The Roots of Schooling, with emphasis on the 18th century

Pietist Revolution
A Brief Overview of Ideals and Practices in Education, in an Attempt to Anwer The Question: Where
Lie the Roots of Schooling? Notes accompanying a talk given at the 2008 European Democratic
Education Conference in Leipzig, Germany.
First, I'm going to give a very brief overview of the evolution of Western educational ideals. After
that, I will to zoom in on a crucial period in the history of schooling: Prussia of the eighteenth
century.
Greece: Aret and Paideia
In pre-Socratic Greece, the ultimate goal of education, as promoted by the ruling class, was to
make young men into proud warriors. The word for this educational ideal was aret, which
originally meant nothing more than excellence. There is no English equivalent for aret, but its
full meaning may be described as "a combination of courtly morality with warlike valour".1 Aret
embodied the strength, the skill of a warrior and his heroic valour; in short, the values of the ruling
class. For women, the ideal of aret meant beauty and domestic prudence.2
As the old aristocracy evolved into the political organisation of the democratic city-state, the
warriors were degraded from being the actual holders of power to mere executors of power. The
wielders of power became now the voting elders, and the educational ideal likewise shifted.
Democratic rule brought along a new expectation for young boys, that they became law obiding
citizens. This change is characterised by the emerge of a new word during the fifth century B.C.:
paideia. Originally meaning nothing more than "upbringing", it's connotation was constantly
widened into the coming century.
Generally speaking, there were two interpretations for the word paideia. First there is Plato, who
saw paideia as the politically enforced journey towards truth. He described his educational ideal in
the 'allegory of the cave', by telling the story of the uneducated men, who, shackled in their
ignorance, remain 'hidden' from the true world of forms. Plato didnt trust adults or children to
find their own way towards philosophy, and so an aristocracy (or oligarchy) of enlightened
philosophers was needed to liberate them and lead them out of the darkness towards the
'unhidden', the truth.3 The curiosity of the young could not be trusted, children had to be
1

Werner Jaeger in his Paideia, the Ideals of Greek Culture, vol I, 1986, Oxford, p. 5. As Jaeger remarks on the
same page, the root of the word aret is the same as that of aristos, a word used to denote the nobility.
2
3

Ibid., p. 23

See Martin Hedegger and William McNeil, Pathmarks, 1998, Cambridge, p. 164-182. Plato's paideia had an
enormous influence on Western thought. His idea of an absolute truth known only by a small few, lent itself
perfectly for great theories on political management of a city or state. Plato's vision, as described in his
Politeia, of an enlightened elite who rules the state and 'liberates' the public with a system of compulsory
education has been admired and revived many times over the course of history. Even though it seems less
brute than the Spartan system of education, it nevertheless holds the same essence: that the state, and not the
parents or the children, should be in charge of education. To illustrate how closely related Plato's doctrine is
to the current reality, we may note how he, in his Laws, introduces a "minister of education" and asserts "that
of all the great offices of state this is the greatest; for the first shoot of any plant, if it makes a good start, has
the greatest effect in helping it to obtain its mature natural excellence; and this is not only true of plants, but
of animals wild and tame, and also of man." See Plato's Laws, 7. 793-794, as quoted in Edward J. Power, A
Legacy of Learning: A History of Western Education, 1991, New York, p. 32..

straightened like a bent piece of wood.4

On the other side of the spectrum there were the sophists, teachers travelling from city to city, who
noticed the different organisation of the different poleis, the different cultural habits, but most
importantly, how religious myths (considered to be universal truths) were incongruent and
different from place to place.
This made them believe that the good life is something people have to figure out for themselves;
and so for the sophists, generally speaking, paideia meant as much as 'excellence in mind and body,
to be found in daily life'.
It is worth mentioning the situation in the collectivist city state of Sparta, where the agog was the
cornerstone of civic duty. Agog was the name of the institution where all young boys (after being
forcibly taken from their mothers at age seven) were being trained, for a period of twelve years,
into warrior-citizens. Here is how Andrew Coulson describes their learning environment: "A troop
of boys was referred to as a "boua", the same word used for a herd of cattle, and from each herd, a
dominant boy was chosen to act as herd-leader. With satisfying consistency, their head teacher was
called "paidonomus", or boy-herdsman. This individual was chosen from the aristocracy, and
granted the authority to train the boys, and to harshly discipline them if any failed to follow his
instructions. In his efforts, he was assisted by two "floggers" armed with whips."5 During the 3rd

century B.C. The Greek word for child, 'pais', came into use as a synonym for slave. This could be a
sign of how the Spartan idea of what a child was (a slave to the polis) had spread since the start of
the Spartan hegemony, a century before that.6
Finally, joining the sophists in opposition to the idea that eduation is a public good, we find the
Stoic philosophers. Some of them being slaves themselves, the stoics looked for freedom in the
personal realm: the truly liberated person is free, not necessarily from tiranny by others, but
especially from the tiranny of his own mind. According to the Stoics, a good education lead to
distinguishing that "that of things some are in our power, but others are not" so that one could
reach apatheia, a life "conformably to nature", freed from the troubles of passions and desires.7 The
Stoic tradition lived on in Classical Rome (cf. Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Cicero) and helped shape
the prudent ideal of the humanitas.
Rome: Humanitas
In the Roman Republic (509 B.C. to 44 B.C.), the ideal was that of the learned citizen; honourable,
brave and dedicated to the Republic. The Latin word educare (related to e-ducere; to lead out) is
connected to the Platonic notion of paideia, and so is the Roman educational ideal: a child had to be
lead out of his natural state and moulded into a citizen. Despite that, the stoic, sophistic, and
platonic love of wisdom remained to have a strong presence in Roman education. The Roman ethic
behind the studia humanitatis (a curriculum of grammar, rhetoric, history, moral philosophy, poetry,
geometry and mathematics) was that it enabled man to take part in the perfect world of truth. As
Cicero said "But man is born in order to contemplate and imitate the universe; he is in no way

