The German school as a war nursery

Front matter

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II With an Introduction by

M. E. SADLER, M.A.

C.B., LL.D., Litt.D.

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY v^;n

This translation is by Major Selwyn G. Simpson, D.Litt.

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I desire to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Sadler for his inspiring Introduction, and to Dr. Selwyn G. Simpson for undertaking the translation of my work.

V. H. F.

Paris, April, 1918.

Introduction To English Translation

By Dr. M. E. Sadler

I

T T THAT would one not give, in these early VV months of the fourth year of the war, for the power to go to Germany and, with full knowledge of the language and without one's identity being known or questioned, to talk freely with men and women of all ranks and opinions ? In some degree, Monsieur Friedel's book gives one this opportunity. It lifts the veil and shows us some of the currents of German educational thought in war-time.

What part can skilfully organized public education play in furthering the welfare and increasing the might of a modern State ? This is a subject upon which the Germans have arrived at more formulated judgments than have the English. I am far from thinking that these German judgments are wholly sound. On the contrary, they seem to me defective in sympathy with the needs of individual freedom ; conventional in their acceptance of certain established canons of educational orthodoxy ;

and erroneous in some of their practical applications of the theory of general culture. But German educational opinion, whatever its fallacies and defects, is an expert opinion. It is based upon ten decades oi administrative experience. It is entrenched in social custom. It has behind it the power of a vast machine and the prestige of great achievement. It is sharply divided upon some fundamental issues. But, as in German pohtics, so in German education, the established order still resists attack. Entrenched habits of mind, and the presuppositions upon which those habits are based, defy at present the onslaught of their critics. The supporters of the existing regime are on the whole a solid block. The critics either accept the administrative principles of the present system and merely wish to give an opposite colour to its political applications, or are forced into extreme theoretical positions which provoke doubt or excite alarm. In German discussions about education during the last three years we see reflected the political struggle between the Socialists and the established social regime. Milder Liberal opinion sways one way or the other. To such opinion the Junker is repugnant ; the violent Socialist frightens it. Between these two extremes. Liberalism stands disconsolate. It longs for reform in existing educational arrangements. But it is puzzled to know what reforms are possible. It dares not be bold, and remains discontented.

The power of organized education is more generally recognized in Germany than in England. Or rather it has been more effectively harnessed by the State. I doubt whether in the interests of freedom this has been good for Germany or the world. But German education, as organized b}^ governments, has been one of the most powerful auxiliaries of the German Empire. And it has served the purpose of the existing economic regime. So powerful is it, that the older school of Socialists wish to employ it in the interests of coUectivist Democracy. It is like an armed force which could conceivably be used against its present masters. But the younger Radicals see that a regime of political freedom will call for a thorough-going revision of the teaching-methods and school-organization which are now dominant in the German system of education. On what lines is that revision to proceed ? What is it in German education that calls most urgently for drastic reform ? These are the questions which harass the mind of the younger school of German Radicals and Socialists. America (and, in a less degree, England) point the way to an answer. But American and English institutions are not popular in Germany at the present time.

II

Monsieur Friedel writes with knowledge and vivacity. He has penetration of mind and a iiair for detecting the political ambitions of the Pangermanists. As director of the Musee Pedagogique in Paris, he has had access to the documents of the case. He has made good use of them. His book tells us much that we English readers have had no opportunity of learning.

HI

Perhaps it will not be thought out of place for me to attempt a short sketch of the situation.

In Germany, education is by law the business of each of the twenty-five States (large and small) which compose the Empire. There is no central office in Berlin which controls all German education. No one living can give you all the statistics of all the German schools. And, in the educational systems of the various States there are certain differences of organization, nomenclature, tradition and tone. It is a patchwork — this German education ; but at the same time a patchwork well sewn together, and serviceable to the Empire as a whole. This has come about through the operation of certain forces which make for unity. For example, the much-valued and socially influential privilege of " one year service as a volunteer " is attached by the military authorities to approved higher secondary schools throughout the German Empire. Again, the Imperial Law of Industry of 1891 has encouraged the establishment of compulsory continuation schools. The Universities in German-speaking lands are an intellectual commonwealth with a freemasonry of mutual understanding. The powerful associations of teachers are, many of them, Empirewide. And there is a learned and authoritative educational Press. Therefore it is just to speak of the German system of education, although administratively it is twenty-five systems, not one.

To a British observer, four things are characteristic of this German system. First, in Prussia especially, there is a deep and significantly purposed social cleft between the elementary school and higher education. Second, higher education has been made the vogue among the middle classes by the military privileges attached to a select category of schools. Policy, good sense, snobbishness, valuable scientific interests are all mixed up in the working of this system. Third, the Universities are in a high degree under the direct influence of the governments. In subtle ways, " the pulpits are tuned." What, with a smile of double entendre, Mr. Gerard calls " the Rat System " is not inefficacious with the climbing type of don. Fourth, German education has been cleverly and zealously adjusted to the needs of modern industrialism and to the policies of modern commerce.

Now, what has been the effect of the war upon the opinions and hopes of the myriad men who count in German education ? How have their ideas, their loyalties, their political convictions, re-acted to the emotions of the war ? Much of

— II — what has happened with us has happened in Germany also. To them, as to us, the war has made a violent national appeal. The Universities and the schools have answered to the call. The young men have been heroes. The older men have been deeply stirred. The institutions have risen to the emergency. Neither in Germany nor in Great Britain will it ever be forgotten how well the schools and Universities served their country in the great war. Mixed up with this, there has been a certain amount of super-heated patriotism. Some people have been silly, and over-eager to use the schools for " patriotic " purposes. In Germany, a great many enthusiastic citizens want schoolboys to have their minds full of soldiering. They incite the teachers (some of the teachers hardly need incitement) to paint the Entente Devil blacker still, and to invoke the " old German God " as if he were the wealthy but half-retired senior partner whose backing was needed by the firm at a tight corner in a speculative (but, if it only succeeds, gorgeously remunerative) enterprise. There is alarm in Germany, as in Great Britain, at the immorality, indiscipline and pertness of children, whose fathers are at the front and whose wages are beyond all precedent high. Women are being drafted into the school service in place of men at the war. This in Germany is more of a revolutionary change than with us. Again, eager patriots demand that the children's history lessons .should be coloured by propaganda. According to some purists, the French language, literature and art should henceforward be taboo. Little Germans are to be germanized further still by all the arts of the curriculum. x\nd German policy is to be pushed, especially at Pera and in Latin South America, by subsidized schools and by pertinacious educational preparation. In less grotesque forms we hear the same kind of thing here. Education is a great power. If you can canalize it, you can use it hydraulically for public works. Science, if organized along with education, is a big lever in State policy. For this reason, since the war began, the German Universities have been drawn into closer association with the Technical High Schools. For more than a century, German education has been patriotic. For the last twenty years it has been prone to Chauvinism. During the war, it has displayed on its good side a very noble patriotism ; on its vulgar side, a turgid and self-revealing ambition.

But no one hates the snobbish and pedantic sides of German education more than do certain Germans. And these men also have talked during the war. With us, the great Public Schools are not so popular as they were four years ago. Their failings have been found out. We admire and love them for their good qualities, but realize vividly their comic shortcomings and complacencies. Still fiercer than among ourselves has been the attack upon the great Public Schools of Germany. The

Gymnasien (ironically so called) have an illustrious history. But in many respects they are whited sepulchres. Venomous are the lips which have spat on them since the war. The German is proud, inordinately proud, of his educational system. But he often has little love for his old school. He remembers the stiff pedantry of some of his schoolmasters : he shudders at the memory of his anxiety about examinations : he despises the pretentious dullness of some of the teaching. He is a heretic, out against an obsolete orthodoxy, which is loaded with privileges and hung about the neck with public honours. Wisely or unwisely, generally unwisely, he clamours for reform in his public schools. He knows that things are wrong, but has little idea how to put them right. He is hypnotized by educational presuppositions, now superannuated. He cannot think himself free from the ideas which still govern the methods of instruction in German higher schools or their mechanical tradition of Allgemeine Bildung. But he hates the spirit of the great German Public Schools, and savagely criticizes them. Nothing, so far, has come from these onslaughts. They do not touch the central point of weakness. The citadels hold out. And the Governments smile, make unreal concessions, and keep things as they are. The attack on the great Public Schools is one of the chief results of war-time excitement in Germany. But the attack, so far, has been futile, though alarming.

Much more important is another wave of public opinion in Germany about educational affairs. The sacred hierarchy of the schools is threatened. The social privilege of higher secondary education has become more and more unpalatable to the masses of the people. They groan under the harrow of snobbishness and feel themselves put at a disadvantage for hfe by the educational administration of the State. The German workman demands thoroughgoing educational reform. He wants more bridges over the gulf which divides the secondary from the elementary school. More than this, he wants the elementary school to be the chief concern of the Government and the secondary school to grow out of it as a higher annexe. He demands what he calls the Einheits-Schule. He has been brought up to believe that schools are all-powerful, and he therefore assumes that, if he can get equality in the schools, he will also get equality in every stage of adult Hfe.

His dream is an illusion. Yet he is right in hating the present temper of German school administration. But his schemes of reform are fantastic. He asks for impossible things. And therefore his demands are smiled down by the governments and, as the Americans say, cut no ice. Nevertheless they are ^a portent. If Germany has a political revolution, there will be a revolution in German education. The " high-brows " and the " beat possidentes " will have to make terms with what Mr. Wells calls

^' the common unhampered man." x\nd in those •days, if they come, Germany will turn eagerly for educational precedents — to the United States of America.

In the meantime, however, the established authority of German education (especially in Prussia) stands unshaken. Its garrison feels nervous, but holds the gate. And, as a strategical plan, some powerful men in the Prussian Government Offices apparently design a centralization of all the educational controls in Germany. This means that these Prussians want to dominate the Empire and to hold its political fortunes in their hand. There will be resistance to such ambitions. Therefore those ambitions are for the moment skilfully veiled and are pushed rather by intrigue than by open argument. Whether they are to be realized or not depends upon the issue of the war.

M. E. SADLER.

Leeds,

October, 1917.

HARDLY had the war broken out before the Germans set to work to organize the fruits of victory. For no one in Germany doubted it would be otherwise than it had been in 1866 and 1870. They were ready : their enemies were not.

From time to time, it is true, German thought conjured up the terrible consequences of a European war : but in order that others might be terrified. Germany herself did not give any real consideration to the matter. She had become used to regard war as " a necessary evil " — to see in it " a test sent from Heaven." The citizen — who sunned himself in the slow but sure progress of peace — had the sayings he had paraphrased at school brought to his mind : — " si vis pacem para bellum " : " Der Krieg ist ein grosser Lehrmeister" (War teaches great lessons, etc., etc.).

The officers and the recruits were told that " by making war short and brutal they would render it human." They in their turn got the civihans to accept this point of view. Such then was the German belief in 1914.

It is surprising to find the propagandists of the East of the Rhine, relying on the inadequate pohtical education of the German people, asserting that Germany did not loose the dogs of war on Europe. To-day the whole world judges differently. It is true that as far as national politics are concerned the Germans have remained the most uninformed, and it is admitted — at present — that they are the least advanced as regards world politics. This poHtical immaturity is for the world at large one of the most irrefutable proofs of their culpability.

The imperiahsm of Bismarck ; and the ambitions of " Kultur " had led the Germans into a culde-sac. Surrounded by nations in which the relations between the individual and the State, and the mutual relationship between the different peoples, followed the natural evolutions of right and liberty, they were unable to escape, save by the sanguinary diversion of a war.

As in 1866 and 1870 they meant to succeed, and hoped to find in a cataclysm thus brought about, the solution of the problems arising from their political system, but made impossible of solution by the realities of the systems of all their neighbours. Here we have the reason for their dread of being surrounded.

Who created this state of thought ? Who retarded their political education ?

Germany is far from being a country of fools.

To blame the Government — the poHtical parties — ■ the military caste — would absolve the people. This distinction has however been made : the courageous stand made by certain representatives of the people, and the peaceful wishes of various individuals, have been set against the now concihatory — now brutal — attitude of the rulers. Any such attempt only shows a misconception of the discipline which pedagogues — following the dictates of the State — their head — have thrust on the entire nation.

The pedagogues were the first to bring to Hght the lessons of this " great master " — war. Belgium had just been atrociously crushed, when the most authoritative of them began to develop in the big " Dailies " their projects for the " school of to-morrow " (ecole de demain) " of the doctrine of the new Germany of military education of the young," etc., etc., and to expound the principles of the " pedagogy of the future." Immediately a general and passionate controversy began.

It is not the result of chance. It is most illuminating that the Higher Command and the Censor allowed this controversy to continue. In spite of the differences of their systems, the authors of these pedagogical projects all aimed at the strengthening of the national power. The reforms suggested, however, are not in any way new, far from it. Formerly in time of peace, parliamentary opposition and the political balance of the government had postponed them : now, the experiences of the war, and the national aspirations for the future, gave them an added reality, which was emphasized by their contradictions and even by their excesses. At a moment when the government needed to uplift the spirit of the nation, discussions on the might of Germany by the education of the rising generation, were truly welcome.

It was not entirely the desire to profit by the patriotic enthusiasm and the truce between the political parties, that caused the pedagogues to act with such ardour in the introduction of reforms which had been formerly set on one side. They were but continuing their official work. Had they not been told times without number that the victories of 1866 and of 1870 were the result of their teaching ? Now they were told that it was necessary to conquer once again, in order to save the threatened " Kultur," that " Kultur " which they had extolled and built up. It was their natural duty to exploit the successes of the war ; and to point their lessons. The eagerness of the pedagogues to seize pubhc opinion from the first days of the war, lies in their wish and in their duty to bring the mentality of the people to the concert pitch of Berlin. It was they who brought about the mental outlook which stupefied the world. Thanks to their work the German people were unable to reach the necessary pohtical maturity to assure for themselves, otherwise than by war, an internal and external development, in accordance with the general principles of the civilization of our days.

The following chapters set forth the chief aims of this " German war pedagogy." In writing them we have not hesitated to make use of notes made, since the war, from the chief German newspapers. The Press is, we admit, an unsatisfactory authority, especially at present, but the articles used are signed by names well known in the world of education. Formerly the above quoted educational writers and the high officials expounded their theories in documentary brochures and in imposing tomes : now they try to reach the pubhc at large by short essays and concise judgments. Their Press campaign is, however, no less sincere than was their official teaching.

In the compilation of this work anonymous articles have only been made use of when they have appeared in controlled periodicals or papers reputed to express official opinion. On the other hand, the extreme papers of all opinions have been disregarded.

We trust that the war may teach us great lessons. The German pedagogy, as far back as August 1914, displayed itself in its true colours. It has thrown off its idealistic and Humanitarian character and become frankly Rationalist and Utilitarian.

Let us bear this in mind.

CHAPTER I The Effect of War on the Centralization of German Education

TO create an empire, Bismarck falsified the Ems dispatch. He knew that a war with the " hereditary enemy " would enable him to group partisans of individual liberty in Germany around the Prussian standard. Victory achieved, this same individuality forced him to stop short at the principle of federation in the formation of the empire. All his later activity was aimed at imbuing this organization with a single and proudly national spirit {deutscher Reichsgedanke) and at consolidating it by a close centralization under the hegemony of Prussia. Being convinced that " this could not be brought about without a fresh war," and whilst waiting for the opportune moment, he took pains to prepare the framework of the proposed

unification.

To-day, from a military point of view, Germany is a united empire. The King of Prussia, as Emperor, is its supreme and absolute head. Prussian discipline reigns throughout. The individuality of the various confederate states is reduced to certain differences as regards uniform, which disappear in time of war ; and to certain unimportant details. It appears, however, that the recruits from the southern states on entering the barracks had not the same knowledge, the same keenness of intellect, the same standard of moral and physical preparation as the Prussians.

The Imperial General Staff had, therefore, prepared, in case of war, for the immediate mobilization of the youth of Germany with a view to a uniform military training (see Chapter II). This was ordered in August, 191 4. It is the allurement of an " imperial " institution which it is suggested to continue after th., war.

From a legal point of view the empire has tended towards an imperial legislation common to all the states of the confederation. The application of the state of siege and of the war measures, ordered by Berlin, at the beginning of the war seem to have produced different results in the various German states.

Is one to believe that the people of Saxony or of Bavaria, foi example, have not yet learnt to behave towards the Prussianizing imperial authority with the same docility as the inhabitants of the Mark of Brandenbourg, and that their " imperial education " is incomplete ? In any case it is a fact that the Generals commanding districts have issued police orders which the zealots at Berlin would like

AS A M^AR NURSERY

to see transformed into permanent imperial statutes (see Chapter III).

From a constitutional and political point of view, Bismarck and the imperialists experienced serious disappointments. The individualist groups had disappeared, worn out by vain protests : but powerful political parties had been formed, which did not delay in making the Government feel their power, at one moment by an indiscreet pressure, at another by the violence of their opposition.

At the same time the economic impetus of the country accentuated the antagonism between the masters and the working classes. Whilst the more frequent contact with foreign countries and the growing ease produced, in the middle classes, a state of mind little in keeping with the discipline which the Prussian doctrine exacted, a foundation of democratic ideas remained in the German mind, especially in the centre and the south, to which the success of individual effort in commerce and industry and the great diffusion of instruction were capable of giving new power. How could this be prevented ? How could a permanent effect be given to the lessons of the war for the promotion of the moral union of the State and of the nation ?

Bismarck and his followers entrusted the task of subjecting the German states to the central empire, to State education, which had been developed elsewhere for the good of the principles of democratic freedom. This union is completed, according to their wish, in their higher education. The Universities and the High Schools are the natural allies of the Government at Berlin (see Chapter V). Secondary Education is regarded more than ever as the school of the elite. It prepares for the Universities and professions, not only for the children of the upper classes but also for the pick of the middle class whom it thus attracts towards positions of government. The pedagogic controversy between a classical and modern curriculum has always had a political background. William 1 1 personally intervened at the conferences of 1890 and igoo, so that a uniformly German, patriotic and national character should be given to this teaching. It was therefore natural that the Prussian elementary teachers should follow this example (see Chapter IV).

As far back as 1908 the Association of German teachers {Deutscher Lehrerverein) , a powerful pan- German society, agitated for " imperial educational legislation." Quite recently a secondary schoolmaster dared write in an educational journal, that " the decentralization of the German educational organization, with all its contrasts and all its striking contradictions, really surpassed the justifiable and boasted individuality of the confederate States."

It is astonishing to see the obstinacy of Prussia in not being able to recognize the superiority of the elementary schools in Saxony or in the Southern

States. She has been forced to model her schools, as regards many details of organization, on those of the neighbouring states, but she has never allowed an occasion to pass of urging them towards a patriotic outlook and of commending to them the morale of her own system. Indeed the " contrasts and contradictions " come from the fact that everywhere elementary education has a democratic character, which it has not in Prussia. In order that this may be forgotten the Government at Berlin has shown an untiring solicitude for the teacher. No portion of the most lavish praises of the patriotic merits of the elementary teacher has ever been delivered in the Prussian House without the teachers reaping appreciable social advantages.

These have been repeated on other platforms in the empire, and have been repeated again and again in the papers. What has been the result ?

As a result the German elementary teacher has done his best to be worthy of this praise.^

Were the authorities in Berlin convinced that the Imperial Education met every contingency ?

It was unnecessary to make the University circles

and the middle classes accept the idea of war.

Among the masses of the people the expedient of

^ Taking a phrase, invented by whom and under what circumstances we know not, Rob. Kahn states " that the German elementary teacher leads the German people " [Der deutsche Schulnieister marschiert auch heute an unseres VolkesSpitze.) Frankfurter Zeitung, ]une 12, igi^. Volksbildung und Wehrhaftigkeit, by Dr. Rob. Kahn.

the Fatherland basely attacked, strengthened by the strongly imposed political truce, in other countries brought about by the mutual consent of the parties, recalls too vividly the methods of the Iron Chancellor for one not to see in it a precaution added, to make doubly sure, to the imperialistic propaganda in popular centres.

War, once again, has " united " the Germans to themselves. And so that, this time, the union should be permanent, the promoters of the central empire have immediately re-commenced the campaign for an imperial organization of every grade of

public instruction.

* * *

From the beginning of hostilities the education authorities in all the German states have asked the teachers to bring home to their scholars, in the fullest way possible, the lessons of the war : it appeared essential to them to interest the children " in the great events of which they are the unconscious witnesses."

In a few months it was possible to introduce this scholastic propaganda to the public in the capital. On March 21, 1915, the Prussian Minister of Education inaugurated' at Berlin " the Central Institute — Emperor William II — for education and teaching." ^ A kind of pedagogical library, the

1 Vide, amongst others, Frankfurter Zeitung, April 24, 1 915: Berliner Tageblatt, March 20, 1915. Leipzig followed this example in June. Berliner Tageblatt, June 15, 1915.

chief idea of which being to conserve whilst making them accessible, the pedagogical collection brought together at great cost in 1910 for the Brussels Exhibition. As a beginning the new Institute organized a special exhibition " The School and the War." There one could see, so we are told, the children's compositions on the glorious episodes of the war, topographical drawings and sketches relative to battles, models of war machines, — girls' hand work to be sent to the soldiers : — graphs showing the position of the schools with regard to the works of war — letters from school children to the " men in grey " and the answers from the Front, and even collections of patriotic war poetry composed by the school children. This living picture of the participation of the little world of school in the realities of the war was frequently commented upon by the experts in their lectures ^ and stress was laid on the means and methods of teaching which it suggests.

This Institute is as yet only a Prussian creation, but seeing that it centralizes all that which refers to the German school, even outside the imperial frontiers, and in that it especially aims at pointing out the lessons of the war for the whole German nation, it follows that it will become an imperial organization.

This Institute is expected to expand by force of

^ It will be necessary on another page to quote one or two of these lectures.

circumstance from a centre of study and of information for the use of the schools of all the German states into a central Administration (Reichsschulbehorde) to which all general questions, in which uniformity is desired, would be referred, such as the professional preparation of the teacher, the length of term and of vacation, the scope of the curriculum, the fixing of the school-leaving age, etc., etc. It seems as if it would end in overthrowing the scholastic autonomy of the confederate states.^