Finally, for private schools that are not substitutes for public schools, such as commercial and professional schools, the laws formerly in existence still operate.
III.—The Constitution contains a number of provisions for instruction, both public and private. It provides that vocational instruction and moral and civic education shall be part of the programme of all schools. By means of vocational instruction children must be made to understand the great importance of work, for the individual as well as for society as a whole. Civic instruction must acquaint children with the rights and duties of citizens, with the organization of the German State, and with the public life of Germany. To this end, every scholar on completion of the course in compulsory education shall receive a copy of the Constitution.
Such are the provisions relative to instruction in the schools. They constitute, as compared to the former state of affairs, a considerable change. But these provisions cannot be effectively put into operation except by a series of laws on the part of the Reich as well as of the States, a process which threatens to be a long one in point of time.
However, in April, 1920, the first law on this matter was passed by the National Assembly. It was the law on the elementary school. According to this law, primary schools must be so organized that the first four years may at the same time serve as a preparation for secondary and higher education. Every child who has successfully graduated from the highest class of the elementary school must be sufficiently prepared to enter immediately a secondary or a higher school. Public preparatory schools and public preparatory classes are abolished. As for private preparatory schools, their suppression will take place only after a sufficiently long reprieve; their complete abolition need not take place until the commencement of the school year 1929-1930; since economic difficulties prevent the earlier abolition of these schools, and means must be taken to provide for the teachers who will be deprived thus of their occupations. Private instruction is not allowed except in particular cases and can only in special circumstances be substituted for the elementary school. The law does not touch instruction and training in auxiliary classes; nor does it concern itself with the instruction of children physically or mentally diseased.
In addition a certain number of interesting innovations have been enacted into legislation. These have as their purpose the participation by parents and pupils in the administration of schools. On the one hand, in the secondary schools there are organized Students’ Councils (Schulgemeinden). These Councils are formed by pupils of the three upper classes, who meet periodically in assembly to discuss questions of instruction—educational matters, quarterly reports, discipline, duties, etc. Teachers attend these meetings without the right to vote. Up to now these assemblies have had only the right to propose reforms without power as yet to make them operative. On the other hand, parents elect for each school a Parents’ Council, one member for every fifty pupils.[56] This Council concerns itself mostly with classes, examination and discipline. If a pupil has committed a fault involving the possibility of expulsion from the schools, it is before this Council that this question is taken. Teachers are sometimes admitted to these deliberations but have not the right to vote.
CHAPTER VI
THE ECONOMIC CONSTITUTION AND SOCIALIZATION
The Constitution imposes on each German the duty of work. It is not sufficient in modern states, especially in one defeated in war, that every one therein merely work, unless this work is directed in a certain spirit, following a given plan and toward a determined end. The fundamental idea that inspired the Constituent Assembly in the last provisions of its work is as follows: The whole German system of economy, public and private, is destroyed or demolished by the war. Germany cannot dream of rising from its ruins unless it realizes immediate and radical reforms. It must completely reconstruct its former economic system. The whole country must become an immense enterprise directed by a conscious will aimed at a definite goal. All the forces of the country solidly organized and scientifically utilized must be so managed that a maximum of production will be assured.
To this end, two series of reforms are contemplated. They are summed up in these words, “councils” and “collective economy.” On the one hand, there is projected an Economic Constitution, whose organs are progressively destined to be parallel to those of the political Constitution. On the other hand, the effort is made to realize in the organization of production and distribution an economic system that is intermediate between that of private economy on the one hand, and a purely socialist régime on the other.