have had large experience in practical education, and who are profoundly ac quainted with the science of pedagogy. It is the business of the Minister to form a clear idea of the aims which he wishes each class of schools to have before them. And, for this purpose, he asks one of his council, who is practically conversant with the science and art of teaching, to draw up general directions as to the aims, subjects, and best methods of teaching. This document is submitted to the council. The Minister listens to all that has to be said by men well acquainted with the political and ecclesiastical affairs of the country, makes up his mind as to the advice given, and then sends his directions to all persons concerned. These documents are of great value as expositions of educational practice, and show a rare amount of wisdom. They give unity and purpose to the whole education of Prussia. But great care is taken not to interfere with details. The details are to be worked out by the various subordinate councils. The Universities are made to a large extent self-governing. The directors of Gymnasien have large powers, with much responsibility. And special work is assigned to each education board, in proportion as it is supposed capable of doing it. But no directly educational work is done by any one who is not specially prepared and fitted for it, and no board determines strictly edu cational matters without having the direction and advice of some one practically acquainted with education. There is always attached to the provincial board a special member called a school counselor, who is appointed for his special knowledge of the art and science of education.

The schoolmaster himself is also looked on as an official of the State. His function is not merely to teach reading, writing, and other arts; but to make good citizens. Accordingly, it is demanded of him that he give his life to the work. He must submit to a preliminary course of training at a seminarium or normal school; he must serve a kind of apprenticeship; he must pass certain examinations. And the boards are warned to be particularly strict in these examinations. It is thus very rare that an incompetent teacher finds his way into a school; and if such an event takes place, the board that let him pass is held responsible for the mistake, and is bound to get employment for him in some other branch of service for which he is better fitted. Once in a school he is urged to make progress in his career. A man who does not exert himself is

sent to the schools where the lowest pay is given, and the mode of life is disagreeable. But if he works, he may rise to any extent. The only obstacle in his way is that many of the best educational situations are open only to those who have gone through the Gymnasien and the universities. But if he has this education, he may become the school counselor and a member of the provincial board; he may become a director of a seminary; he may become a member of the chief board; he may become the Minister of Instruction himself. All the offices lie open to merit and loyalty. He is also secured a fixed salary and certain privileges. He may have a retiring allowance at a certain stage, and his widow and children will be cared for after his death. In fact, there is every inducement for him to apply his whole heart to his special work, to continue improving himself to the last, and to be loyal to a Government which, in no ordinary degree, sympathizes with him in his somewhat hard and difficult vocation.

If the State is thus careful in providing for instruction, it expects the people to take it. Every child must be educated. No excuse is admissible, except the guarantee that the child is being instructed properly elsewhere. There are two essential duties which all owe to the State-service in war and attendance at school. The service in war is of recent date, owing its existence to the mind of Scharnhorst and the ravages of Napoleon. But the idea of compulsory attendance at school is found at all periods of Prussian history. 'I hold,' says Luther, that the authorities are bound to compel their subjects to keep their children at school.' We find compulsion laid down in the educational decrees of 1717 and 1736. In the laws of Frederick the Great more precise directions are given. The parents and guardians are to pay the school-fees to the schoolmaster (double the school-fees in Silesia), just as if the children had been sent to school; and if all warnings fail to make them do their duty, the magistrates of the place can seize their goods. When, moreover, the visitor

examined the school in his yearly visitation, he was to fine guilty parents sixteen groschen. In later times, retention of a child from school is punished first by a fine in money. If the parents refuses to pay the money, his goods are sold. If this fails, or if the parent has no goods to sell, the parent is put in prison for a short time. But inspectors, teachers, and local boards, are urged to use every means of persuasion before punishment is applied. The fees have always been small. In 1848, during the discussions which then took place, it was agreed that in the people's school no fees should be exacted, and the constitution of 1850, sworn to by the king, contains this clause, 'In the public people's schools instruction is given free of charge.' But this part of the constitution has never been carried into practice. If, however, the child's parents are too poor to pay the school-fee, the school board pays it. Moreover, education opens up wide prospects to all Prussian citizens. If a pupil shows great capacity, there is a free place for him in the gymnasium and university. There are ten free places on an average for every one hundred pupils in a gymnasium. Every encouragement is given to ability. The Government aims at having all the ability of the country on its side and in its service.

The one question which has arisen in regard to the State's management is whether too much pains is not bestowed on making the poorer classes Prussian citizens, and too little on making them men. Now as in Church matters, so in State the science of teaching has roused a certain amount of antagonism. 'We must make our scholars men,' says the science of teaching. We must give them a knowledge of the history of other nations. We must bring out their human sympathies. And for this purpose we must get rid of the bureaucratic interference of State. The school must be a separate institution, independent, to a large extent, of Church and State, and governed by those only belonging to the scholastic profession. There is a society in Berlih, already mentioned, that aims at accomplishing this emancipation of school alike from State and from Church, and it ranks among its members some eminent men; but it is not likely to accomplish all that it wishes, though it may certainly do a great deal of good.

Last of all, the most influential cause that has led to the Prussian success is the wide appreciation of education. This appreciation did not always exist. Frederick's legislation was to some extent frustrated by the stinginess of the nobility, and partly by the opposition of those who doubted whether education was good for the laboring classes. It is characteristic of Prussia that these obscurantists were not so much afraid for the men as for the women. What good can it do, they said, to teach girls to write? They will then spend their whole time in writing love-letters. But the case is now altered. Just ideas of education have permeated the people. These ideas have indeed come from above downward. The Prussian management does not listen to any control from uneducated or half educated men. But the Prussian Government claims the intelligent sympathy of all classes. And it has it. How is this? To explain this fully would require something like a history of the intellectual development of the Prussians during the last two centuries. But I shall attempt a short contribution to the explanation. The growth of a genuine literature in the end of last century is remarkable in this respect: it was the result, to a large extent, of criticism. Lessing, the father of it, was by eminence a critic. He examined minutely the laws and limits of poetry, sculpture, and painting. He discussed the drama. He was a critic of the classics. He established principles of criticism. He worked by vision. It was the same with Herder. was at home in all the phases of humanity. He gathered the ballads and legends of every nation. He sifted them, and drew out the human from them. This habit of looking into things brought the writers face to face with reality, and the width of their range opened up all the aspects of human nature. The classical studies of Wolf and a host of successors had the same effect. They revealed and created a life different from the ecclesiastical one. They placed them at a widely different point of view. And, above all, they brought home to them the laws of evolution, as they appear in the progress of mankind. It was natural that, when the education of mankind was deeply pondered, the evolu tion of the single mind should arrest attention. And at length it did. This is

Ho

But

not so easy a subject as we are apt to imagine. We have been infants, we have been boys, and therefore we think we know what infants and boys are. do we? For two of our first years our minds were incessantly employed. Thousands of impressions were made on them. We felt thousands of joys and sorrows. And yet we can not remember one of them. That early life is a mystery which we can not recall, and which to a large extent we can not fathom. The distance between our present life and that of boys is not so great, but still it is very great. Boys and men seem like; but they are in reality very unlike: the boy goes through many stages before he reaches manhood. What are these stages through which the boy goes? What is the natural healthy evolution of the powers of a boy's mind? These were the questions which Pestalozzi put to himself, and in answering them produced a revolution. To be a teacher of children,' said Luther, 'you must become a child.' And PestaJozzi became a child: with a heart glowing with love to his fellowmen, with singularly keen and lively sympathies, with an ardent affection for the poor, and with a rare consciousness of his own weaknesses, he set himself to the work of teaching boys to become men. The problem, you see, is not to teach children to read or write. Books are but mere instruments. The child stands face to face with nature, man, and God. These are his real lesson books. What is the alphabet of this instruction? What are the various stages? Pestalozzi pored over these problems: and he gave his answers. The answers spread over Europe. New light was thrown on education. The best minds in Prussia turned to the solution of the difficult problems; and the result was a universal interest among all cultivated people in education. And you may at once see why this interest should be great and persuasive in Germany. It was pressed upon the people by all their greatest minds. Look at German literature, and you will find this to be the case. Herder wrote specially on education. Goethe devoted a great deal of attention to it, and some of the most beautiful portions of the Wilhelm Meister are descriptions of his imaginary schools. Jean Paul flung out a noble book on education full of grand thoughts. In fact, no German can be well acquainted with the best literature of his country without having to ponder the truest and wisest thoughts that have been uttered on education. The philosophers also took the subject up. Kant delivered lectures on the science of education. Education,' he says, 'is the hardest and most difficult problem which can be proposed to man.' Fichte addressed himself to the question in his speeches to the nation. And Hegel's Phænomenologie is so full of the development of the child's mind, that Deinhardt, Thaulow, and Rosenkranz, have issued Hegelian systems of education. The theologians, like Schleiermacher, also devoted themselves to an examination of it. And in particular the psychologists deemed it as a special portion of their department. Two of these, Beneke and Herbart, have given us a thoroughly scientific exposition of the whole subject. They analyzed every process of the child's thought; they estimated the value of every subject of instruction; they discussed the relation of the intellectual to the emotional and practical; they investigated the nature of that interest which children feel in learning; they defined the purposes and aims of instruction; and they examined philosophically the various schemes for its organization. The subject bccame a subject of scientific research. It found exponents in the Universities. There arose a pædagogik or science of instruction for all classes of schools. The Gymnasien shared in the movement. It was held out that the great object of the Gymnasien was to prepare the pupil for the search for truth. The Universities were the field for this search. Accordingly, there exists a keen desire to investigate. There are men whose only business it is to investigate. They examine without prejudice the principles which underlie education. Their examinations keep up fresh interest and give fresh life to the subject. This life distills through the seminaries for teachers. The future teachers are made acquainted with all the investigations that are going on. They have to think the subject out for themselves. They know that teaching is an art which acts according to the laws that regulate the evolution of the human mind. They watch these laws. Their eyes are open. Their interest is lively. They believe that they have a great and noble work to do. And their pupils also come

