Prussian education system

Johann Julius Hecker memorial in Berlin honors him founding the first prussian teachers seminary in 1748, Heckers bust thrones over a future teacher in classical regalia and posture
School Museum in Reckahn, Brandenburg an der Havel quoting Mark 10:14 at the entrance. Founded by Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow in 1773, Reckahn was the first one-room school with two age-related classes in Prussia.

The Prussian education system refers to the system of education established in Prussia as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and early 19th century, which has had widespread influence since. It is predominantely used as an American political slogan in educational reform debates and has been used as a derogatory term for compulsory education since at least 1839.[1] The actual Prussian education system was introduced as a basic concept in the late 18th century and was significantly enhanced after Prussia's defeat in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. The Prussian educational reforms inspired other countries and remain important.[2] While compulsory education on the Prussian example was soon mirrored in Scandinavia, and US states as Michigan and Massachusetts started in 1835 and 1852 to adopt the Prussian example, France and the UK failed to introduce similar systems till the 1880s.

The term itself is not at all being used in German literature, which refers to the primary aspects of the Humboldtian education ideal respectively the Prussian reforms. However, the basic concept remains fruitful and has led to various debates and controversies. 21st century primary and secondary education in Germany and beyond still embodies the legacy of the Prussian education system.

Origin

Bruns-Memorial in Reckahn, "He was a teacher"

The basic foundations of a generic Prussian primary education system were laid out by Frederick the Great with his Generallandschulreglement, a decree of 1763, authored by Johann Julius Hecker. Hecker had already before (in 1748) founded the first teacher's seminary in Prussia. His concept of providing teachers with the means to cultivate mulberries for homespun silk, which was one of Frederick's favorite projects, found the King's favour. [3] It expanded the existing schooling system significantly and required that all young citizens, both girls and boys, be educated by mainly municipality-funded schools from the age of 5 to 13 or 14. Prussia was among the first countries in the world to introduce tax-funded and generally compulsory primary education.[4] In comparison, in France and Great Britain, compulsory schooling was not successfully enacted until the 1880s.[5]

The Prussian system consisted of an eight-year course of primary education, called Volksschule. It provided not only basic technical skills needed in a modernizing world (such as reading and writing), but also music (singing) and religious (Christian) education in close cooperation with the churches and tried to impose a strict ethos of duty, sobriety and discipline. Mathematics and calculus were not compulsory at the start and taking such courses required additional payment by parents. Frederick the Great also formalized further educational stages, the Realschule and as the highest stage the gymnasium (state-funded secondary school), which served as a university-preparatory school.[6]

Construction of schools received some state support, but they were often built on private initiative. Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow, a member of the local gentry and former cavalry officer in Reckahn, Brandenburg, installed such a school. Von Rochow cooperated with Heinrich Julius Bruns (1746-1794), a talented teacher of modest background. The two installed a model school for rural education that attracted more than 1,200 notable visitors between 1777 and 1794. [7]

The Prussian system, after its modest beginnings, succeeded in reaching compulsory attendance, specific training for teachers, national testing for all students (of both genders), a prescribed national curriculum for each grade and mandatory kindergarten.[8] Training of teachers was increasingly organized via private seminaries. Hecker had already in 1748 founded the first "Lehrerseminar", but the density and impact of the seminary system improving significantly until the end of 18th century. [9] In 1810, Prussia introduced state certification requirements for teachers, which significantly raised the standard of teaching.[10] The final examination, Abitur, was introduced in 1788, implemented in all Prussian secondary schools by 1812 and extended to all of Germany in 1871. Passing the Abitur was a prerequisite to entering the learned professions and higher echelons of the civil service. The state-controlled Abitur remains in place in modern Germany.

The Prussian system had by the 1830s attained the following characteristics:[11]

Outreach

The overall system was soon widely admired for its efficiency and reduction of illiteracy, and served as a model for the education systems in other German states and a number of other countries, including Japan and the United States.[12]

The underlying Humboldtian educational ideal of brothers Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt was about much more than primary education; it strived for academic freedom and the education of both cosmopolitan-minded and loyal citizens from the earliest levels. The Prussian system had strong backing in the traditional German admiration and respect for Bildung as an individual's drive to cultivate oneself from within.[13]

Drivers and hindrances

Collegium Fridericianum in Königsberg

Major drivers for improved education in Prussia since the 18th century had a background in the middle and upper middle strata of society and were pioneered by the Bildungsbürgertum. The concept as such faced strong resistance both from the top, as major players in the ruling nobility feared increasing literacy among peasants and workers would raise unrest, and from the very poor, who preferred to use their children as early as possible for rural or industrial labor.[3]

The system's proponents overcame such resistance with the help of foreign pressure and internal failures, after the defeat of Prussia in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars. After the military blunder of Prussian drill and line formation against the levée en masse of the French revolutionary army in the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, reformers and German nationalists urged for major improvements in education. In 1809 Wilhelm von Humboldt, having been appointed minister of education, promoted his idea of a generic education based on a neohumanist ideal of broad general knowledge, in full academic freedom without any determination or restriction by status, profession or wealth. Humboldt's de:Königsberger Schulplan was one of the earliest white papers to lay out a reform of a country's educational system as a whole.[14] Humboldt's concept still forms the foundation of the contemporary German education system.[15] The Prussian system provided compulsory and basic schooling for everyone, but the significantly higher fees for attending gymnasium or a university imposed a high barrier between upper, middle and lower social strata.[16]

Interaction with the German national movement

Wilhelm Grimm (left) and Jacob Grimm (right) in an 1855 painting

In 1807 Johann Gottlieb Fichte had urged a new form of education in his Addresses to the German Nation. While Prussian (military) drill in the times before had been about obedience to orders without any leeway, Fichte asked for shaping of the personality of students. The citizens should be made able and willing to use their own minds to achieve higher goals in the framework of a future unified German nation state.[17] Fichte and other philosophers, such as the Brothers Grimm, tried to circumvent the nobility's resistance to a common German nation state via proposing the concept of a Kulturnation, nationhood without needing a state but based on common language, musical compositions and songs, shared fairy tales and legends and a common ethos and educational canon.[18]

Various German national movement leaders engaged themselves in educational reform. For example Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778 – 1852), dubbed the Turnvater, was the father of German gymnastics and a student fraternity leader and nationalist but failed in his nationalist efforts; between 1820 and 1842 Jahn's gymnastics movement was forbidden because of the political connotations.[19] But later on Jahn and others were successful in integrating physical education and sports into Prussian and overall German curricula and popular culture.[20]

By 1870, the Prussian system began to privilege High German as an official language against various ethnic groups (such as Poles, Sorbs and Danes) living in Prussia and other German states. Previous attempts to establish "Utraquism" schools (bilingual education) in the east of Prussia had been identified with high illiteracy rates in those regions.[21]

Interaction with religion

Pietism, a reformist group within Lutheranism, forged a political alliance with the King of Prussia based on a mutual interest in breaking the dominance of the Lutheran state church. The Prussian Kings, Calvinists among Lutherans, feared the influence of the Lutheran state church and its close connections with the provincial nobility, while Pietists suffered from persecution by the Lutheran orthodoxy. Bolstered by royal patronage, Pietism replaced the Lutheran church as the effective state religion by the 1760s. Pietist theology stressed the need for "inner spirituality" (de:Innerlichkeit), to be found through the reading of Scripture. Consequently, Pietists helped form the principles of the modern public school system, including the stress on literacy, while more Calvinism-based educational reformers (English and Swiss) asked for externally oriented, utilitarian approaches and were critical of internally soul searching idealism.[22]

Prussia was able to leverage the Protestant Church as a partner and ally in the setup of its educational system. Prussian ministers, particularly Karl Abraham Freiherr von Zedlitz, sought to introduce a more centralized, uniform system administered by the state during the 18th century. The implementation of the Prussian General Land Law of 1794 was a major step toward this goal. However, there remains in Germany to the present a complicated system of burden sharing between municipalities and state administration for primary and secondary education. The various confessions still have a strong say, contribute religious instruction as a regular topic in schools and receive state funding to allow them to provide preschool education and kindergarten. In comparison, the French and Austrian education systems faced major setbacks due to ongoing conflicts with the Catholic Church and its educational role.[5] The introduction of compusory schooling in France was delayed till the 1880s.

Political and cultural role of teachers

Generations of Prussian and also German teachers, who in the 18th century often had no formal education and in the very beginning often were untrained former petty officers, tried to gain more academic recognition, training and better pay and played an important role in various protest and reform movements throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. Namely the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states and the protests of 1968 saw a strong involvement of (future) teachers.[3] There is along tradition of parody and ridicule, where teachers were being depicted in a janusfaced manner as either, authoritarian drill masters or, on the other hand, poor wretches which were suffering the constant spite of pranking pupils, neglicent parents and spiteful local authorities.[23]

A 2010 book title like "Germany, your teachers; why the future of our childrens is being decided in the classroom" shows the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment ideals of teachers[23] educating the nation about its most sacred and important issues.[24] The notion of Biedermeier, a petty bourgeous image of the age between 1830 and 1848er was coined on Samuel Friedrich Sauter, a school master and poet which had written the famous German song "Das arme Dorfschulmeisterlein" (The poor little schoolmaster).[23] Actually the 18th primary teachers income was a third of a parish priest[23] and teachers were being described as being as uppity as proverbially poor. However German notion of homeschooling was less than favorable, Germans deemed the school system as being necessary. E.g. Heinrich Spoerls 1933 "escapist masterpiece"[25] novel (and movie) Die Feuerzangenbowle tells the (till the present) popular story of a writer going undercover as a student at a small town school after his friends in Berlin tell him that he missed out on the best part of growing up by being homeschooled.

Spread to other countries

State-oriented mass educational systems, which were instituted not only in Prussia, but over the course of the 19th century throughout Europe, have become an indispensable component of modern nation-states. Public education was widely institutionalized throughout the world and its development has a close link with nation-building, which often occurred in parallel. Such systems were put in place when the idea of mass education was not yet taken for granted.[26]

Examples

In Austria, Empress Maria Theresa already made use of Prussian pedagogical methods in 1774 as a means to strengthen her hold over Austria.[27] The introduction of compulsory primary schooling in Austria based on the Prussian model had a powerful role, a biopower in the sense of Michel Foucault sense in establishing this and others modern nation states shape and formation.[27]

The Prussian reforms in education spread quickly through Europe, particularly after the French Revolution. The Napoleonic wars first allowed the system to be enhanced after the 1806 crashing defeat of Prussia itself and then to spread in parallel with the rise and territorial gains of Prussia after the Vienna Congress. Heinrich Spoerls son Alexander Spoerl "de:Memoiren eines mittelmäßigen Schülers" (memories of a mediocre student) describes and satyrizes the role of the formational systems in the Prussian Rhine Province during the early 20th century in a famous novel of 1950, dedicated to Libertas Schulze-Boysen.

While the Russian Empire was among the most reactionary regimes with regard to common education, the German ruling class in Estonia and Latvia managed to introduce the system into those countries under Russian rule.[28][29] The Prussian principles were adopted by the governments in Norway, Sweden to create the basis of the primary (grundskola) and secondary (gymnasium) schools across Scandinavia. Unlike Prussia, the Swedish system even aimed to expand secondary schooling to the peasants and workers. As well in Finland, then a Russian grand duchy with a strong Swedish elite, the system was adopted. Education and the propagation of the national epic – the Kalevala – was crucial for the Finnish nationalist Fennoman movement. The Finnish language achieved equal legal status with Swedish in 1892. France and the UK failed completely till the 1880s to introduce compulsory education, France due to conflicts between a radical secular state and the Catholic Church, the UK due to the upper class defending its educational privileges.[5]

USA

Early 19th-century American educators were also fascinated by German educational trends. In 1818, John Griscom gave a favorable report of Prussian education. English translations were made of French philosopher Victor Cousin's work, Report on the State of Public Education in Prussia. Calvin E. Stowe, Henry Barnard, Horace Mann, George Bancroft and Joseph Cogswell all had a vigorous interest in German education. The Prussian approach was used for example in the Michigan Constitution of 1835, which fully embraced the Prussian system by introducing a range of primary schools, secondary schools, and the University of Michigan itself, all administered by the state and supported with tax-based funding. However, e.g. the concepts in the Prussian reforms of primordial education, Bildung and its close interaction of education, society and nation-building are in conflict with some aspects of American state-sceptical libertarian thinking.[30]

In 1843, Horace Mann traveled to Germany to investigate how the educational process worked. Upon his return to the United States, he lobbied heavily to have the "Prussian model" adopted.[31] In 1852, Mann was instrumental in the decision to adopt the Prussian education system in Massachusetts. Governor Edward Everett of Massachusetts instituted a mandatory education policy based on the system. [32] Mann persuaded his fellow modernizers, especially those in the Whig Party, to legislate tax-supported elementary public education in their states. New York state soon set up the same method in 12 different schools on a trial basis. Most northern states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for "normal schools" to train professional teachers.[33]

Americans were especially impressed with the Prussian system when they set up normal schools to train teachers, because they admired the German emphasis on social cohesion. By the 20th century, however, the progressive education movement emphasized individuality and creativity more and opted for a less European-inspired curriculum and lower social cohesion and uniformity.[34] The Progressives faced a major setback with the Sputnik crisis, which led again to more focus on quality education and selectiveness of the school system.[35] The derogatory use of the term may contrast 19th-century pedagogy (see the poisonous pedagogy debate in Germany) with the introduction of new technology into classrooms during the Information Age. While Joel Rose appreciates Horace Mann's commitment to a public education but is aiming at renewing how to deliver it,[35] authors like Conservative Party of New York State activist John Taylor Gatto and further home-schooling propagandist Sheldon Richman claim that illiteracy rates in the USA were lower before compulsory schooling was introduced.[36]

Policy borrowing and exchange

The basic concept of a state-oriented and administered mass educational system is still not granted in the English-speaking world, where either the role of the state as such or the role of state control specifically in education faces still (respectively again) considerable skepticism.[26] The actual process of "policy borrowing" between different educational systems has been rather complex and differentiated.[37] Horace Mann himself had stressed already in 1844 that the USA should copy the positive aspects of the Prussian system, while not adopting Prussia's obedience to the authorities.[38] One of the important differences is that in the German tradition there is stronger reference to the state as an important principle, as introduced for example by Hegel's philosophy of the state, which is in opposition to the Anglo-American contract-based idea of the state.[39]

Drill and serfdom

Current American critics of the Prussian system use purported Prussian drill and Prussian serfdom (actually predating 1807) as counterclaims against compulsory education.[40][41] However, slavery and the 17th-century Prussian drill, the latter introduced to America by Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben during the Revolutionary War,[42] were actually of much longer and continued influence on the USA and its military than in Prussia itself.

Early Prussian reformers took major steps to abandon both serfdom and the line formation as early as 1807 and introduced mission-type tactics in the Prussian military in the same year. The latter enlarged freedom in execution of overall military strategies and had a major influence in the German and Prussian industrial culture, which profited from the Prussian reformers' introduction of greater economic freedom. The mission-type concept, which was kept by later German armed forces, required a high level of understanding, literacy (and intense training and education) at all levels and actively invited involvement and independent decision making by the lower ranks. Its intense interaction with the Prussian education system has led to the proverbial statement, "The battles of Königgrätz (1866) and Sedan (1870) have been decided by the Prussian primary teacher".[43]

Legacy of the Prussian system after the end of the monarchy

In 1918 the Kingdom of Prussia become a republic. Socialist Konrad Haenisch, the first education minister (Kultusminister), denounced what he called the "demons of morbid subservience, mistrust, and lies" in secondary schools.[44] However Haenisch's and other radical left approaches were rather short-lived. They failed to introduce an Einheitsschule, a one-size-fits-all unified secular comprehensive school, throughout Germany.[45]

The de:Weimarer Schulkompromiss (Weimar educational compromise) of 1919 confirmed the tripartite Prussian system, ongoing church influence on education, and religion as a regular topic, and allowed for peculiarities and individual influence of the German states, widely frustrating the ambitions of radical leftist educational reformers.[45] Notwithstanding, Prussian educational expert de:Erich Hylla (1887-1976) provided various studies (with titles such as "School of Democracy") of the US education system for the Prussian government in the 1920s.[38] The Nazi government's 1933 Gleichschaltung did away with state's rights, church influence and democracy and tried to impose a unified totalitarian education system and a Nazi version of the Einheitsschule with strong premilitary and antisemitic aspects.

Legacy of the Prussian System after 1945

Alois Hundhammer, a Bavarian defender of the educational legacy of Prussia, photographed in 1963

After 1945, the Weimar educational compromise again set the tone for the reconstruction of the state-specific educational system as laid out in the Prussian model. In 1946 the US occupation forces failed completely in their attempt to install comprehensive and secular schooling in the US Occupation Zone. This approach had been endorsed by High Commissioner John J. McCloy and was led by the high-ranking progressive education reformer Richard Thomas Alexander,[46] but faced determined German resistance.[46] The fiercest defender of the originally Prussian tripartite concept and humanist educational tradition was arch conservative Alois Hundhammer, a former Bavarian monarchist, devout Catholic enemy of the Nazis and (with regard to the individual statehood of Bavaria) firebrand anti-Prussian coauthor of the 1946 Constitution of Bavaria. Hundhammer, as soon as he was appointed Bavarian minister of Culture and Education, was quick to use the newly granted freedoms, attacking Alexander in radio speeches and raising rumors about Alexander's secularism, which led to parents' and teachers' associations expressing fears about a reduction in the quality of education.[47] Hundhammer involved Michael von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, to contact New York Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, who intervened with the US forces; the reform attempts were abolished as soon as 1948.[47]

Current debates referring to the Prussian legacy

The Prussian leqacy of a mainly tripartite system of education with less comprehensive schooling and selection of children as early as the fourth grade has led to controversies that persist to the present.[48] It has been deeemed to reflect 19th-century thinking along class lines.[49] One of the basic tenets of the specific Prussian system is expressed in the fact that education in Germany is till the present (against the aim of the 19th-century national movement) not directed by the federal government. The individual states maintain Kulturhoheit (cultural predominance) on educational matters.

The Humboldt approach, a central pillar of the Prussian system and of German education to the present day, is still influential and being used in various discussions. The present German universities charge no or moderate tuition fees. They therefore lack the more lavish funds available for example to Ivy League universities in the UN, which make possible a quality of education and research that enable academics and students to fully realize Humboldt's ideal. The perceived lack of universities on the cutting edge in both research and education has been recently countered via the German Universities Excellence Initiative, which is mainly driven and funded at the federal level.