Plato Prt. 325D; see also Laws 7.808d-e. Quotation from Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and
Roman Egypt, p. 69.
5

See Andrew Coulson's article "Markets versus Monopolies in Education: The Historical Evidence" in
Education Policy Analysis Archives, v4 n9 pp.1-25 Jun 1996.
6

See Eleanor Dickey, Rules Without Reasons? Words for Children in Papyrus Letters, published in p. 121, footnote
4.
7

Epictetus; "On precognitions," The Discourses, Book One, Chapter 22

perfect, but is some little part of the perfect".8 However in Rome, humanitas was always closely tied
with citizenship (cf. homo romanus - as opposed to all others, homo barbarus), and the ideal of
manhood, or virtue (virtus).
Early Christianity: Spiritual Man
Suppressed, evicted and terrorised by the Roman emperors, the early Christians turned away, not
only from the public virtus of Rome, but also from themselves. Abandoning the old Greek ideal
know thyself, they instead escaped into a Neo-Platonic philosophy where the educational ideal
became a personal journey towards an abstract God, in which they found a psychological hiding
place from the cruel world around them. And so monks in their monasteries would search for inner

peace by looking inwards in order to see, not the self, but God. As described in the widely followed
'Rule of st. Benedict', the monastery is a "school for the Lord's service".9
The focus of the monks gradually shifted over the centuries, from dwelling in mystic personal
revelations towards a search for universal truths, trying to uncover the 'true nature of God and his
creation'. Historians have called this the movement from monasticism to scholasticism.10
Maybe the most famous figure of scholasticism is Thomas Aquinas, a brilliant mind who used to
dictate in his cell to three secretaries, even occasionally four, on different subjects at the same
time.11 A devoted student of Aristotle, Aquinas really believed in the power of the individual
mind, which could be unleashed by dialogue and curiosity.12 He also would enter into very
disciplined scholastic debates with his students, a tradition which allowed philosophy to exist and
later lead to the first organisations that we now know as universities: universitas scholarium et
magistrorum, loosely translated as a gathering of students and teachers. (In the medieval
universities, students were in charge, even deciding the wages of the teachers but thats another
story.)
Despite his best efforts, Aquinas never seemed to have achieved the Aristotelian ideal of happiness
through virtue. He was very obese, and as a young man his fellow students would mock him as
the dumb ox. It is said that his employers had to cut a semi circle out of the dinner table so that
he could reach the food comfortably enough. Three years before his death, at age 46, Aquinas
stopped producing new articles and books: I can write now more. All that I have written seems like
straw. Some versions of the story add compared to those things that I have seen and have been revealed
to me, but to me its clear that Aquinas was simply tired after spending his whole life chasing an
invisible God and trying to replace the absence of his own mother (he was sent away from his
parents to live in a monastery from age 5) by a devotion to Holy Mary.
To go back to the scholastics as a movement, they tried to reconcile Aristotle with Christian
8

Cicero, in book II of his "On the Nature of the Gods," as quoted in Robert E. Proctor's Defining the
Humanities, 1998, Indiana, p. 17.
9

Boniface Verheyen, prologue to The Holy Rule of St. Benedict, 1949, Kansas, Prol. 45

10

See Jean Leclerq: The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, 1982, Fordham.
scholasticus comes from the Greek , which literally meant "devoting one's leasure to learning").
11
12

Hugh O'Reilly, The Superb Memory of Thomas Aquinas, at traditioninaction.org.

Here is how Aquinas describes the role of the teacher:

The teacher only brings exterior help, just like the physician who heals (but just like the interior nature is the principal
cause of the healing, so the interior light of the intellect is the principal cause of knowledge), because the master does not
cause the intellectual light in the disciple, nor does he cause the intelligible species directly, but he moves the disciple by
teaching, so that the latter, by the power of his intellect, forms intelligible concepts, the signs of which are proposed to
him from without. (Q117 A1: Whether one man can teach another?)

theology, and believed that God had endowed man with reason, and so that he had the duty to
study God's creation and the Holy Scriptures. Thus, the ideal of the pursuit of a universal truth
was revived.
In this context it is important to mention the fundamental shift in thinking pioneered by William
of Ockham (early 14th century) and the nominalist tradition following him.13 Breaking with
Thomas Aquinas and Aristotelianism, Ockham proposed to do away with the teleological view of
the world (the idea that everything is the way it should be, because it is aimed at some higher
purpose). In doing so, by injecting the idea of uncertainty into the Godly order, he paved the way
for modern science. Ockham, devoted as he was to simplicity and clarity, stated that God and the
creation of the universe were ultimately given and could not reasonably be proven or explained.
And so with the birth of modern science, it's opposite emerged: faith. The implications of this
'nominalist revolution' for the philosophy of education were vast; from now on the war for the
mind was on, and instilling faith in youth was a new and important means of survival for the
Catholic Church.
Renaissance: Homo Universalis but the beating continued
In the fourteenth century, out of the academic world of the scholastics, a few scholars arose who
started questioning the increased bureaucracy and dogmatism of the Vatican and the Church.
Rather than going along with the contemporary doctrines, the humanists (as they were called) felt
passionate about the classic Greek and especially the Roman orators. They fell in love with the
Roman ideal of the studia humanitatis and revived it from a more personal, individual perspective.
In this way, they were the founders of the Renaissance. The humanists valued reason, the evidence
of the senses and eloquence over the Catholic values of humility, introverted devotion and
passivity. Most famous is perhaps Erasmus of Rotterdam, who in his Praise of Folly launched a
satirical attack on the church.
That said, the link of philosophy and the personal life did not immediately result in peaceful
behavior towards children. Public caning, for example, was a common practic at the time. Sir
Thomas More for example, author of Utopia and a good friend of Erasmus, is known to have
ordered caning of a child in front of his family, for saying some words of heresy.14 The same
Thomas More, together with John Colet, established in 1509 a grammar school in the
churchyard of St. Pauls Cathedral, which was meant to train up a new class of citizens. Chief
objective was to raise good Christians, and the methods for the indoctrination were close
supervision, rigid timetables, and a hierarchical system even among the students themselves.15
Evidence for corporal punishment in Tudor schools can be found almost everywhere, from school
seals that advertised whippings to eyewitness accounts. John Stanbridges phrasebook, widely
used in Tudor schools, offered English schoolboys a veritable conjugation of beatings: I was beten
this mornynge, The master hath bete me, I shall be bete.In fact, corporal punishment was so
notorious a feature of the English public schooland has so long remained sothat it has become
part of the popular myth about England in novels and films.
Penry Williams has estimated that the average English (upper class) schoolboy in the Tudor period
spent 1,826 hours of each year in school (5 hours a day).
XXX this part to be completed XXX

13

William of Ockham is most known for the formulation of the scientific principle that is now known as
Ockham's razor, simply stated "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best".
14

Richard Marius, Thomas More: a Biography, p. 404.

15 Amy

Boesky, Founding Fictions, pp. 24-28.

Erasmus was most adamant that corporal punishment not be overused. He considered it to
impede learning and maintained
...that nothing is more damaging to young children than constant exposure to beatings. When
corporal punishment is applied too harshly, the more spirited children are driven to rebellion
while the more apathetic ones are numbed into despair.16
The humanistic ideal was that of the Homo Universalis, a person who excels in a wide variety of
fields. This led to the notion that men should try to embrace all knowledge and develop their own
capacities as fully as possible. The influence of the humanists on the history of education can
hardly be underestimated. It was their ideas that inspired Jan Amos Comenius, a Czech Protestant
bishop and famous educator17, to conceive of what he called Pansophia18, an all-encompassing
science, and hence also Panpaedia, universal education. By exposing children to this universal
educational programme, educators would become able to endlessly recreate the ideal of the Homo
Universalis. And so it seems plausible to say that the personal ideals embodied in the studia
humanitatis indirectly gave rise to the doctrine of a universal, compulsory curriculum.
Modernity: Modern Man
Ockham's invention of faith and uncertainty laid its foundations, and the humanists enlarged its
base by furthering the divide between God and his creation: the seventeenth century had come,
and the world was ready for science.
By this time, as what often happens when the individual is placed in the spotlight, more and more
people started questioning 'the traditional way' of thinking and acting. In this 'era of modernity',
the interest for the classics, and so for the humanities, slowly started to wane. Modern man was a
scientist, looking ahead, not backwards.19 An adventurous search started for new ways of looking
at things. And it was rewarded: explorers discovered new continents, the inventors new
technology, and many people renewed their faith.
The scientific optimism of the time gave rise to new ideas on education. Little by little, the theories
16

Augustijn, Cornelis. Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence. University of Toronto Press. Toronto:1991.
pg. 21.
17

Comenius lived on the verge between Renaissance humanism and the modern era. He took the humanist
appreciation for the experience of the senses to a new level (or we could also just say that he was influenced
by Francis Bacon's empiricism) when he developed the visual method of instruction, the
anschauungsunterricht, changing the course of formal instruction to the present day. Comenius fled his home
country as a religious refugee, and lived in many European countries, including Sweden, Poland, the
Netherlands, England and Hungary. He became known as the teacher of nations, a suiting title for one of the
first promotors of government schooling in history.
Interestingly, Comenius was also in favor of the establishment of a "world meeting", a "eucomenian council"
that should "implement a new philosophy, a new theology or a new confession as well as a new society".
From his Protestant, reformist, background we can understand his call to "himself and everyone together,
especially to the scientists, the pietous and the people in power" not to "restrain" the world reform, but rather
to powerfully "stimulate" it. (Allgemeine Beratung ber die Verbesserung der dem Menschen auf dieser Welt von
Gott zugemessenen Aufgaben, 1970, p409)
18

"... which means universal wisdom, namely the knowledge of all things that exist, of the way in which
they exist and the science concerning their goal and use, the reason of their existence." (Allgemeine Beratung
ber die Verbesserung der dem Menschen auf dieser Welt von Gott zugemessenen Aufgaben, 1970, p. 440)
19

This is, of course, a gross simplification of the reality of the modern era. People were still very religious,
and, from a contemporary perspective, conservative. However, it was the scientific ideal that created the
tension with religion, leading to a polarisation between the worldly and the secular society.

