SCHOOLS
German children go to day schools. This is not to say that there are
no boarding schools in Germany; but the prevailing system throughout
the empire is a system of day schools. The German mother does not get
rid of her boys and girls for months together, and look forward to the
holidays as a time of uproar and enjoyment. She does not wonder
anxiously what changes she will see in them when they come back to
her. They are with her all the year round,--the boys till they go to a
university, the girls till they marry. Any day in the streets of a
German city you may see troops of children going to school, not with a
maid at their heels as in Paris, but unattended as in England. They
have long tin satchels in which they carry their books and lunch, the
boys wear peaked caps, and many children of both sexes wear
spectacles.
Except at the Kindergarten, boys and girls are educated separately and
differently in Germany. In some rare cases lately some few girls have
been admitted to a boys' _Gymnasium_, but this is experimental and at
present unusual. It may be found that the presence of a small number
in a large boys' school does not work well. In addition to the
elementary schools, there are four kinds of Public Day School for
boys in Germany, and they are all under State supervision. There is
the _Gymnasium_, the _Real-Gymnasium_, the _Ober-Real-Schule_, and the
_Real-Schule_. Until 1870 the Gymnasiums were the only schools that
could send their scholars to the universities; a system that had
serious disadvantages. It meant that in choosing a child's school,
parents had to decide whether at the end of his school life he was to
have a university education. Children with no aptitude for scholarship
were sent to these schools to receive a scholar's training; while boys
who would have done well in one of the learned professions could not
be admitted to a university, except for science or modern languages,
because they had not attended a Gymnasium.
A boy who has passed through one of these higher schools has had
twelve years' education. He began Latin at the age of ten, and Greek
at thirteen. He has learned some French and mathematics, but no
English unless he paid for it as an extra. His school years have been
chiefly a preparation for the university. If he never reaches the
higher classes he leaves the Gymnasium with a stigma upon him, a
record of failure that will hamper him in his career. The higher
official posts and the professions will be closed to him; and he will
be unfitted by his education for business. This at least is what many
thoughtful Germans say of their classical schools; and they lament
over the unsuitable boys who are sent to them because their parents
want a professor or a high official in the family. It is considered
more sensible to send an average boy to a _Real-Gymnasium_ or to an
_Ober-Real Schule_, because nowadays these schools prepare for the
university, and any boy with a turn for scholarship can get the
training he needs. The _Ober-Real Schule_ professedly pays most
attention to modern languages; and it is, in fact, only since 1900
that their boys are received at a university on the classical side.
They still prepare largely for technical schools and for a commercial
career.
At a _Real-Schule_, the fourth grade of higher school, the course only
lasts six years. They do not prepare for the Abiturienten examination,
and their scholars cannot go from them to a university. They prepare
for practical life, and they admit promising boys from the elementary
schools. A boy who has been through any one of these higher schools
successfully need only serve in the army for one year; and that in
itself is a great incentive to parents to send their children. A
_Real-Schule_ in Prussia only costs a hundred marks a year, and a
_Gymnasium_ a hundred and thirty-five marks. In some parts of Germany
the fees are rather higher, in some still lower. The headmasters of
these schools are all university men, and are themselves under State
supervision. In an entertaining play called _Flachsmann als Erzieher_
the headmaster had not been doing his duty, and has allowed the school
to get into a bad way. The subordinates are either slack or
righteously rebellious, and the children are unruly. The State
official pays a surprise visit, discovers the state of things, and
reads the Riot Act all round. The wicked headmaster is dismissed, the
eager young reformer is put in his place, the slackers are warned and
given another chance.... Blessed be St. Bureaukrazius ... says the
genial old god out of a machine, when by virtue of his office he has
righted every man's wrongs. The school in the play must be an
elementary one, for children and teachers are of both sexes, but a
master at a _Gymnasium_ told me that the picture of the official visit
was not exaggerated in its importance and effect. There was
considerable excitement in Germany over the picture of the evil
headmaster, his incompetent staff, and the neglected children; and I
was warned before I saw the play that I must not think such a state of
affairs prevailed in German schools. The warning was quite
unnecessary. An immoral, idle, and ignorant class of men could not
carry on the education of a people as it is carried on throughout the
German Empire to-day.
I have before me the Annual Report of a _Gymnasium_ in Berlin, and it
may interest English people to see how many lessons the teachers in
each subject gave every week. There were thirty teachers in the
school.