Germany still focuses on a broad Allgemeinbildung (both 'generic knowledge' and 'knowledge for the common people') and provides an internationally recognized in-depth dual-track vocational education system, but leaves educational responsibility to individual states. The country faces ongoing controversies about the Prussian legacy of a stratified tripartite educational system versus Comprehensive schooling and with regard to the interpretation of the PISA studies.[50] Some German PISA critics opposed its utilitarian "value-for-money" competence approach, as being in conflict with teaching freedom, while German proponents of the PISA assessment referred to the practical usability of Humboldt's approach and the Prussian educational system derived from it.[22]


References

  1. ↑ Compare Central Society of education, Volume 3 Taylor and Walton, 1839
  2. ↑ European Universities from the Enlightenment to 1914 R. D. Anderson 2004 ISBN 9780198206606 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206606.001.0001
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Volkmar Wittmütz Die preussische Elementarschule im 19. Jahrhundert Clio-online
  4. ↑ James van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria (2003)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal and David Strang, "Construction of the First Mass Education Systems in Nineteenth-Century Europe" Sociology of Education, Vol. 62, No. 4 (Oct., 1989), pp. 277-288 Published by: American Sociological Association
  6. ↑ Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 (2008) ch 7
  7. ↑ Frank Tosch (Ed.): "'Er war ein Lehrer.' Heinrich Julius Bruns (1746-1794). Beiträge des Reckahner Kolloquiums anlässlich seines 200. Todestages." In: Hanno Schmitt und Frank Tosch (Ed.): Quellen und Studien zur Berlin-Brandenburgischen Bildungsgeschichte, Vol. 2, Potsdam 1995. ISSN 0946-8897 (Studies about the Prussian educational history, Colloquium in Reckahn on the bicentenary of Bruns 1995)
  8. ↑ Ellwood Cubberley, The History of Education: Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization (1920) online
  9. ↑ Absolutistischer Staat und Schulwirklichkeit in Brandenburg-Preussen Wolfgang Neugebauer Walter de Gruyter, 01.01.1985
  10. ↑ John Franklin Brown (1911). The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools in Germany and the United States. Macmillan. pp. 21–25.
  11. ↑ An Economic History of the United States: From 1607 to the Present, Ronald Seavoy, Routledge, 18.10.2013
  12. ↑ Jeismann, Karl-Ernst. "American observations concerning the Prussian educational system in the nineteenth century." in Henry Geitz and Jürgen Heideking, eds. German influences on education in the United States to 1917 (2006)pp: 21-41.
  13. ↑ Japan and Germany under the U.S. Occupation: A Comparative Analysis of Post-War Education Reform Masako Shibata Lexington Books, 20.09.2005
  14. ↑ Eduard Spranger: Wilhelm von Humboldt und die Reform des Bildungswesens, Reuther u. Reichard, Berlin 1910
  15. ↑ Cubberley, 1920
  16. ↑ Sagarra, p 179
  17. ↑ Addresses to the German Nation, 1807. Second Address: "The General Nature of the New Education". Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Company, 1922, p. 21
  18. ↑ Leo Wieland: Katalonien – Kulturnation ohne Staat. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 10. Oktober 2007
  19. ↑ Sport and Physical Education in Germany Ken Hardman, Roland Naul Routledge, 26.07.2005
  20. ↑ Goodbody, John (1982). The Illustrated History of Gymnastics. London: Stanley Paul & Co. ISBN 0-09-143350-9.
  21. ↑ Sprachliche Minderheiten und nationale Schule in Preußen zwischen 1871 und 1933 (Language minorities in Prussia between 1871 and 1933) Ferdinand Knabe Waxmann Verlag
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Was gehen uns »die anderen« an?: Schule und Religion in der Säkularität (Why care about the others, School systems in secular-minded societies) Henning Schluß, Michael Domsgen, Matthias Spenn, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 15.08.2012
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Deutschland, deine Lehrer: Warum sich die Zukunft unserer Kinder im Klassenzimmer entscheidet (Germany, your teachers; why the future of our childrens is being decided in the classroom) Christine Eichel Karl Blessing Verlag, 31.03.2014
