The Prussian education system was established in Prussia as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and early 19th century, and has had widespread influence since. The Prussian education system was introduced as a basic concept in the late 18th century and was significantly enhanced after Prussia's defeat in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. The Prussian educational reforms inspired similar changes in other countries, and remain an important consideration in accounting for modern nation-building projects and their consequences.European Universities from the Enlightenment to 1914 R. D. Anderson 2004 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206606.001.0001
The term itself is not used in German literature, which refers to the primary aspects of the Humboldtian education ideal respectively as the Prussian reforms; however, the basic concept has led to various debates and controversies. Twenty-first century primary and secondary education in Germany still embodies the legacy of the Prussian education system. The United States public schooling system and other countries also adopted certain aspects of the Prussian education model. Critics of the Prussian education model argue it was designed to foster obedience and social control, aiming to "destroy free will" rather than encourage true education. It has been described as a "factory-model education," emphasizing discipline, conformity, and loyalty to the state over individual thought.
Origin
The basic foundations of a generic Prussian primary education system were laid out by Frederick the Great with his Generallandschulreglement, a decree of 1763 which was written by Johann Julius Hecker. Hecker had already before (in 1748) founded the first teacher's seminary in Prussia. His concept of providing teachers with the means to cultivate mulberries for homespun silk, which was one of Frederick's favorite projects, found the King's favour. It expanded the existing schooling system significantly and required that all young citizens, both girls and boys, be educated by mainly municipality-funded schools from the age of 5 to 13 or 14. Prussia was among the first countries in the world to introduce tax-funded and generally compulsory primary education.James van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria (2003) In comparison, in France and Great Britain, compulsory schooling was not successfully enacted until the 1880s.
The Prussian system consisted of an eight-year course of primary education, called Volksschule. It provided not only basic technical skills needed in a modernizing world (such as reading and writing), but also music (singing) and religious (Christian) education in close cooperation with the churches and tried to impose a strict ethos of duty, sobriety and discipline. Mathematics and calculus were not compulsory at the start, and taking such courses required additional payment by parents. Frederick the Great also formalized further educational stages, the Realschule and as the highest stage the gymnasium (state-funded secondary school), which served as a university-preparatory school.Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2008) ch 7
Construction of schools received some state support, but they were often built on private initiative. Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow, a member of the local gentry and former cavalry officer in Reckahn, Brandenburg, installed such a school. Von Rochow cooperated with Heinrich Julius Bruns (1746–1794), a talented teacher of modest background. The two installed a model school for rural education that attracted more than 1,200 notable visitors between 1777 and 1794.Frank Tosch (Ed.): "'Er war ein Lehrer.' Heinrich Julius Bruns (1746–1794). Beiträge des Reckahner Kolloquiums anlässlich seines 200. Todestages." In: Hanno Schmitt und Frank Tosch (Ed.): Quellen und Studien zur Berlin-Brandenburgischen Bildungsgeschichte, Vol. 2, Potsdam 1995. ISSN 0946-8897 (Studies about the Prussian educational history, Colloquium in Reckahn on the bicentenary of Bruns 1995)
The Prussian system, after its modest beginnings, succeeded in reaching compulsory attendance, specific training for teachers, national testing for all students (both female and male students), a prescribed national curriculum for each grade and mandatory kindergarten.Ellwood Cubberley, The History of Education: Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization (1920) online Training of teachers was increasingly organized via private seminaries. Hecker had already in 1748 founded the first "Lehrerseminar", but the density and impact of the seminary system improving significantly until the end of the 18th century.Absolutistischer Staat und Schulwirklichkeit in Brandenburg-Preussen Wolfgang Neugebauer Walter de Gruyter, 1 January 1985 In 1810, Prussia introduced state certification requirements for teachers, which significantly raised the standard of teaching. The final examination, Abitur, was introduced in 1788, implemented in all Prussian secondary schools by 1812 and extended to all of Germany in 1871. Passing the Abitur was a prerequisite to entering the learned professions and higher echelons of the civil service. The state-controlled Abitur remains in place in modern Germany.
