Samuel R. H. - Education Society in Modern Germany

The International Library of Sociology

Education and Society in Modern Germany

THE SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION In 28 Volumes

First published in 1949 by
Routledge

Reprinted 1998, 1999, 2000 (twice), 2001 (twice) by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1949 R. H. Samuel and R. Hinton Thomas

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Education and Society in Modern Germany
ISBN 0-415-17756-1
The Sociology of Education: 28 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17833-9
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

Chapter

S INCE there is no satisfactory book, in English or German, which gives both a concise and critical assessment of education in modern Germany, we have undertaken this task. In the space at our disposal it would have been impossible to provide a comprehensive account of all aspects; regarding education as essentially an expression of society, we have concentrated on those most integrally bound up with the significant trends in German life. Generally speaking, the early nineteenth century has been our point of departure, though in certain chapters, according to the nature of the subject, we have had to refer to previous developments. Each chapter, except the last dealing with the situation in post-Hitler Germany, extends to the close of the Nazi rgime. Considering this as a break potentially more radical than any that has occurred in German history, we have written of the situation preceding it always in the past tense, even when discussing features that have survived it. As regards the bibliography, since the field is so wide and contains so many conflicting interests, a comprehensive list of works would have been disproportionately long. In addition to some general works useful for background study, we have given a list of some of the specialist works we have used. This will, at any rate, indicate the type of material available for any reader who may care more thoroughly to investigate aspects for himself.

Professor Roy Pascal most kindly read the manuscript for us and made many valuable suggestions, which we gratefully acknowledge. We are also indebted to Dr. Fritz Braun, without whose help the imperfections of our work would be more numerous. We alone are responsible for its shortcomings.

September , 1948

R.H.S.
R.H.T.

German history before 1918 was profoundly influenced by two factors, particularism and absolutism. These restricted the opportunities for active and liberal citizenship, and they also help to explain the deflection of energy from the practical to the spiritual sphere. One result of this trend was the industrious but unworldly professor, who by the end of the eighteenth century had become a characteristic feature of German academic circles. The narrowness of life contributed to the prevalence in German society of the petty-bourgeois, the philistine, whom in the nineteenth century Heine mocked and Raabe glorified. Where-ever we look, said the latter in his novel Abu Telfan (1867), we see that the German genius everywhere and always derives a third of its vigour from philistinism. This provincialism of the German middle class struck the English traveller William Howitt, whose German Experiences contain trenchant comments on life in Germany, for example, in the small university towns. It is noteworthy that when Ludwig Wiese, a senior official in the Prussian Ministry of Education, visited England in the second half of the nineteenth century, he was impressed by the broadmindedness of English schoolmasters and, as he explained in his Letters on English Education , believed that this could be explained partly in the light of the national life. He stated that he had often had to deal with young teachers in Germany who felt the narrowness of the circumstances in which they had to live in small towns like a paralysing pressure, and who dreaded to become small and pedantic themselves.

In the eighteenth century in Germany patriotism meant only the love of the individual state in which one lived. Germany was not yet a political reality nor even a spiritual ideal. It was the Napoleonic invasion that aroused the first significant stirrings of German national feeling, awakening many from their apathy and turning their attention to Prussia as the only state which seemed potentially capable of ultimately assuming effective leadership against the oppressor. Moreover, after 1806 Prussia set a promising example of liberal reform. However, while some even looked forward to Prussias hegemony in a more distant future, not all shared this belief in her mission. Emergent nationalism, moreover, went hand in hand with liberalism. Since the princes had been the main obstacles to democracy, it appeared to many that this could only be achieved through the suppression of dynastic interests in a united Germany, strong enough to safeguard the freedom of the people, though many liberals were more compromising in their attitude to royalty.