LESSONS
SUBJECT PER WEEK
Religion 31
German 42
Latin 112
Greek 72
French 36
History and Geography 44
Mathematics and Arithmetic 56
Natural History 10
Physics 20
Hebrew 4
Law 1
Writing 6
Drawing 18
Singing 12
Gymnasium 27
Swimming 8-½
Handfertigkeit 3
----
502-½ lessons
The headmaster took Latin for seven hours every week, and Greek for
three hours. A professor who came solely for religious teaching came
for ten hours every week. But most of the masters taught from sixteen
to twenty-four hours, while one who is down for reading, writing,
arithmetic, gymnastics, German, singing, and _Natur_ could not get
through all he had to do in less than thirty hours. On looking into
the hours devoted to each subject by the various classes, you find
that the lowest class had three hours religious instruction every
week, and the other classes two hours. There were 407 boys in the
school described as _Evangelisch_, 47 Jews, and 23 Catholics; but in
Germany parents can withdraw their children from religious instruction
in school, provided they satisfy the authorities that it is given
elsewhere. The two highest classes had lessons on eight chapters of
St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, on the Epistle to the Philippians,
and on the confessions of St. Augustine. Some classes were instructed
in the Gospel according to St. John, and the little boys learned Bible
History. So Germans are not without orthodox theological teaching in
their early years, whatever opinions they arrive at in their
adolescence.
Every boy in the school spent two or three hours each week on German
composition, and, like boys in other countries, handled themes they
could assuredly not understand, probably, like other boys, without a
scruple or a hesitation.
"Why does the ghost of Banquo appear to Macbeth, and not the ghost of
Duncan?"
"How are the unities of time, place, and action treated in Schiller's
ballads?"
"Discuss the antitheses in Lessing's Laokoon."
"What can you say about the representation of concrete objects in
Goethe's _Hermann and Dorothea_?"
These examples are taken at random from a list too long to quote
completely; but no one need be impressed by them. Boys perform
wonderful feats of this kind in England too. However, I once heard a
German professor say that the English boy outdid the German in
_gesunder Menschenverstand_ (sound common sense), but that the German
wins in the race when it comes to the abstract knowledge (_Wissen_)
that he and his countryfolk prize above all the treasures of the
earth. No one who knows both countries can doubt for a single moment
that the professor was right, and that he stated the case as fairly as
it can be stated. In an emergency or in trying circumstances the
English boy would be readier and more self-reliant: but when you meet
him where entertainment is wanted rather than resource, his ignorance
will make you open your eyes. This, at any rate, is the kind of story
told and believed of Englishmen in Germany. A student who was working
at science in a German university had been there the whole winter, and
though the city possessed many fine theatres he had only visited a
variety show. At last his friends told him that it was his duty to go
to the _Schauspielhaus_ and see a play by Goethe or Schiller. "Goethe!
Schiller!" said my Englishman, "_Was ist das?_"
The education of girls in Germany is in a transition state at present.
Important changes have been made of late years, and still greater
ones, so the reformers say, are pending. Formerly, if a girl was to be
educated at all she went to a _Höhere Töchterschule_, or to a private
school conducted on the same lines, and, like the official
establishment, under State supervision. When she had finished with
school she had finished with education, and began to work at the
useful arts of life, more especially at the art of cooking. What she
had learned at school she had learned thoroughly, and it was
considered in those days quite as much as was good for her. The
officials who watched and regulated the education of boys had nothing
to do with girls' schools. These were left to the staff that managed
elementary schools, and kept on much the same level. Girls learned
history, geography, elementary arithmetic, two modern languages, and a
great deal of mythology. The scandalous ignorance of mythology
displayed by Englishwomen still shocks the right-minded German. If a
woman asked for more than this because she was going to earn her
bread, she spent three years in reading for an examination that
qualified her for one of the lower posts in the school. The higher
posts were all in the hands of men. Of late years women have been able
to prepare for a teacher's career at one of the Teachers' Seminaries,
most of which were opened in 1897.
More than forty years ago the English princess in Berlin was not
satisfied with what was done in Germany for the education of women;
and one of the many monuments to her memory is the Victoria Lyceum.
