The differentiation between the types was the result of a natural educational development corresponding to the economic changes that transformed Prussia from an agricultural to an industrial state. The Classical schools long retained their social prestige and a definite educational advantage in that only their pupils were admissible to the universities. From the foundation of the German Empire in 1871, the history of secondary education was largely concerned with a struggle for a wider recognition of the work of the newer schools. The movement received a considerable impetus by the action of Emperor William II, who summoned a school conference in 1890 at which he set the keynote: “It is our duty to educate young men to become young Germans and not young Greeks or Romans.” New schedules were framed in which the hours devoted to Latin were considerably reduced, and no pupil could obtain a leaving certificate without a satisfactory mark in the mother tongue. The reform lasted only a single school generation. In 1900 equality of privileges was granted to three types of schools, subject to the following reservations: the theological faculties continued to admit only students from Classical schools, and the pupils of the Oberrealschule were excluded by their lack of Latin from the medical faculties. But insofar as Latin was required for other studies, such as law or history, it could be acquired at the university itself. Girls’ schools
In Prussia, as elsewhere, the higher education of girls lagged far behind that of boys and received little attention from the state or municipality, except insofar as the services of women teachers were needed in the elementary schools. Thus it came about that in Prussia secondary schools for girls were dealt with administratively as part of the elementary school system. After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, a conference of directors and teachers of these schools was held at Weimar and put forth a reasoned plea for better organization and improved status. The advocates of reform, however, were not at unity in their aims. Some wished to lay stress on ethical, literary, and aesthetic training; others stressed intellectual development and claimed an equal share in all the culture of the age. Even the women teachers fought an unequal battle, for all the school heads and a large part of the staff were men, usually academically trained. The women continually demanded a larger share of the work, and this was secured by the establishment of a new higher examination for women teachers. University study, though not prescribed, was in fact essential, and yet women had not the right of access to the university in Germany. They were allowed to take the leaving examination, for which private institutions prepared them, but their admission to the university rested with the professor. Not until the 20th century were desired changes achieved. The new German universities
Unquestionably one of the greatest worldwide influences exercised by German education in the 19th century was through its universities, to which students came from all over the world and from which every land drew ideas for the reformation of higher education. To understand this, one must be aware of the state of higher education in most countries in the 19th century. Although the century witnessed a steady expansion of scientific knowledge, the curriculum of the established universities went virtually untouched. Higher education followed a single dimension. This was the century of the scientists Michael Faraday, Hermann von Helmholtz, James Prescott Joule, Charles Darwin, Joseph Lister, Wilhelm Wundt, Louis Pasteur, and Robert Koch. Yet, until the end of the century, most of the significant research was done outside the walls of higher educational institutions. In Great Britain, for instance, it was the Royal Society and other such societies that fostered advanced studies and encouraged research. The basic curriculum of colleges and universities remained nontechnical and nonprofessional. The English cardinal John Henry Newman, lecturing in Dublin on The Idea of a University in 1852, stated that the task of the university was broadly to prepare young men “to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility.” The university ought not to attempt professional and technical education.
While Newman’s words epitomized the views held in most of Europe and America, some of the new universities in Germany were moving toward the expansion of the educational enterprise. In 1807 Fichte had drawn up a plan for the new University of Berlin, which Humboldt two years later was able to realize in its founding. The school was dedicated to the scientific approach to knowledge, to the combination of research and teaching, and to the proliferation of academic pursuits; and its ideal was adopted in the founding or reconstitution of other universities—Breslau (1811), Bonn (1818), Munich (1826). By the third quarter of the 19th century, the influence of German Lernfreiheit (freedom of the student to choose his own program) and Lehrfreiheit (freedom of the professor to develop the subject and to engage in research) was felt throughout the academic world. The unity of the universities, for better or worse, was more and more dissolved by the fragmentation of subjects into different branches. Some critics would eventually condemn what they considered to be the excesses of the free elective system and the extreme departmentalization of research and curricula. Much of the debate, however, would centre on the general education of undergraduates. In the meantime, the conviction, fathered in Germany, that research is a responsibility of universities was to inspire the founders of universities in the United States in the late 19th century. France
In France the Jesuit schools and the schools of other teaching orders created at the time of the Renaissance had reconciled the teaching of the new humanism with the established doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and flourished with special brilliance. But, despite the changes brought about by the Renaissance and the attention given to the sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was not until the advent of the French Revolution that the universal right to education was proclaimed (1791).
That principle was compromised when Napoleon came to power, however. Although he maintained that the matter of education was an important issue and thought that a common culture with common ideals was essential to nation-building, he felt that, from a political standpoint, the bourgeoisie and upper classes were most important. His national education system therefore served children of those classes. This led to reorganization of the structure of secondary and higher education in a unified state system, with secondary schools maintained by the communes, and with state lycées, universities, and special institutions of higher education. Within this structure the rector of a university headed a teaching body, recruited by the state and supervised by an inspectorate, ranging through various grades up to the university council. Grades of proficiency in studies—from simple certificates to the degrees of baccalauréat, licence, and doctorate—were awarded on the result of examinations, and these tests were made a necessary condition of entry into such professions as medicine, law, and teaching. This structure, despite many modifications, has survived until modern times. Development of state education
French educational history in the 19th century is essentially the story of the struggle for the freedom of education, of the introduction at the secondary level of the modern and scientific branches of learning, and, under the Third Republic, of the establishment of primary education—at once secular and compulsory—between the ages of 6 and 12. There were also a middle education between the ages of 13 and 16 and, finally, a professional and technical education.