of manipulating matter began to spoil over towards man, giving rise to detailed treatises on policy
and educational management.20 John Locke's idea of the baby with an "empty" mind (tabula rasa)21
inspired educators to design prefabricated reservoirs of knowledge with which they could "fill" the
mind of the child. Jan Comenius, whom we mentioned before, did more than just pioneering the
universal curriculum. Being a great admirer of John Locke's scientific method based on the sensory
experiences (empiricism), Comenius invented the educational method of Anschauung, changing the
practices of formal education to the present day. It is no coincidence that his most famous book
was called Orbis PictusThe World in Pictures.22 Finally, Jan Comenius is also one of the first
educators to propose age segregation in schooling.23
Reformation: faithful man
During the modern era, the Catholic Church found herself in the line of fire: people were
increasingly weary of the high taxes that were levied in favor of the Italian Church24 and the
increased power and decadence of the clergy. On top of that, some of the fundamental

20

The most famous example is undoubtedly Maichiavelli's Il Principe, in which he describes in detail his
advice for a ruler to keep his subordinates obedient. Also worth mentioning are Thomas Mores' Utopia,
John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, and Rousseau's Du Contrat Social.
21

Admittedly, Locke's position was not as extreme as it is generally perceived. In Some Thoughts Concerning
Education, he writes: "We must not hope to change their Original Tempers (...)He therefore, that is about
Children, should well study their Natures and Aptitudes, and see, by often trials, what turn they easily take,
and what becomes them; observe what their Native Stock is, how it may be improved, and what it is fit for:
He should consider, what they want (...) For in many cases, all that we can do, or should aim at, is to make
the best of what Nature has given; to prevent the Vices and Faults to which such a Constitution is most
inclined, and give it all the Advantages it is capable of." John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education
(2000, Oxford), p. 123.
22

Comenius' influence in shaping school as we know it can hardly be underestimated. Take for example this
outtake from his Didactica Magna, (1638):
"There should be one teacher for each class ... Time should be carefully divided, so that each day and each
hour may have its appointed task ... The same exercise should be given to the whole class ... All subjects
should be taught by the same method ... Everything should be taught thoroughly, briefly, and pithily, that the
understanding may be, as it were, unlocked with one key ... All things that are naturally connected ought to
be taught in combination ... Every subject should be taught in definitely graded steps, that the work of one
day may thus expand in that of the previous day, and lead up to that of the morrow." As quoted in Robin J.
Alexander, Culture and Pedagogy: International Comparisons in Primary Education (2001, United Kingdom), p.
310.
23

In the final chapter of his Methodus Linguarum Novissima (1647), Comenius argues that true knowledge is
always reached in three phases: 1. description (history), 2. study of the causes, 3. overseeing the
consequences. He continues: "One should teach the human mind in this way that these phases are not mixed
up. [Learning] should take place in accordance with the age: first, child- and boyhood should be teached a
clear description of things, secondly, the reason of causality shall be taught, and finally the pure
understanding - overseeing the consequences - will follow." (F. Hoffmann, analytisch Didaktik und andere
Pdagogische Schriften, 1959, p87.)
24

See Ellwood P. Cubberly's The History of Education, (2006, Kessinger) p. 188: There were special reasons
why the trouble, when once it broke, made such rapid entry in German lands. The Germans had a longstanding grudge against the Italian papal court, chiefly because it had for long been draining Germany of
money to support the Italian Church." Cubberly continues: "The most widespread discontent, though, arose
over the heavy church taxation, which drained the money of the people to Italy. The whole German people,
from the princes down to the peasants, felt themselves unjustly treated, that the German money which
flowed to Rome should be kept at home, and that the immoral and inefficient clergy should be replaced by
upright, earnest men who would attend better to their religious duties (R. 150). It was these conditions
which prepared the Germans for revolt, and enabled Luther to rally so many of the princes and people to his
side when once he had defied authority."

Christian-Catholic doctrines were under attack by reputable scientists.25 The time was ripe for
the Reformation. When Luther in 1517 hammered his 95 Theses on the Power of Indulgences on
the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, thereby defying the power of the pope26, the
reaction was massive and expedious. It is said that, with the help of the printing press, the
Theses were read all over Germany in two weeks, and had spread throughout Europe in two
months. A revolution had begun. Luther gained a lot of support because of his disputes with
the papacy in Rome, but this did not mean that he denounced worldly powerquite the
contrary was true.
Martin Luther saw very clearly the dangers of modernity for the continuation of Christianity.
His creed Sola Fide (meaning "salvation through faith alone") served a double function: on the
one hand it allowed for the protestants to bypass Rome and the catholic clergy, and renew faith
by establishing a direct link with God, while on the other hand it stressed the importance of
pure faithpiety, obedience and acceptancefor the survival of religion (the only solution
Ockham and the scientific revolution had allowed for). Luther understood that the modern
climate no longer accepted a certain religion as a given, and he reckoned that if Christianity
were to survive, it would have to be forced on to people. He wrote "The common man, does not
think that he is under obligation to God and the world to send his son to school. Everyone
thinks that he is free to bring up his son as he pleases, no matter what becomes of God's word
and command.".27 In 1524, in a correspondence with the revealing title To the Councilmen of All
Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, Luther wrote: "If the
government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to
mount ramparts, and persformperform other martial duties in time of war, how much more
has it the right to the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are
warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities."28
Luthers' quest was a huge success: during the sixteenth century, more than a hundred
Schulordnungen were laid down throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the words of historian
James Van Horn Melton:"Protestant town councils transformed existing Deutsche Shulen and

25

Most famous and controversial was Nicolaus Copernicus' formulation of a scientifically based heliocentric
cosmology, whichthat displaced the earth from the center of the universe.
26

See for example Thesis 86 of the 95 Theses, which asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater
than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather
than with his own money?"
27

The full quote is as follows:

"The common man, does not thing that he is under obligation to God and the world to send his son to
school. Every one thinks that he is free to bring up his son as he pleases, no matter what becomes of
God's word and command. Yea, even our rulers act as if they were exempt from the divine command. No
one thinks that God has earnestly willed and commanded that children be brought up to his praise and
worka think that can not be done without schools. On the contrary, every one hastens with his children
after worldly gain, as if God and Christianity needed no pastors and preachers, and the state no
chancellors, councilors, and scribes." (As quoted in: Franklin V. N. Painter, A History of Education (1896,
D. Appleton and Company, New York), p.143.)
On the same page, Painter summarises Luther's position as follows:
"If people or rulers neglect the education of the young, they inflict an injury upon both church and state; they
become the enemies of God and man; they advance the cause of Satan, and bring down upon themselves the
curse of Heaven. This is the fundamental thought that underlies all Luthers writings upon education."
Luthers companion Melanchton expressed the same idea of schooling for faith, when he said "To neglect the
young in our schools is just like taking the spring out of the year. They, indeed, take away the spring from
the year who permit the schools to decline, because religion can not be maintained without them." (As
quoted in Painter (Ibid.), p. 150.) It is also worth noting that in 1530, Luther, tellingly, wrote the A Sermon on
Keeping Children in School.
28

Luther as cited by John William Perrin, The History of Compulsory Education in New England (1896), quoted
in Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty (2006, Auburn), p 149.

Schreib- und Rechenschulen from purely utilitarian institutions into centers of religious
indoctrination". By the year 1600, the country was pervaded with Ksterschulen, as these new
protestant state schools were called. In Austria, the Catholic church, aided by Ferdinand II,
vehemently fought back by establishing their own schools.29
Then, in the late 17th century, a crisis arose within protestantism. Pastors complained that
Luthers' project of restoration of religion had never really worked: few people went to church,
the public had a bad knowledge of the catechismus and sinfulness was rampant. A likely factor
in this cultural crisis was the Thirty Year's War, a war between the Protestants and Catholics,
that raged over Prussia and Austria between 1618 and 1648, leaving behind multitudes of
widows, orphans and vagabonds. In the mean time local princes, inspired by the court of Louis
XIV in France, had no remorse indulging in luxury and frivolity.30 Moreover, it is not
implausable that the nationwide Great Plague of Vienna (1679), that, in Vienna alone, killed
around 76000 citizens, added to the general feeling of helplessness.
Pietism: Pietous Man
During this crisis of faith, Philip Jacob Spener, a theologist from Strasbourg, laid the foundation
for the religious movement of Pietism. Spener loathed the scholastic nitpicking of the
protestant theology of his time, and decided that his religious morality would be based on
inner piety and devotion. The pietists, with Spener's pupil and follower August Hermann

29

James Van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the eighteenth-century origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and
Austria, (Cambridge, 1988), p.5.
Martin Luther is famous for 'learning the Germans how to read': he translated the New Testimony to
German, and was a great supporter of promoting popular literacy. Yet from the clergyus and the nobility,
there was great resistance toagainst the idea of learning the plebians how to read. Also, in protestant parish
schools, emphasis was put on the oral recitation and memorisation of the catechismus, just as was the case in
the Catholic parish schools(Ibid., pp. 8-9). James v.h. Melton writes about this: "The spread of sectarianism in
the 1520s had convinced many church leaders of the need to restrict and control lay bible reading. Consistories instead
relied on the catechism as a safer tool of popular education. As objects of memorization, catechisms inculcated the
articles of faith in a more uniform manner, thereby minimizing the risk of independent or aberrant popular
interpretation." Only with the arrival of Pietism in the late 17th century, the reading of the bible was actively
promoted.
Needless to say, that I am, for the whole section on Pietism and compulsory schooling in Prussia, heavily
indebted to Melton Van Horn's brilliant study.
30

F. Ernest Stoeffler describes the situation as follows: "Perhaps even more important that the material loss was
the effect of the war upon the moral fiber of the people. Old and young, complained pastor Heinlin of Wuertemberg,
can no longer tell what is of God or of the devil, poor widows and orphans are counted for dung, like dogs they are
pushed into the street, there to perish of cold and hunger. The cruelty generated was notorious... In some sections the
rapacity of the nobility knew no bounds, so that the defenseless peasantry was depressed to the level of beasts of burden
(...) During the aftermath of the war the model for German court life became France. The sons of nobility no longer
visited the universities. They now became soldiers and prided themselves with a ruthless, uninhibited kind of
Herrenmoral which further corrupted the nation. Emulating their superiors the peasants reveled in drunkenness and
vice." (F. Ernest Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism, (Leiden, 1971), pp. 181-182. , as quoted in John M.
Brenner, Pietism: Past and Present.)

Francke31 as the leading character, were of tremendous influence on the history of education.
Of great importance to the purpose of our investigation is the position of an old doctrine in the
Christian theological tradition, original sin. After the Fall of Man, when Adam and Eve ate the
forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, humanity was burdened with ancestral sin, a (tendency
towards) sinfulness that could be neutralized by baptism and a virtuous life. The interpretation
of the original sin changed with the coming of Luther, and was further radicalized by the
Pietists. While the scholastics had defined original sin as a lack of righteousness of the will,
Luther defines it as a predesposition to commit evil, a natural tendency to loath what is good
and to find delight in evil.32 The Pietists strongly supported Luthers' interpretation.33 Francke,
for example, wrote: "Even when performing his best works, man remains sinful to his very
core."34
It is equally important to note how the Pietists saw the position of God versus man. Pietist
doctrine described God as an almighty, volatile God, who had the sole and ultimate power to
save man from salvation. Given the fact that man could never be free from sin, it was
impossible for individuals to actually earn their entrance to heaven by doing good during their
lifetimes. They could only honour God, and hope to fall in his liking, by confessing to a zealous
31