This institution was founded at her suggestion by Miss Archer, an
English lady who had been teaching in Berlin for some years, and who
was greatly liked and respected there. At first it only aimed at
giving some further education to girls who had left school, and it was
not easy to get men of standing to teach them. But as it was the
outcome of a movement with life in it the early difficulties were
surmounted, and its scope and usefulness have grown since its
foundation thirty-eight years ago. It is not a residential college,
and it has no laboratories. During the winter it still holds courses
of lectures for women who are not training for a definite career; but
under its present head, Fräulein von Cotta, the chief work of the
Victoria Lyceum has become the preparation of women for the _Ober
Lehrerin_ examination. This is a State examination that can only be
passed five years after a girl has qualified as _Lehrerin_, and two
of these five years must have been spent in teaching at a German
school. To qualify as _Lehrerin_, a girl must have spent three years
at a Seminary for teachers after she leaves school, and she usually
gets through this stage of her training between the ages of fifteen
and eighteen. Therefore a woman must have three years special
preparation for a subordinate post and eight years for a higher post
in a German girls' school.
The whole question of women's education is in a ferment in Germany at
present, and though everyone interested is ready to talk of it,
everyone tells you that it is impossible to foresee exactly what
reforms are coming. There are to be new schools established, _Lyceen_
and _Ober-Lyceen_, and _Ober-Lyceen_ will prepare for matriculation.
When girls have matriculated from one of these schools they will be
ready for the university, and will work for the same examinations as
men. Baden was the first German State that allowed women to
matriculate at its universities. It did so in 1900, and in 1903
Bavaria followed suit. In 1905 there were eighty-five women at the
universities who had matriculated in Germany; but there are hundreds
working at the universities without matriculating first. At present
the professors are free to admit women or to exclude them from their
classes; but the right of exclusion is rarely exercised. Before long
it will presumably be a thing of the past.
An Englishwoman residing at Berlin, and engaged in education, told me
that in her opinion no German woman living had done as much for her
countrywomen as Helene Lange, the president of the _Allgemeine
deutsche Frauenverein_. Nineteen years ago she began the struggle that
is by no means over, the struggle to secure a better education for
women and a greater share in its control. In English ears her aim
will sound a modest one, but English girls' schools are not entirely
in the hands of men, with men for principals and men to teach the
higher classes. She began in 1887 by publishing a pamphlet that made a
great sensation, because it demanded, what after a mighty tussle was
conceded, women teachers for the higher classes in girls' schools, and
for these women an academic education. In 1890 she founded, together
with Auguste Schmidt and Marie Loeper-Housselle, the _Allgemeine
deutsche Lehrerinnen-Verein_, which now has 80 branches and 17,000
members. But the pluckiest thing she did was to fight Prussian
officialdom and win. In 1889 she opened _Real-Kurse für Mädchen und
Frauen_, classes where women could work at subjects not taught in
girls' schools, Latin for instance, and advanced mathematics; for the
State in Germany has always decided how much as well as how little
women may learn. It would not allow people as ignorant as Squeers to
keep a school because it offered an easy livelihood. It organised
women's education carefully and thoroughly in the admirable German
way; but it laid down the law from A to Z, which is also the German
way. When, therefore, Helene Lange opened her classes for women, the
officials came to her and said that she was doing an illegal thing.
She replied that her students were not schoolgirls under the German
school laws, but grown-up women free to learn what they needed and
desired. The officials said that an old law of 1837 would empower them
to close the classes by force if Helene Lange did not do so of her own
accord. After some reflection and in some anxiety she decided to go on
with them. By this time public opinion was on her side and came to her
assistance; for public opinion does count in Germany even with the
officials. The classes went on, and were changed in 1893 to
_Gymnasialkurse_. In 1896 the first German women passed the
Abiturienten examination, the difficult examination young men of
eighteen pass at the end of a nine years' course in one of the
classical schools. Even to-day you may hear German men argue that
women should not be admitted to universities because they have had no
classical training. Helene Lange was the first to prove that even
without early training women can prepare themselves for an academic
career. Her experiment led to the establishment of _Gymnasialkurse_ in
many German cities; and even to the admission of girls in some few
cases to boys' Gymnasium schools.
To-day Helene Lange and her associates are contending with the
schoolmasters, who desire to keep the management of girls' schools in
their own hands. She calls the _Höhere Töchterschule_ the failure of
German school organisation, and she says that the difference of view
taken by men and women teachers as to the proper work of girls'
schools makes it most difficult to come to an understanding.
