State, Society, and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany

Abstract

The much admired school system of 19th-century Germany served as a model for the educational systems of many other countries, including Britain and the United States. In this illuminating study of German primary schools, Lamberti examines an educational tradition that was the object of wide emulation, but which was often misinterpreted by its admirers. Lamberti also explores the political significance of German educational policies in the Kulturkampf, in the suppression of Polish nationalism in the eastern provinces, and more generally in the struggle between the competing strands of liberalism and authoritarianism in the German state.

An Economic Rationale for Public Education: The Value of Commitment

“…A careful historical analysis, however, reveals that the primary impetus for this was ideological -educating the masses into obedient servants -rather than instrumental. In fact, public schooling had to be imposed on the poor, in many cases against their will, and a powerful system of school inspection was constructed to enforce compulsory schooling (see Lamberti, 1989).…”

The Modern History of Literacy

“…Some kind of victory was achieved in the closing years of the century by a government apparatus armed with a range of regulatory instruments. 16 The sense of progress in the nineteenth century is also qualified by the limited ambition held for literacy. The early primers were designed to enable pupils to spell their way through the Bible and other religious literature.…”

The Cost of Decentralization: Linguistic Polarization and the Provision of Education

“…Local organization of schooling meant that the municipality was responsible for levying and allocating school funds (Heinrich et al, 1992;Lamberti, 1989;Lindert, 2004). In many places, provincial or even district legislation regulated school financing, but in the absence of such regional regulations, the Allgemeines Landrecht, the Prussian subsidiary law, held.…”

“…To address this question we use the historical setting of nineteenth-century Prussia which was, to a large extent, characterized by high linguistic polarization between Germans and Poles and had a highly decentralized education system. Heterogeneous preferences over the local provision of primary education originated from the fact that primary education, and in particular the language of instruction, was used by the German government to Germanize the (mainly) Polish-speaking communities (Lamberti, 1989). Primary education was therefore seen by the Poles as a threat to their cultural identity.…”