious instruction. The large significance of this movement for the secularization of Prussian schools can be appreciated when one remembers that the system of schools which developed from it commonly served as a model for other European and American systems during the nineteenth century. To be sure, the actual realization in Prussia of the plans of the eighteenth century was not achieved until the first quarter of the nineteenth. But the enlightened views of the eighteenth-century enthusiasts, including Basedow, Salzmann, Rochow, Zedlitz, and the Prussian kings, furnished the fundamental basis for all later development. The remarkable feature of the final result, as compared with similar results in the United States and France, is that secularization of the schools was achieved without elimination of religious instruction, which has continued to occupy a prominent place in Prussian elementary schools to the present day.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Concerning Basedow, Salzmann, and Rochow.

I. PINLOCHE, A.

La réforme de l'éducation en Allemagne au dix-huitième siècle. (Coline, Paris, 1889.) A special history of the Basedow movement; the best reference.

Material translated from Von Raumer's History of Education is contained in the two following references (Nos. 2 and 3).

2. BARNARD, H. American Journal of Education. Vol. V, pp. 487-520, and Vol. XXVII, pp. 497–508 (for Rochow).

3. QUICK, R. H. Educational Reformers. (D. Appleton and Company, 1890.) Chap. xv.