IV. The nineteenth century.-The new humanistic classical high school. The system of modern high schools. The present public elementary schools. 1. Universities. 2. Classical schools. 3. Modern high schools and technological universities. 4. Combination of classical and modern high schools. 5. Advanced schools and burgher schools. 6. Public elementary schools up to 1860. 7. Later development since then. 8. Prospects.

INTRODUCTION.

The object of the following paper is to sketch the growth of the German school system from its origin through the different periods of its development. Only conditions which actually existed and for which there is documentary evidence available are considered. Pedagogical theories and plans of organization will be regarded only where it is obvious that they exerted decisive influence upon actual conditions and determined the structure of the school system.

The history of education in Germany to the present time has to record the production of four distinct forms of schools-the university, the gymnasium, or, properly speaking, the classical high school; the Real and burgher school, or modern high school; and the elementary or common school. The latter is the general school, in which attendance is obligatory up to a certain year of age-generally to 14-for every child, unless it is attending a school providing for a higher kind of instruction. The pupils of these public elementary schools enter the ordinary-that is, the simpler-occupations, such as trades, for which more extended instruction, especially knowledge of foreign languages, is not necessary. The burgher schools and other secondary schools of low grade keep the pupil until his 16th year of age and give him an education fitted for a little higher employment in practical life. The gymnasium, realgymnasium, universities and polytechnica, represent, together with the professional study in these higher institutions, the most advanced courses of education. This higher education is clearly divided into a general or preparatory and a special or professional course. The former closes with the 19th year of life, the latter, as a rule, rarely before the 24th year. The classical high schools offer the preparation for all higher professions, the learned as well as the practical. They graduate their students at the age of 19 or 20, after a rigorous examination, which entitles the students to enter the universities and polytechnica, in which the attendance is, on an average, four years. In the following pages we shall consider how these different types of schools have developed, one after another and one out of the other, and how the course of instruction has changed in the different epochs of their existence to suit the demands of the times.

The system of education of a country stands in the most intimate relation to the whole intellectual and economical life of the people. Political, religious, and social revolutions are never without a far-reaching influence on the methods and on the matter of instruction. The social order at a given epoch is reflected in the formation of the schools.

In the same manner every enlargement of knowledge leads to an increase of the matter of instruction. Every new science of a general character seeks very soon its representation in the instruction of youth. The organization of the schools in every epoch, therefore, may be regarded as an attempt to convey the knowledge, immanent in that epoch, to the different ranks according to social position and general or professional needs of instruction. We have tried to state these general relations, and to characterize them in their proper places.

I. FIRST PART OF THE MIDDLE AGES (700–1200).

ECCLESIASTICAL SCHOOLS; CONVENT AND CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS. 1. The beginnings of the German school system are almost contemporary with the introduction of Christianity into the country. The Irish and Anglo-Saxon messengers of the faith who came to the continent about the fifth century had brought with the new faith also the taste for Roman culture, and had implanted both at the same time. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans (died 755) worked for a strong foundation of schools within the church as well as for the extension of Christianity. He himself was well acquainted with the traditional knowledge of his time, and clever in the art of teaching. Monks and nuns came at his request from England to Germany with the intention of propagating elementary and higher knowledge. It was of important consequence that he prescribed the rules of the religious order of Benedict to the monasteries founded by him. In the Benedictine monasteries little boys were received into the order for the purpose of educating them for the monastic life, which could best be done in earliest youth. For these boys, ordinarily offered at the altar of God at the age of 5 to 7 years (the so-called pueri oblati) instruction was necessary, and the church of that period was liberal enough to add the "profane sciences" as far as occasion and pecuniary resources allowed.

It was of no less consequence that at the same time in the western Frankish Empire, Chrodegang of Metz (bishop from 742 to 766) ordered for the whole clergy of his cathedral a common life, similar to that of the convent, and that this was imitated in many places. Being admitted as boys in these "cathedral communities," and often expected to enter upon ecclesiastical service, appropriate instruction was necessary; hence the spread of cathedral schools.

2. Charlemagne.-These imperfect beginnings were greatly developed by Charles the Great. In pursuit of his policy, which turned with energy toward the extension and strengthening of the occidental church, his special attention was devoted to a better education of the clergy. That he himself esteemed intellectual education very highly added to his zeal. He tried to bring about a culture in his Frankish Empire similar to that which he had had occasion to observe in Italy; hence he surrounded himself with the foremost scholars of his time,

among whom Alcuin was his special counselor in matters concerning instruction. With these men and his entire family he cultivated literary and scientific pursuits. His court school for boys stood under his personal supervision and loving care.

Upon the suggestion of Charles, the synod of Aix la Chapelle issued, in 789, the regulation that in every monastery and cathedral chapter there should be schools in which boys should learn the Psalms, the letters, vocal music, calculation of church holidays, and grammar, i. e., of Latin. In consequence of this measure the two kinds of schools were established all over his empire, and their number was increased considerably. Charles, furthermore, did not consider the education of the clergy closed (as his regulations concerning education show) when they had mastered ecclesiastical matters, but he demanded a union of literary knowledge with a complete understanding of the Holy Scriptures. To obtain the latter seemed not to be easy in his time, because it was generally believed that the words of the Bible contained profound secrets. It seemed to meet the good intentious of the King, when, for instance, one of his bishops, Leidrad of Lyons, could report to him that he had in his schools singers, copyists, and reading men, and among the latter such as had deeply penetrated into the sense of the Bible texts.

Among the numerous schools existing in Charlemagne's time, some distinguished themselves by a profound cultivation of the sciences; thus, for instance, the school in St. Martin's Monastery at Tours, of which Alcuin was abbé in his old age. Young clergymen came to these institutions, often sent by their superiors to complete their studies, and from here again teachers were sent to other schools.