The Prussian system had by the 1830s attained the following characteristics:An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present, Ronald Seavoy, Routledge, 18 October 2013 Free primary schooling, at least for poor citizens Professional teachers trained in specialized colleges A basic salary for teachers and recognition of teaching as a profession An extended school year to better involve children of farmers Funding to build schools Supervision at national and classroom level to ensure quality instruction Curriculum inculcating a strong national identity, involvement of science and technology Secular instruction (but with religion as a topic included in the curriculum)
The German states in the 19th century were world leaders in prestigious education and Prussia set the pace.Karl A. Schleunes, "Enlightenment, reform, reaction: the schooling revolution in Prussia." Central European History 12.4 (1979): 315-342 online.Charles E. McClelland, State, society, and university in Germany: 1700-1914 (1980). For boys free public education was widely available, and the gymnasium system for elite students was highly professionalized. The modern university system emerged from the 19th century German universities, especially Friedrich Wilhelm University (now named Humboldt University of Berlin). It pioneered the model of the research university with well-defined career tracks for professors.Mitchell G. Ash, "Bachelor of What, Master of Whom? The Humboldt Myth and Historical Transformations of Higher Education in German‐Speaking Europe and the U.S." European Journal of Education 41.2 (2006): 245-267 online. The United States, for example, paid close attention to German models. Families focused on educating their sons. The traditional schooling for girls was generally provided by mothers and governesses. Elite families increasingly favoured Catholic convent boarding schools for their daughters. Prussia's Kulturkampf laws in the 1870s limited Catholic schools thus providing an opening for a large number of new private schools for girls.Aneta Niewęgłowska, "Secondary Schools for Girls in Western Prussia, 1807-1911." Acta Poloniae Historica 99 (2009): 137-160.
Outreach The overall system was soon widely admired for its efficiency and reduction of illiteracy, and inspired education leaders in other German states and a number of other countries, including Japan and the United States.Jeismann, Karl-Ernst. "American observations concerning the Prussian educational system in the nineteenth century." in Henry Geitz and Jürgen Heideking, eds. German influences on education in the United States to 1917 (2006) pp. 21–41.
The underlying Humboldtian educational ideal of brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt was about much more than primary education; it strived for academic freedom and the education of both cosmopolitan-minded and loyal citizens from the earliest levels. The Prussian system had strong backing in the traditional German admiration and respect for Bildung as an individual's drive to cultivate oneself from within.Japan and Germany under the U.S. Occupation: A Comparative Analysis of Post-War Education Reform, Masako Shibata, Lexington Books, 20 September 2005
Drivers and hindrances
Major drivers for improved education in Prussia since the 18th century had a background in the middle and upper middle strata of society and were pioneered by the Bildungsbürgertum. The concept as such faced strong resistance both from the top, as major players in the ruling nobility feared increasing literacy among peasants and workers would raise unrest, and from the very poor, who preferred to use their children as early as possible for rural or industrial labor.Volkmar Wittmütz Die preussische Elementarschule im 19. Jahrhundert Clio-online
The system's proponents overcame such resistance with the help of foreign pressure and internal failures, after the defeat of Prussia in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. After the military blunder of Prussian drill and line formation against the levée en masse of the French revolutionary army in the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, reformers and German nationalists urged for major improvements in education. In 1809 Wilhelm von Humboldt, having been appointed minister of education, promoted his idea of a generic education based on a neohumanist ideal of broad general knowledge, in full academic freedom without any determination or restriction by status, profession or wealth. Humboldt's was one of the earliest white papers to lay out a reform of a country's educational system as a whole.Eduard Spranger: Wilhelm von Humboldt und die Reform des Bildungswesens, Reuther u. Reichard, Berlin 1910 Humboldt's concept still forms the foundation of the contemporary German education system.Cubberley, 1920 The Prussian system provided compulsory and basic schooling for everyone, but the significantly higher fees for attending gymnasium or a university imposed a high barrier between upper social strata and middle and lower social strata.Sagarra, p 179
Interaction with the German national movement
In 1807 Johann Gottlieb Fichte had urged a new form of education in his Addresses to the German Nation. While Prussian (military) drill in the times before had been about obedience to orders without any leeway, Fichte asked for shaping of the personality of students: "The citizens should be made able and willing to use their own minds to achieve higher goals in the framework of a future unified German nation state."Addresses to the German Nation, 1807. Second Address: "The General Nature of the New Education". Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Company, 1922, p. 21 Fichte and other philosophers, such as the Brothers Grimm, tried to circumvent the nobility's resistance to a common German nation state via proposing the concept of a Kulturnation, nationhood without needing a state but based on a common language, musical compositions and songs, shared fairy tales and legends and a common ethos and educational canon.Leo Wieland: Katalonien – Kulturnation ohne Staat. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 10. Oktober 2007