The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

6. Government to pay the fee when a peasant sends more than one child
to school.

7. The peasants to furnish the teacher with certain provisions.

8. The teacher to have the right of free pasture for his small stock
and some fees from every child confirmed.

9. Government to give the teacher one acre of land, which villagers
were to till for him.

In 1738 the King further regulated the private schools and teachers in and about Berlin, in particular dealing with their qualifications and fees. The King showed, for the time, an interest in and solicitude for the education of his people heretofore almost unknown. That his decrees were in advance of the possibilities of the people in the matter of school support is not to be wondered at. Still, they rendered useful service in preparing the way for further organizing work by his successors, and in particular in accustoming the people to the ideas of state oversight and local school support. Under his successor and son, Frederick the Great, the preparatory work of the father bore important fruit.

THE ORGANIZING WORK OF FREDERICK THE GREAT. In 1740 Frederick II, surnamed the Great, succeeded his father, and in turn guided the destinies of Prussia for forty-six years. His benevolently despotic rule has been described on a preceding page (p. 474). Here we will consider only his work for education. In 1740, 1741, and again in 1743 he issued "regulations concerning the support of schools in the villages of Prussia," in which he directed that new schools should be established, teachers provided for them, and that "the existing school regulations and the arrangements made in pursuance thereto should be permanent, and that no change should be made under any pretext whatever."

In 1750 he effected a centralization of all the provincial church consistories, except that of Catholic Silesia, under the Berlin Consistory. This was a centralizing measure of large future importance, as it centralized the administration of the schools, as well as that of the churches, and transformed the Berlin Consistory into an important administrative agent of the central government. To this new centralized administrative organization the King issued instructions to pay special attention to schools, in order that they might be furnished with able schoolmasters and the young be well educated. One of the results of this centralization was the gradual evolution of the modern German Gymnasien, with uniform standards and improved instruction, out of the old and weakened Latin schools of various types within the kingdom.

From 1756 to 1763 Frederick was engaged in a struggle for existence, known as the Seven Years' War, but as soon as peace was at hand the King issued new regulations "concerning the maintenance of schools," and began employing competent schoolmasters for his royal estates. In April, 1763, he issued instructions to have a series of general school regulations prepared for all Prussia. These were drawn up by Julius Hecker, a former pupil and teacher in Francke's Institution (p. 418) and now a pastor in Berlin and counselor for the Berlin Consistory. After approval by the King, these were issued, September 23, 1763, under the title of General Land-Schule Reglement (general school regulations for the rural and village schools) of all Prussia (R. 274). These new regulations constituted the first general School Code for the whole kingdom, and mark the real foundation of the Prussian elementary-school system. Two years later (1765) a similar but stronger set of regulations or Code was drawn up and promulgated for the government of the Catholic elementary schools in the province of Silesia (R. 275). This was a new province which Frederick had wrested by force a few years previously (1748) from Maria Theresa of Austria, and the addition of a large number of Catholics to Prussia caused Frederick to issue specific regulations for schools among them.

[Illustration: FIG. 169. THE KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA, 1740-86]

These two School Codes did not so much bring already existing schools into a state system, but rather set up standards and obligations for an elementary-school system in part to be created in the future. The schools were still left under the supervision and direction of the Church, but the State now undertook to tell the Church what it must do. To enforce the obligation the State Inspectors of Prussia were directed to make an annual inspection (R. 274, § 26) of all schools, and to forward a report on their inspection to the Berlin Consistory, and for Catholic Silesia the following significant injunction was placed in the Code: