Prussia, now part of Germany, is the birthplace of modern education in the eighteenth century. The impulse was there in the early modern era and can be traced back to Martin Luther. Luther wanted to use compulsory public education to mass indoctrinate the youth with his novel theology. He believed this could be achieved by using the levers of secular powers. He wrote:
“I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school… If the government can compel citizens as are fit for military service to bear spears and rifles… and perform other martial duties in times of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case, we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men.”
Luther did not live to see his ideas being implemented. It wasn’t until 1717 that Frederick William I of Prussia introduced an eight-year compulsory public education. However, it was in the nineteenth century that modern public education flourished. In 1806, Prussia was defeated by Napoleon. The same year, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the father of modern education, in his “Addresses to the German Nation,” advocated for a national system of education aimed at fostering a sense of national identity and moral character among citizens. From Luther to Fichte, modern education has evolved from a tool of soul craft to a tool of statecraft. Fichte was not interested in training the God-given free will of humans as much as to control it. Two quotes illustrate his view.
“The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way, that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.”
“Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are left schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as the schoolmasters would have wished … When this technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of Education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.”
Soon, the Prussian model of education went global. In France, the Prussian model was adopted by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle and the 1833 Guizot Law, while in Britain, the Education Act of 1870 created a framework for compulsory education, followed by the Education Act of 1880, which made attendance compulsory.
Across the Atlantic, the United States also jumped on the bandwagon. In 1836, Horace Mann, known as the Father of American education, became the first secretary of the American Board of Education. Mann traveled to Prussia to see for himself the new model of education. He was impressed and, upon his return, resolute to adopt what he had witnessed. Horace Mann also adopted Fichte’s statism, famously stating, “The state is the father of children.” In 1846, Massachusetts became the first state to adopt compulsory public education. Soon, other states followed.
Germany kept its lead in education, being the first to introduce innovations such as PhD programs. Germany was the place where many traveled to receive their PhD. These newly minted graduates, in turn, spread the German model far and wide. The dominance of Germany in education persisted until World War II, when many intellectuals immigrated to America and Russia. This is most evident in Nobel Prizes; before World War II, Germany won most prizes, and America took the lead after the war.
The rapid adaptation of modern education in the nineteenth century was only possible with the sweeping changes ushered by the Industrial Revolution. Work left the rural and domestic realm and moved to the factory facilities in urban centers. Families were no longer working as a team, and the household ceased to be a functioning unit of economic production. Working conditions were Dickensian. Movements that advocated workers’ rights strategically rallied for restricting child labor as a pragmatic tactic of making headways for broader labor reforms. In 1842, the British Parliament passed the Mines and Collieries Act, also known as the Coal Mines Regulation Act, banning boys under the age of ten from working underground. (The Act also prohibited women of any age from working underground.) The confluence of these events led to the presence of children with free time like never before, who were then inducted into compulsory public schools. John Dewey, a man who greatly influenced the development of American education, noted at the time, “That this revolution should not affect education in some other than a formal and superficial fashion is inconceivable” (John Dewey, School and Society.)
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the initial enthusiasm for modern education was dying off, and concerns were being raised. The rigidness of early public education, with its focus on discipline and conformity, was seen as an erasure of individuality. Broadly speaking, two reform camps emerged, each best epitomized by two women – Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori. (Some didn’t fit neatly in either camp of reformers but were more of revolutionaries, such as Paulo Freire with his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968.)
We will discuss the reform movements of the twentieth century in future posts. However, one can easily get lost in the multitude of names and dates unavoidable in a history discussion. Though the characters might change, the core issues endure. We can gain insight into these core issues of education by overviewing various philosophies of education, a topic to which we dedicate our next post.