to know that their teachers are artists; and hence the laws of education are extensively known in Germany. The consequence is that the people appreci ate education, that they do not meddle with what only a practical and scientific knowledge can direct, and they demand of all their instructors a minute investigation into the laws of man's being. The educator is with them not a mere crammer; but all feel that his first and great duty is the harmonious and equable evolution of the human powers. This appreciation of education seems to me the great secret of the Prussian success. It leads to an earnest determination on the part of the Government that the education be thorough, and every effort of the Government is backed up by the hearty sympathy and intelligent cooperation of the people.

We have to add to this appreciation of education the circumstance that Prussia has had to force its way upwards. It has always been ambitious; and it has always aimed at attaining the object of its ambition through the education of the whole people, especially, indeed, through the higher education, but also through the lower. The State has felt in regard to its prosperity what Luther felt in regard to the Church. It is difficult,' he says, 'to make old dogs obedient and old scoundrels pious—the work at which the preacher labors and must often labor in vain; but the young trees can be more easily bent and trained.'

It is in the youth that the State of Prussia has placed its hope. Frederick the Great was beset by Russians, Austrians, and French: he was reduced to the lowest depths sometimes, and his kingdom was exhausted. How did he think of reviving it? The first thing he did after the Seven Years' War was ended, even before the peace of Hubertsberg was ratified, was to promulgate an admirable education Act-the Act, as I have said, of Hecker. Again, when the State was overrun by Napoleon, to what did Frederick William III. and his minister Stein turn? Unquestionably we have lost in territory,' said the king; unquestionably the State has sunk in external might and glory, but we will and must take care that we gain in internal might and internal glory; and therefore it is my earnest desire that the greatest attention be devoted to the education of the people.' Again he says, 'I am thoroughly convinced that for the success of all that the State aims at accomplishing by its entire constitution, legislation, and administration, the first foundation must be laid in the youth of the people, and that at the same time a good education of the youth is the surest way to promote the internal and external welfare of the individual citizens.' 'Most,' said Stein, in 1808, 'is to be expected from the education and instruction of the youth. If by a method based on the nature of the mind every power of the soul be unfolded, and every crude principle of life be stirred up and nourished, if all one-sided culture be avoided, and if the impulses (hitherto often neglected with great indifference), on which the strength and worth of man rest, be carefully attended to, then we may hope te see a race physically and morally powerful grow up, and a better future dawn upon us.' The method to which Stein here alludes was the method of Pestalozzi. Stein characterizes this method as one which elevates the self-activity of the spirit, awakens the sense of religion and all the nobler feelings of man; promotes the ideal life, and lessens and opposes a life of mere pleasure.' These words of the king and his minister rang through the nation. The idea seized them. It permeated all the legislative measures of Altenstein, the Minister of Education, and it worked mighty results. It was within the twenty-three years of Altenstein's ministry that Prussia made such progress in education that she became an object of admiration to the nations of Europe, and Frenchmen and Englishmen went to see the system. And by it Prussia grew in strength and power. The Prussian people have had faith in education. They believed with Kant that 'behind education lies hid the great secret of the perfection of human nature.' They believed with Fichte that only that nation which shall first perform the task of educating up to perfect manhood by actual practice will perform the task of the perfect State. They believed that education makes better citizens, better soldiers, better fathers, and better men. And history records, in great successes in war, and still greater successes in the realms of thought and science, that her faith has not been in vain.

German Pedagogy, Schools, and Teachers.

Page.

INTRODUCTION,

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION IN GERMAN LITERATURE,

FREDERICK FROEBEL,

SYSTEM OF INFANT GARDEN TRAINING AND INSTRUCTION,

GŒTHE-ROSENKRANZ,-HERBART,-BENEKE,—FICHTE,
EXAMPLES OF GERMAN TREATMENT OF PEDAGOGIC SUBJECTS

KARL VON RAUMER,

CONTRIBUTIONS TO PEDAGOGY,