Consciously or not, men form an ideal of what they want and expect of
women, and try to educate them up to it; while women think of the
claims life may make on a girl, and desire the full development of her
powers. "The Higher Daughter," she says, "must vanish, and her place
must be taken by the girl who has been thoroughly prepared for life,
who can stand on her own feet if circumstances require it, or who
brings with her as housewife the foundations of further
self-development, instead of the pretentiousness of the half
educated." In one of her many articles on the subject of school reform
she points to three directions where reform is needed. What she says
about the teaching of history is so characteristic of her views and of
the modern movement in Germany, that I think the whole passage is
worth translation:--
"All those subjects that help to make a woman a better
citizen must be taken more seriously," she says. "It can no
longer be the proper aim of history teaching to foster and
strengthen in women a sentimental attachment to her country
and its national character: its aim must be to give her the
insight that will enable her to understand the forces at
work, and ultimately play an active part in them. Many
branches of our social life await the work of women, civic
philanthropy to begin with; and as our public life becomes
more and more constitutional, it demands from the individual
both a ripe insight into the good of the community and a
living sense of duty in regard to its destiny; and, on the
other hand, the foundations of this insight and sense of duty
must be in our times more and more laid by the mother, since
the father is often entirely prevented by his work from
sharing in the education of his children. Therefore, both on
her own account and in consideration of the task before her,
a woman just as much as a man should understand and take a
practical interest in public life, and it is the business of
the school to see that she does so. Over and over again those
who are trying to reform girls' schools insist that history
teaching should lead the student to understand the present
time; that it should recognise those economic conditions on
which the history of the world, especially in our day,
depends in so great a measure; that it should pay attention
not only to dates and events, but also to the living process
of civilisation, since it is only from the latter inquiry
that we can arrive at the principles of individual effort in
forwarding social life."
Nowadays in Germany Helene Lange is considered one of the
"Moderates," but it will be seen from the above quotation that she has
travelled far from the old ideals which invested women with many
beautiful qualities, but not with the sense and knowledge required of
useful public citizens. She proceeds in the same article to say that
scientific and mathematical teaching should reach a higher standard in
girls' schools; and thirdly, that certain branches of psychology,
physiology, and hygiene should receive greater attention, because a
woman is a better wife and mother when she fulfils her duties with
understanding instead of by mere instinct. Nor will education on this
higher plane deprive women of any valuable feminine virtues if it is
carried out in the right way. But to this end women must direct it,
and in great measure take it into their own hands. She would not shut
men out of girls' schools, but she would place women in supreme
authority there, and give them the lion's share of the work.
It seems to the English onlooker that this contest can only end in one
way, and that if the women of Germany mean to have the control of
girls' schools they are bound to get it. Some of the evils of the
present system lie on the surface. "It is a fact," said a
schoolmaster, speaking lately at a conference,--"it is a fact that a
more intimate, spiritual, and personal relationship is developed
between a schoolgirl and her master than between a schoolgirl and her
mistress." This remark, evidently made in good faith, was received
with hilarity by a large mixed audience of teachers; and when one
reflects on the unbridled sentiment of some "higher daughters" one
sees where it must inevitably find food under the present anomalous
state of things. But the schoolmaster's argument is the argument
brought forward by many men against the reforms desired by Helene
Lange and her party. They insist that girls would deteriorate if they
were withdrawn throughout their youth from masculine scholarship and
masculine authority in school. They talk of the emasculation of the
staff as a future danger. They do not seem to talk of their natural
reluctance to cede important posts to women, but this must, of course,
strengthen their pugnacity and in some cases colour their views.
Meanwhile many parents prefer to send their daughters to one of the
private schools that have a woman at the head, and where most of the
teaching is done by women; or to a _Stift_, a residential school of
the conventual type, which may be either Protestant or Catholic. A
girl who had spent some years at a well-known Protestant _Stift_
described her school life to me as minutely as possible, and it
sounded so like the life in a good English boarding-school thirty
years ago that it is difficult to pick out points of differences. That
only means, of course, that the differences were subtle and not
apparent in rules and time-tables. The girls wore a school uniform,
were well fed and taught, strictly looked after, taken out for walks
and excursions, allowed a private correspondence, shown how to mend
their clothes, made to keep their rooms tidy, encouraged in piety and
decorum. In these strenuous times it sounds a little old-fashioned,
and as a matter of fact a school of this kind fits a girl for a
sheltered home but not for the open road. For everyone concerned about
the education of women the interesting spectacle in Germany to-day is
the campaign being carried on by Helene Lange and her party, the
support they receive from the official as well as from the unofficial
world, and the progress they make year by year to gain their ends.