  24. ↑ Das Schulmeisterlein - Aus dem Leben des Volksschullehrers im 19. Jahrhundert, Exhibition on 19thcentury teaching in Lohr am Main school museum, May 20th 2012
  25. ↑ Georg Seeßlen, 1994: Die Feuerzangenbowle In: epd Film 3/94.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Citizenship, Education and the Modern State, Kerry J. Kennedy, Psychology Press, 1997
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Körper und Geist von Format - Über die Heranbildung eines nützlichen und gelehrigen Gesellschaftskörpers: Seit der Implementierung des staatlich organisierten Schulunterrichts 1774 in der monarchia austriaca Verena Lesnik-Schobesberger, Austrain Diploma thesis published BoD 2009
  28. ↑ Cubberley, 1920
  29. ↑ Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal, and David Strang, "Construction of the First Mass Education Systems in Nineteenth-Century Europe," Sociology of Education (1989) 62#4 pp. 277-288 in JSTOR
  30. ↑ Wilhelm von Humboldt, Franz-Michael Konrad UTB, 21.07.2010
  31. ↑ Jeismann, Karl-Ernst. "American observations concerning the Prussian educational system in the nineteenth century." in Henry Geitz and Jürgen Heideking, eds. German influences on education in the United States to 1917 (2006) pp: 21-41.
  32. ↑ http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-prussian-education-system.htm What is the Prussian Education System? Wisegeek.com
  33. ↑ Mark Groen, "The Whig Party and the Rise of Common Schools, 1837-1854," American Educational History Journal Spring/Summer 2008, Vol. 35 Issue 1/2, pp 251-260
  34. ↑ Ramsay, 2014
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Joel Rose, How to Break Free of Our 19th-Century Factory-Model Education System May 9 2012, The Atlantic
  36. ↑ Sheldon Richman 1994b. Separating School & State: How to Liberate America's Families. Fairfax, Virginia: The Future of Freedom Foundation
  37. ↑ Researching policy borrowing: Some methodological challenges in comparative education David Phillips and Kimberly Ochs 2 JAN 2013 DOI: 10.1080/0141192042000279495 2004 British Educational Research Association British Educational Research Journal Volume 30, Issue 6, pages 773–784, December 2004
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Democratizing Education and Educating Democratic Citizens: International and Historical Perspectives Leslie J. Limage Routledge, 08.10.2013
  39. ↑ Hegel at Stanford.edu
  40. ↑ Compare The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail (1999) ISBN 978-0-9667071-0-6 by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
  41. ↑ The Prussian-Industrial Model THE ROOTS OF MODERN PUBLIC SCHOOLING, web entry of the The New American Academy
  42. ↑ Lockhart, Paul. The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the making of the American Army. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers
  43. ↑ See Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918, Volume Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist.
  44. ↑ Andrew Donsion, "The Teenagers' Revolution: Schülerräte in the Democratization and Right-Wing Radicalization of Germany, 1918–1923," Central European History (2011) 44#3 pp 420-446.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Peter Braune: Die gescheiterte Einheitsschule. Heinrich Schulz. Parteisoldat zwischen Rosa Luxemburg und Friedrich Ebert. Karl-Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-320-02056-0
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 James F. Tent, "American Influences on the German Educational System", in The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War, 1945–1968, edited by Detlef Junker, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Publications of the German Historical Institute, 2004), pp. 394-400.
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 ZEITGESCHICHTE Opfer der Umstände, Der Spiegel article from 1983 referring to de:James F. Tent, Mission on the Rhine: reeducation and denazification in American-occupied Germany. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1982
  48. ↑ "CESifo Group Munich - Home". Cesifo-group.de. Retrieved July 2013.
  49. ↑ "German school system reflects nineteenth century". Justlanded.com. 2007-06-19. Retrieved July 2013.
  50. ↑ PISA Under Examination: Changing Knowledge, Changing Tests, and Changing Schools, Miguel A. Pereyra, Hans-Georg Kotthoff, Robert Cowen Springer Science & Business Media, 24.03.2012

Further reading

Primary sources