During the reign of Charlemagne monastery and cathedral schools began to enlarge their sphere of action. In the monasteries instruction was made accessible also to princes and noble laymen, who were destined for governmental offices; but especially to the future secular priests. In the same way other future clergymen participated in the instruction of the cathedral schools side by side with the canonical scholars, especially recruits of the poorer country clergy. This tendency of reaching into every class of society for worthy pupils was strictly followed after Charlemagne's death, though it was temporarily checked during the period of reaction under Louis the Pious, who for a time insisted upon strict asceticism in the church. In connection with this, it may be mentioned that there were double schools at several abbeys and monasteries, thus, for instance, at the Cathedral of Rheims and in the Convent of St. Gall, near the Lake Constance.

Of the latter place we still possess a ground plan, showing two sepa rate school rooms; the "interior school" for future monks is within the inclosure of the convent, the "exterior school" outside.

Also the first establishment of schools for the common people is attributed to the great Frankish King. With the consistency so char

acteristic of him, Charles demanded of every inhabitant of his realm, as a sign of his belonging to the general church, knowledge of the Latin confession of faith and prayers. When it became evident that this aim could not be reached, the rule was modified so as to require of parents and guardians as a sacred duty to send their children and wards into the monasteries for the purpose of learning the tenets of the Christian religion. This is the beginning of compulsory school attendance and general education in civilized countries; knowledge being at that time, however, restricted to the most general items of religious observances. But to carry this out was not possible in Charlemagne's day, and dur ing the next following centuries the church showed less and less inclination and capacity to carry the King's well meant order into effect. Only isolated cases are known of zealous bishops admonishing the priests of their diocese to instruct the children of the community in religion.

3. Celebrated schools during the Middle Ages.-The institutions of Charles remained unchanged in all essential conditions during the next centuries. Under his immediate successor, Louis the Pions, the higher clergy asked the King to establish public schools in at least three cities of the Kingdom. They evidently thought of such schools as the one in Tours. It is not known whether the King complied with the request, but even without state and court influence such schools came into exist We know that all through the early part of the Middle Ages ecclesiastical schools distinguished themselves by a profound cultivation of the sciences. Nearly every German country at that time could boast of one or several schools which attracted pupils from near and far by the fame of their instruction. In Hessia, soon after Charlemagne's death, the monastery school at Fulda, under the direction of Rabanus Maurus, a pupil of Alcuin, rapidly rose to high fame. During the eleventh century this was superseded by the monastery school of Hersfeld. In the country around the lake of Constance the school of Reichenau had a long period of fame from the ninth to the eleventh century, only surpassed by the school of St. Gall; of the former the name of Walafried Strabo, of the latter the names of Ekkehard and Notker remind us. During the eleventh century celebrated schools grew up along the Rhine, in Cologne, Mayence, Worms, and Speyer. In northern Germany, at different times during the Middle Ages, the schools at Corvey, Hildesheim, and Magdeburg became noted (in the latter city especially the cathedral school), also that of the monastery of Bergen (on the island of Rügen in the Baltic). In Bavaria the distinguished school of Freising, under Bishop Otto, rose to the greatest fame at a time when a new civilization began to wrestle with the old, while the school of Tegernsee-abbey, the cathedral school at Regensburg, and the school of St. Emmeram-abbey, in the same city, represented the old culture in its highest development during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

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4. Instruction. The pupils of the monastery and the cathedral schools attended instruction from the seventh to the eighteenth year, hence in this point they set the example for the pupils of the so-called schools for the learned during the sixteenth or eighteenth century. The instruction offered in these early schools was very different from the uniformity in our modern institutions and exhibited great varieties. Partly following the more or less ascetic direction of the orders that supported them, and partly following the lead of special teachers, the extent of their courses of study ranged from the most necessary and limited knowledge of a clerical preparation to an all embracing course of education so far as was possible at the time. The principal branches were theology and profane science, as they had been under Charlemagne's influence. The first of these branches consisted exclusively of the study of the Holy Scriptures. The profane sciences were taught in the form of the seven arts, i. e., "artes liberales," a form in which antiquity also had comprehended its knowledge encyclopedically. The "tricium," grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, contained the form-studies; the "quadrivium" contained arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music; they were considered the studies of real knowledge.

Grammar, i. e., Latin language and literature, not only claimed the most important part in the "trivium," but in the entire course of study. It seemed the end and aim of all instruction. Latin was the language of the church, of the Bible, and generally that of all education and erudition of those times. The object of instruction in Latin, therefore, was to enable the pupils to use this foreign language orally and in writing. From a brief preparatory grammatical course the student went quickly over to a method which enabled him to speak the language, during lessons as well as in the daily intercourse with teachers and schoolmates. The Psalms were learned by heart before the little boy could understand them; reading, however, was thus practiced early and an ample vocabulary was rapidly acquired. It was a Latin method which made the dead language all his own, a method which continues to be used to this day and which rests upon daily oral application of new words gained.

The means to obtain this desirable skill were grammatical instruction combined with the reading of the Roman classics, especially of the poets. Reading was at first not an aim, but a means of learning to speak Latin. "The exegesis which was employed in reading the authors was only grammatical-linguistic. Even in the best schools there was no question of transmitting a full and clear understanding of the authors read, but the only aim kept in view was to learn quickly from the poets the exterior form and facility in Latin expression,” says Specht in his "History of Education in Germany" (p. 103).

But though in this way the authors were used only for types of expression, and though for educational purposes they remained often enough mere dead objects, their contents could not be entirely ignored.