August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) studied in Erfurt, Kiel and Leipzig, where he became a magister.
About Francke's time in Leipzig, James Van Horn Melton writes: "Exhibiting all the enthusiasm and
conviction of the converted, Francke soon attracted a student following as well as the hostility of the more
conservative Leipzig theologians. Leipzig was a bastion of orthodoxy, and Francke's insistence that the
devotional study of Scripture was far more important than the subtleties of systematic theology raised
eyebrows among those trained in the Lutheran scholastic tradition. Not without justification, his critics
blame Francke for the declining attendance at lectures on logic ad metaphysics. The scandal worsened when
it was learned that some students were selling or even burning their scholastic textbooks. Faced with the
determined opposition of Johann Benedict Carpzov and other guardians of orthodoxy, Francke finally left
Leipzig, to accept a deaconate in Erfurt." (James Van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the eighteenth-century
origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and Austria, p.32.) After his ban from Leipzig, Francke was taken
under the wings of Friedrich Wilhelm I from Prussia, who, cunningly, used Pietism as a wedge between the
Lutheran orthodoxy and the local nobility, by appointing pietists in key positions of the clerical hierarchy.
Eventually Pietism became the Prussian State religion (See Van Horn Melton, pp. 32-33). It was also Friedrich
Wilhelm I who, together with Spener and Francke, co-founded the Uuniversity of Halle. At that university,
Francke had fierce disagreements with the rationalist enlightenment philosopher Christian Wolffit was the
archetypical clash between faith-based theology and enlightened thinking. Wolff, in a lecture on a lecture on
Chinese philosophy, had contended that high morals and ethics were possible without religion, and that
mankind by nature was able to distinguished good and bad. Wolff concluded that there was no need for
Christian missions in China, and that the Chinese were not poor heathens. This, of course, ran againstinto
everything the Pietism stood for, and the speech lead to a high scandal in Halle's pietists circles. Francke
used his contacts with the Prussian royalty to have Wolff, on accusations of atheism, leave the country
within 48 hours. (see Richard L. Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia, (Cambridge,
2006), p196, and Stephen Uhalley, China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future, (London, 2001), pp.
160-161)
32

Mark Reasoner: Romans in Full Circle: A History of Interpretation, (Wesminster, 2005), p.49.

33

As Francke writes in 1702: "Note that man through original sin fell into such a deep corruption that all of
Adam's children as branches of a tree arise from one root, are poisoned by one sine of poison from which
inner corruption nothing other than evil fruit can grow. Therefore (...) God promised Christ, who would
overcome the poison of the sin. Since he gave Christ to us for this end, that is, as an antidote against the
poison of sin, it would be most foolish and inconceivable for one not to make use of Christ for this purpose
and thereby remain freely living in sin. Rather one thought to rejoice that he has a Savior whom he can
follow with certainty." (August Hermann Francke, "Following Christ", as quoted in Peter C. Erb, Pietists:
Selected Writings (Paulist Press, 1983),p. 139.
34

James Van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the eighteenth-century origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and
Austria, p.28.

faith, hard work, and obedience to his wishes.

The engorged original sin -doctrine and the whimsical God of the pietists deeply influenced
their educational theory and practice. The following aspects can be considered as most
important:
Obedience
Since, according to the Pietists, men by nature find delight in evil, they have to be seduced into
obedience, so that not their own will, but the will of God (through the mouth of the pastor or
teacher) can be instilled in them. With their antischolastic ideal of faithful obedience, the
Pietists took Luther's creed sola fide one step further on the path of passive subordination; in
Francke's schools, there was no doubt who was master and who was serf: the teacher stood in
front of the class, and, a new pedagogical invention, the pupils had to raise their hands if they
wanted to ask a question.35
The key technique in achieving obedience of the children, was described by francke described
as follows: "When forming the character of a child, the will as well as reason plays a role ...
Above all is it necessary to break the natural will of the child. While we should encourage the
schoolmaster that tries to make the child more eloquent to bring the child to deeper insights, is
that not enough. While he has then yet forgotten his most important task, namely that of
making the will obedient."36
Pressure of time
Condemning idleness as sinful, Pietist schooling encouraged diligence by cultivating an acute
sense of time in its pupils. The hourglasses that Francke had installed in every classroom
reminded pupils that work was an omnipresent duty, with time the currency in which
performance of that duty was measured. In Franckes schools, every hour of the pupils day
was consigned to a prescribed activity. Thats how free time became a separate pedagogical
category for the first time in history.37
Vocation (Beruf)
One of the ways of breaking the will of the child was to impose on it the role which destiny had
chosen for it. You see the Pietists believed that the social order of the day (nobility, clergyus,
burgertum and plebians), and the role of each group in it, was dictated by God. One who
refused or to denounced his beruf did not fulfill his Godly duties. Francke described this as
follows: "The body of Christ consists of different members. Not every member can be a hand,
foot, eye or ear. Each member has its own task. . . . The foot should not desire to become an eye,
nor the hand an ear."38
Hence, to learn the young to accept their social position, there was a Realschule (once more, a
pietist invention) for vocational training, a Latin school for the more prosperous families, and
an elite boarding school called Pdagogium, where children were being trained for the
university or bureaucracy.39
Play as sin
Playthe act of individuality par excellencewas, as could be expected, forbidden. In the
words of William C. Placher (quoting Francke) we read: ""games and other pastimes such as
35

Ibid., p.xiv.

