the names and principal uses, and they make collections of all that is valuable and curious in minerals and vegetables. But the most admirable trait in the character of this school is the tone of religious feeling which, it is said, pervades it. This could not be accomplished were not Fellenberg and Vehrly both strongly imbued with a sense of religious obligation and unremittingly attentive to awaken those sentiments in the minds of the pupils. . . . ... It will readily be conceived that a plan of instruction so admirable, and constantly directed to the best and purest affections of the mind and heart, can scarcely fail to redeem from indolence and vice those whose habits have been the most degraded. And it has accordingly happened that, notwithstanding the boys under Vehrly's charge have been taken from the very lowest ranks, and some of them the children of beggars, but one instance has occurred of such inveterate vice as to render it eventually necessary to abandon the culprit to his corrupt propensities, and expel him from the school. In the religious exercises, which take place on the first day of the week, the boys of the poor school assemble with the superior class, but on no other occasion. The Schools for the Well-to-do The Hofwyl establishment, as I have before remarked, consists of two classes, the rich and the poor. The class of the rich contains at present about eighty. Twenty of these, consisting of children under ten years of age, are placed under the care of a respectable gentleman and his wife, in a house belonging to Fellenberg, situated about a mile from his own residence. A teacher or two have the charge of their instruction both in and out of the house. ... The other sixty, constituting the most prominent part of the Hofwyl institution, are provided with more than twenty teachers, or professors. Among the pupils are several princes and the sons of ministers of state, &c. The price of board and tuition varies from £100 to £300 sterling, per annum. We were not admitted to the interior of the building occupied by these students. We saw none of the performances of their schools, or their exercises. . . . Besides the three schools already mentioned, he has another about half a mile from Hofwyl, where young men attend, during the winter, to courses of instruction in those subjects which relate to agriculture, and he lectures himself, I believe, on the practical operations of farming. It is here, too, that the professor of chemistry has his laboratory and lecture-room. We were introduced to him (Dr. Strobe), and judged him to be a good chemist. He is also the physician of the establishment, and his laboratory indicates an attachment to his profession, and judgment in its practical details. . . . ... The Superior School The superior class consisted of nearly 100 pupils, taught by upward of thirty professors. The course of instruction embraces the Greek, Latin, German, and French languages and literature; history, civil and sacred; geography, mathematics, pure and mixed; natural and mental philosophy; chemistry; music; drawing; gymnastics, including riding, swimming, dancing, &c.; natural history in all its branches; and religious instruction. The pupils rise at six in winter and five in summer; they breakfast at seven, eat a little at ten, dine at noon, take a luncheon at five, and sup at eight. Five hours are appropriated to study in the forenoon and four in the afternoon; the rest of the day being devoted to their gymnastic, agricultural, and mechanical exercises. This arrangement, however, is not absolutely restrictive, but is made to conform to the varying circumstances of the establishment, the health and genius of the pupils, etc. The greatest pains are taken to cultivate their moral and religious sensibilities. The language chiefly spoken is the German. The internal or civil government (if it may be so called) of the school is regulated by a constitution and by-laws administered by the pupils themselves, and for which object they have their legislative and executive officers, under the supervision of the principal. The motives of emulation, as they are ordinarily excited by rewards, medals, honors, etc., or by a division into classes in the numerical order of first, second, third, etc., form no part of the Fellenberg system. His aim is to address his instructions to the more reasonable and noble principles of their nature, and by the number of his professors (for he has had as many as thirty-five with less than 100 pupils), to unite all the advantages of private with those of public instruction. Unpopularity of Hofwyl at Home From the information we received from others, as well as from the statements of Fellenberg himself, it is evident that his plans have ever been regarded with jealousy by a great number of his most influential neighbors and fellow-countrymen. He was at first condemned as a visionary, but when he had fairly demonstrated the practicability and utility of his schemes for the improvement of education, they accused him of sinister views, and alleged against him that his motives were mercenary, having an eye chiefly to the profits of the establishment. This narrow-minded spirit has not been content with mere expressions of disapprobation and condemnation. The government of the canton has gone so far as to lay positive obstructions in his way, and to threaten him with the weight of their aristocratical authority. He had a few years ago devised a plan for diffusing some of the benefits of his experience in the government of youth, throughout the canton. He invited the teachers of schools to repair to Hofwyl during the period of their vacation, and there to avail themselves of such information as the institution would afford, and their time would admit of. This offer was gladly accepted; but the next season the teachers of the canton were most arbitrarily interdicted by the government from resorting to Hofwyl. Fellenberg, thus very ungenerously thwarted in his wishes to do good, opened his establishment for the benefit of other cantons, and has thus had it in his power to extend still more widely the advantages of his system. His great desire is to introduce a taste for agricultural pursuits connected with an amelioration of the indigent classes. General Impression I have no hesitation in saying that, from all that I have read and all that I have seen of this establishment, it does appear to me to be conducted upon principles