1 a reformer or innovator, but to familiarise the candidate through a system of supervised apprenticeship with the educational situation as it is and as he is expected to carry it on. The success of the secondary-school system is due to the definiteness and precision of organisation and the appropriate training given to those who are to conduct it. The defects, as in the case of the elementary branch, are due to inbreeding and the narrow professionalising of the teachers. The system has incorporated the spirit of order and discipline which characterises the military organisation. Mechanical efficiency is secured, but at the sacrifice of individuality and growth. VIII. SECONDARY EDUCATION FOR GIRLS Few reforms in Prussian education have been as significant as the reorganisation of the system of secondary education for girls. Here for the first time a genuine attempt has been made to depart from the traditions of a century and to develop a system of education intended not only to meet the educational needs of girls in modern times, but also to satisfy the modern conceptions of a liberal education. The development of a system of secondary education for girls in Prussia has been slow and has been confined practically to the nineteenth century. Its early organisation was directed to two objects, the preparation of girls in the so-called social accomplishments and the training of young women for teaching, then the only occupation open to them. In 1811 a royal school was established in Berlin to train girls for teaching positions. A similar school followed in 1832. Regulations were issued in 1845 and in 1853 for the examination of women teachers, thus giving legal government recognition to the profession. Side by side with these professional institutions came the establishment of municipal schools. In 1840 there were 56 publicly maintained schools for girls; 103 in 1860. The increasing number of wealthy middle-class families required the establishment of such schools. The curriculum included religion, German, French, handwork, and a little science. There were, however, no government regulations or general plans for these schools. After the establishment of the German Empire a number of teachers met at Weimar and demanded the maintenance of girls' schools by the state or municipal authorities, with a ten-year course and a general school plan, including two modern languages. At another conference in Berlin in 1873 it was the opinion of the meeting that the education of girls should be ethical and aesthetic rather than intellectual. In the following year new regulations were issued for the examination of women teachers, but the requirements and standards were not as high as for men. An official course of nine years was prescribed in 1886. The further development of girls' schools was promoted by the agitation for the emancipation of women, which demanded the education of girls as individuals rather than as the future companions of men. Until recently a large percentage of the teachers in girls' schools were men. This was remedied to some extent in 1894 and 1899, and a new examination was established for such teachers. As a result of the requirements for these examinations special institutions and courses were organised at the universities, which led to an agitation for the admission of women to the universities and to degrees. Baden and Bavaria admitted women on passing the Abiturientenexamen. In 1899 a division for girls' schools was established in the Prussian ministry, and in 1902 the Minister of Public Worship and Education laid down the principle that the education of girls must be in the direction of the general problems now claiming the attention of educated women.) The principles which the government intended to follow were declared to be that "the ideal position of the German woman in the family shall be preserved as far as possible." Those interested in the education of girls, however, protested and demanded the preparation of girls for the universities, the education of women beyond the girls' schools, co-education, training for the higher teaching profession, and the better organisation of girls' schools as part of the general scheme of secondary education. The system was definitely organised in 1908 with a ten-year course beginning at the age of six, the first three years being preparatory. This course, taking the girls up to the age of sixteen, is the higher girls' school proper, now known as the Lyzeum. Beyond this is the Oberlyzeum, consisting of two courses-the Frauenschule, giving a two-year course of a general character, including household arts, kindergarten teaching, civics and economics, needlework, languages, music, and art; and the other course of four years in the training college for women teachers for elementary schools and the lower classes in girls' secondary schools (Höheres Lehrerinnenseminar). At the age of thirteen girls who desire a secondary course equivalent to that given to boys may transfer to another division, known as the Studienanstalt, which offers the three courses leading up to the universities, the classical, semi-classical, and modern-scientific. In other words, the common foundation for all girls continues up to the age of thirteen, and the necessity of making a definite choice of a specialised course is postponed up to that age. Since 1913 the teachers in the Studienanstalt must have studied in a university. The accompanying diagram gives a clear presentation of the organisation of a girls' secondary school to-day. ORGANISATION OF PRUSSIAN HIGHER GIRLS' SCHOOLS It will at once be recognised that the girls' secondary school has several advantages over the boys' schools. In the first place the schools are cosmopolitan, that is, they provide a multiplicity of courses in the same school and offer a wider choice than is possible even in the reform schools. Hence the choice and the specialisation can be and is postponed up to the age of thirteen. The general course continues for those who do not intend to proceed to the universities up to sixteen, when an opportunity is offered, with a wide range of electives, to those who desire some preparation to meet the general problems of the home and modern society. The institutions also provide courses for those who intend to enter the teaching profession. Reference was made in an earlier section to the liberal training given to women teachers in elementary schools as contrasted with that provided for men. Specialisation does not begin until after the completion of ten years of secondary studies, including modern languages and sciences, studied in classes with girls who are destined for other careers. The four-year course for teachers is begun and continued in the same building and under teachers who have generally had university training and are free from the narrowing influences of the Prussian elementary schools. Any movement in the direction of liberalising the elementary schools will come very largely from the introduction of women with the type of training given in these institutions until the present system of training men teachers is changed and the boys who look to the teaching profession for their career are given equal educational advantages with the girls. The new system of schools for girls is also interesting from another point of view. In the classical and semi-classical divisions of the Studienanstalt Latin is begun at the age of thirteen and continued for six years; in the classical division Greek is begun at the age of fifteen and continued for four years. Since the girls who enter the Studienanstalt intend to prepare for the Abiturientenexamen they will be expected to reach the same standard as the boys in Latin and Greek in two-thirds of the time. They will, it is true, have had the advantage of some training in modern foreign languages before turning to the classical, but the experiment should yield interesting results. Whatever the conclusions, the whole reorganisation of secondary education for girls is a striking commentary on the inability of the Prussian government to break away from tradition in the education of its boys for leadership, while it shows itself ready to inaugurate a far-reaching reform in the education of those who are politically negligible. IX. VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS In the field of general education the lesson of Germany is the close adaptation of school organisation to the political and social ideals. No less intimate is the adjustment of education to industrial and commercial needs. For this branch of educational activity Germany has incurred tremendous expenditures and has reaped a rich reward in the remarkable expansion of her trade and commerce. Other factors have also contributed to the success, but the importance of the educational adaptation cannot be exaggerated for no other reason than the fact that it has been so consciously employed. (Germany has succeeded in less than forty years in building up an industrial and commercial hierarchy in which each grade is as distinctly defined as are the ranks and grades in the army. For the rank and file of her workers she has developed a system of continuation schools, for the subordinate officials the lower trade and commercial schools, for managers the middle technical and commercial schools, and for her leaders technical and commercial high schools of university grade. In every class science has been employed as the handmaid of industry. The German organisation is possible not merely because of the faith in education, but also because systematising and classification are part of the general order of things. Training and specialisation secure not only skill but contentment with the existing regime, especially if these are supplemented by government measures for the welfare of the workers and protection for the employer. Drilled in habits of political obedience in the schools and in habits of precision, discipline, and respect in the army, the great body of workers receives its final training in industrial skill in the system of continuation and trade schools.) The chief stimulus in the promotion of the type of education under discussion has, however, been the government in each state. In 1884 Bismarck placed the control of industrial and commercial education in the hands of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. This practice is not uniform throughout the empire. In Württemberg such education is under the supervision of both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Public Worship and Education, assisted by a Central Commission for Commerce and Industry, which is presided over by a representative of the Ministry of the Interior and is responsible to the Ministry of Public Worship and Education. The commission |