36

Ibid., p.43.

37

Ibid., p.41.

38

Ibid., p.29.

39

Ibid., p.35.

dancing, jumping and so forth" [were] condemned because they "arise from an improper and
empty manner of life."" In rule 24 of Francke's "Rules for the Protection of Conscience and for
the Good Order in Conversation or in Society" (1689), we read:
" Guard yourself from unnecessary laughter. All laughter is forbidden. . . . Joking does not
please God; why then should it please you? If it does not please you, why do you laugh over
it?"40
The Pietists' emphasis on obedience and diligence was marked by the inception and
management of it's opposite: "free time". Every hour of the Pietist schoolday had a prescribed
activity, but twice per day, the pupils were lead to the central yard for relaxation.41
Supervision
Another, more direct way to make the child obedient was by intensifying the institutional
control of the school. The precondition for such control, argued Francke, was compulsory
attendance. In addition, teachers were required to record the names and occupations of their
pupil's parents, as well as a daily evaluation of the progress and character of each child. As
Francke explained, "youth do not know how to regulate their lives, and are naturally inclined
toward idle or sinful behavior when left to their own devices. For this reason, it is a rule in this
institution that a pupil never be allowed out of the presence of the supervisor. The supervisor's
presence will stifle the pupil's inclination to sinful behavior, and slowly weaken his
wilfullness." In the words of Melton Van Horn: "Francke's schools sought to create a completely
regulated and self-enclosed environment, neutralizing the impact of the outside environment
and thus ridding pupils of any bad habits they might have developed outside the institution."
The supervision so far that, for example, in the orphanage and Pdagogium, even letters to and
from the pupils were subject to inspection.42
School Duty
Just as little as children could be trusted, it was, according to the pietists, to be expected that
parents would neglect their duty of sending their children to school. Aided by Francke's good
connections with the court, the pietists succesfully lobbied for more govermental involvement
in education. Starting from 1710, king Frederick I of Prussia made attempts to increase control
on how children were educated in Prussia. Eventually, in 1763, during a time of economic crisis
and days after the Seven Year War, the Prussian state issued the General-Landschul-Reglement.
The aim of the edict was to establish a national uniform system of compulsory elementary
education for all children between the ages of five and thirteen. Attendance was to be yearround: Children were to attend six hours a day except in the summer, when the school day was
reduced to three hours.43
Introspection
The pietistic pedagogy greatly emphasised introspection as a means to develop devotion and
self-discipline. Francke advised his teachers to instill a delay before administering any
punishments, so that the pupils would have the time to investigate their consciousness and
reflect about their sinful behavior. Also were the pupils were encouraged to keep diaries, "as a

40

William Carl Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking About God Went
Wrong, (Paulist Press,1983) p112.
41

Ibid., p.140

42

Ibid., p.43.

43

Ibid., pp.175-176. See Also Maria J. Bunge's, The Child in Christian Thought: "And in 1717 Friedrich Wilhelm
I of Prussia, who knew and respected Francke, decreed compulsory education for children between the ages
of five and twelve and established about two thousand schools, modelling them after Francke's schools in
Halle." (Marcia J. Bunge, The Child in Christian Thought, (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 2001), p 249)

way to promote self-examination and reflection".44

Atonement Struggle
Another central doctrine to pietist theology and pedagogy, was the dynamic of the conversion,
"an inner conflict that accompanied the 'atonement struggle' (Busskampf). The individual was
able to resolve the atonement struggle, "only through a passive acceptance of God's grace".
Melton Van Horn explains: "the self-denying, passive trust in providence implied in this
acceptance was designed to acquire the spiritual self-control that would later manifest itself in
the work-discipline required for the exercise of their vocation. In other words, the conversion
experience fostered in individuals both the self-discipline required in their vocation and the
calmness and passivity that enabled them to accept limits on their social mobility. In this way,
estate and vocation, stand and beruf, were reconciled."45
Love of Servitude
The ultimate proof of the success of the pietist atonement struggle, and the therefore the
required breaking of the will, was the love of servitude. In 1701, Francke told the children of
the orphanage in Halle that "real obedience is not only visible from the outside, but it comes
also from the depths of your soul." Pupils were exhorted to work "not out of coercion, but a
love of God". They were also, in the words of Melton Van Horn, "to learn to obey their teachers
just as they were to obey their rules: out of love rather than compulsion." warning that
excessive severity ristked embittering or estranging the pupil, Francke beseeched his teaching
candidates to "strive to be a father, not a disciplinarian."46
Influence of Pietist Pedagogy
Besides the enourmous growth of state schooling due to the aformentioned actions of the
Prussian Government (the most important being the 1763 General-Landschul-Reglement), there
were other factors that contributed significantly to give the Pietist schooling the international
influence it eventually did:
Seminarium Selectum Praeceptorium
Established by August Hermann Francke in 1696, the Seminarium Selectum Praeceptorium was
the first pedagogical institute in Central Europe. In the words of Melton Van Horn: "It served as
the basic model for teacher training in the eighteenth century. Its graduates went on to play
leading roles in the reform of popular schooling throughout Central Europe, helping further to
popularisze Pietist pedagogy."47
Waisenhaus, Realschule
Similarly, Francke's Waisenhaus (1698, Halle) became the prototype for the Central European
orphanage of the eighteenth century. The Pietists were also new in that they included practical
subjects (Realien) in the educational programme. Hence the name for the invention of the
konomisch-mathematische Realschule, centered on the study of mathematics, natural sciences,
and economics. It was a Pietist student of Francke who first actually organized a Realschule - a
name (and model) used to this day in Germany.48
Staatsfrmmigkeit
44

Ibid., p.43.