which are calculated to afford the very best kind of education which it is possible to confer upon a young man, whatever may be the situation he is to fill in active life. As it regards the poor, it is difficult to conceive how they could be brought up in a way which would better prepare them for filling the stations of industrious, skillful, and intelligent laborers. With respect to the rich, while they are cheerfully pursuing an excellent course of literary and scientific instruction, they are effectually preserved, by the principles of this institution, from those idle and vicious habits which so commonly result from the vacant time of colleges and universities. By turning their attention to agriculture and the mechanic arts; by inspiring them with a love of labor, or at least of a useful application of their strength and muscular activities; by exercising their ingenuity in the use of tools and instruments; by familiarizing them to an attentive observance of nature in her different kingdoms, and in the revolution of seasons, a foundation is laid for those more expanded feelings and generous sympathies which bind the upper to the lower classes of the community, and eventually tend to exalt the condition of humanity. The greatest recommendation of the Pestalozzian and Fellenberg plan of education is the moral charm which is diffused throughout all its operations. It cannot but happen (all other things being equal) that pupils thus educated will become not only more intelligent men and better philosophers, but also more moral and dignified members of society. I cannot but cherish the hope that this scheme of education, of combining agricultural and mechanical with literary and scientific instruction, will be speedily and extensively adopted in the United States. ... CHAPTER XXII NATIONAL ORGANIZATION IN PRUSSIA THE Readings of this chapter deal with the transfer of education from the Church to the State in Prussia, which took place in the century between the coming of King Frederick William I to the throne, in 1713, and the outbreak of the War of Liberation, in 1813; the early School Codes promulgated; and the type of state school systems finally created. The first selection (273) describes the preparatory work of the Prussian King, Frederick William I, between 1713 and 1740. On the basis of the work done by this king, his son and successor, Frederick the Great (1740-86), laid the firm foundation of state control, though still working through the church authorities as agents for the State. These foundations he laid through his two detailed School Codes — that of 1763 for Prussia (274) and that of 1765 for the new Catholic province of Silesia (275). What he did was closely copied by Maria Theresa in her general Austrian School Code of 1774, which follows (276). A comparison of the three codes reveals a common plan for them all. In 1806 Napoleon routed the Prussian armies, took possession of Berlin, took from Prussia all her territory west of the Elbe, and completely humiliated the State. In the winter of 1807-08 the philosopher Fichte, in a series of Addresses, appealed to the leaders to regenerate the State, urging that the road to this lay through education. Selection 277 gives an illustration of his appeals, and shows the importance the leaders soon came to attach to education as a reconstructive agent. His advice was followed; the State was regenerated; in the War of Liberation (1813-15) Napoleon was vanquished, and the Prussian territories were restored. That the work of transforming the teaching force into a capable and efficient body required hard work may be inferred from Dinter's description (279) of the conditions he found existing in East Prussia, as late as 1819. The work accomplished in a century in providing elementary education was well summarized in the abortive law of 1819, as described by Cousin (280). In 1843 the American, Horace Mann, visited the schools of Prussia and wrote a report of his observations of them. From this Report two extracts are taken. The first (278) reveals the nature of the selection and training of the Prussian elementary teacher, from which we may infer the reason for the regeneration of the State. In the second (281) Mr. Mann points out the evils of militarism, then clearly evident in the schools, along with their many excellent qualities. 273. The Organizing Work of Frederick William I (From Henry Barnard's "Public Instruction in Prussia "; in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. xx, pp. 338-42. 1870) In 1870 Henry Barnard, while acting as United States Commissioner of Education, prepared a comprehensive Report on National Education in Europe. To the article on education in each country he prefixed a brief historical account. That for Prussia gives a good statement of the work done by the early kings in organizing schools, and from it we take the following account of the work of Frederick William I, who reigned from 1713 to 1740. The reign of Frederic William I. was a period of collecting, preparing, trying. The thrifty king did not only collect money and soldiers for the future great prince of battle, but he also bequeathed to the future great prince of peace a population, trained to be obedient to government, to fear God, to be industrious and thrifty. He alone had established eighteen hundred schools. . . . Having found during his frequent journeys through Prussia and Lithuania that the peasants, particularly in Lithuania, "were in a most deplorable state of ignorance" he directed the authorities at Königsberg (July 2, 1718), to assist each other in their efforts, "in order to relieve this ignorance at last." He himself sent for this purpose several commissioners to Lithuania, provided the larger villages with schoolmasters, and gave to each of them some land "free of rent and taxes"; he renewed his orders from time to time, and desired the increase of schools still more emphatically after having induced colonists from different countries, particularly from Salzburg, to settle in his dominions. A long time, however, passed, before he could publish and execute his "principia regulativa," which were henceforth the fundamental laws of the province of Prussia. On their publication (February 21, 1737) it was announced "that the King had not only seen with great pity the infidelity and darkness in which the youths in some portions of the kingdom had been living and grown up to their temporal and eter |