45

Ibid., p.30.

46

Ibid., pp.41-42.

47

Ibid., pp. 36-37.

48

Bryan S. Turner, Max Weber: Critical Responses, (Routledge, 1999), p.200.

On November 7th, 1806, the Prussian army suffered a bloody and humiliating blow from the
troops of Napoleon. Many intellectuals of the establishment were as shocked as the political
elite was, and started calling for a new moral and political order that would build Germany
into the great nation Prussia no longer was. Barely one year after the defeat in the Battle of Jena,
and twenty-five years after Nietzsche declared that God was dead, philosopher Johann Gottlieb
Fichte infused the Pietist educational model with a new ideal. In his "Reden an die Deutsche
Nation", Fichte said:
"By means of the new education, we want to mould the Germans into a corporate body which
shall be stimulated and animated in all its individuals and members by the same interests."
What had once been obedience to God was now gradually being replaced by obedience to the
state, Staatsfrmmigkeit. Supported by Hegel's ideas on the development of the Geist, a rational
spirit embodied by the corporate state, as being more 'real' than its separate parts and more
important than the individual, Fichte's educational vision laid the basis for a lack of resistance
against totalitarian regimes in the coming generations.49 The succes of Fichte's ideology is
tragically illustrated by the conclusion French historian Stephane Adoin-Rouzeau reaches at the
end of his study of soldier-published trench newspapers during World War I; that a profound
sense of national feeling, deeply rooted by their primary education was the most important
source of emotional sustenance for soldiers in combat. He states that "even in the war's worst
moments, the impossibility [unthinkability] of causing the defeat of their own nation by
collective weakness constituted a psychological barrier that nothing could overcome".50
International Reputation
Throughout the late 18th and early 19th century, the Pietist school model of Prussia was
studied and copied throughout the western world. It was for example Victor Cousin's report of
education in Prussia that inspired the French Guizot Educational Law of 1833.51 Also, consider
this quote of Horace Mann, one of the fathers of public schooling in the United States, in the
influential "Seventh Annual Report as Secretary of the Board of Education in Massachussetts,"
published after an educational tour through the principal countries in Europe in the summer of
1843:
"Among the nations of Europe, Prussia has long enjoyed the most distinguished reputation for
the excellence of its schools. In reviews, in speeches, in tracts and even in graver works devoted
to the causes of education, its schools have been exhibited as models for the imitation of the
rest of Christendom"52
Conclusion
As is hopefully clear by now, the practice and philosophy of schooling has not been invented
by one person, or during one generation. It is rather the result of the actions of a multitude of
individuals, who, through the translation of popular opinion into pedagogical creed, have
slowly given shape to the institution we now know as "school". The evolution in educational
ideas and practices was not gradual. Rather it was stimulated, slowed down, or sent into
different directions by historical events such as wars, economical crises, epidemia and
philosophical or scientific revolutions.
49

See Denis Lawton, A History of Western Educational Ideas, (Routledge, 2002), pp. 134-135.

50

John L. Comaroff and Paul C. Stern, ed., Perspectives on Nationalism and War, (Gordon and Breach:
Luxembourg, 1995) pp. 161.
51

See Leslie Limage, Democratizing Education and Educating Democratic Citizens: International and Historical
Perspectives, (Taylor & Francis, 2001), p. 26.
52

See Henry Barnard, Normal Schools: And Other Institutions, Agencies and Means, (Hartford, 1851 - reprint
Colorado, 1929), p. 42.

But this is not all. We cannot but include another influencing force in the history of education,
one that can hardly be underestimated: the regulatory power of the government. First of all did
the Prussian subsidies and privileges for schools, normal schools and universities in which
Pietist doctrine was taught and practisced, aid the growth of Pietist schooling significantly.
Further, without the entitlements and regulations of the Prussian government, and the
subsequent directive actions of foreign governments in copying Prussian practice, Francke's
schools would never have had the tremendous influence on the course of educational history,
starting from the 18th century, to present day. The European compulsory schooling laws, and
supervision laws concerning schools and teachers, further helped to speed up the process of
uniformisation, and, if we may say so, Prussianisation, in education.
---Epilogue
Now, what should all this mean, to the parent, teacher or educator who wants to restore that
what has been lost, who wants to open up what has been closed, to set free those who have
been caged? In these anomalous times, perhaps the ideas of an anomalous man can be of help:
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In 1872, only just returned from the traumatic
battlefield of the Franco-Prussian war, Nietzsche delivered a lecture called Thoughts about the
Future of Our Educational Institutions. In that lecture he said:
"Let any one examine the pedagogic literature of the present; he who is not shocked at its utter
poverty of spirit and its ridiculously awkward antics is beyond being spoiled. Here our
philosophy must not begin with wonder but with dread; he who feels no dread at this point
must be asked not to meddle with pedagogic questions. The reverse, of course, has been the
rule up to the present; those who were terrified ran away filled with embarrassment as you
did, my poor friend, while the sober and fearless ones spread their heavy hands over the most
delicate technique that has ever existed in artover the technique of education."
Nietzsche continued:
"This, however, will not be possible much longer; at some time or other the upright man will
appear, who will not only have the good ideas I speak of, but who in order to work at their
realisation, will dare to break with all that exists at present"
Maybe indeed, at a point in history where the permanent state of crisis in education is more
obvious than ever before, the time for the upright men has come to take a stance and change
education for the better.